EcoEKY: Green News from Eastern Kentucky

from the Ashland Daily Independent:

Trees by the sack

Wurtland students prepare seedlings for ‘Project Earth’

By MIKE JAMES
The Independent

Published: April 24, 2008 10:43 pm

WURTLAND — A white pine seedling isn’t much to look at, being only a few inches long with scraggly brown roots.

But they grow fast enough that in a few years they’re head-high. Executives from the duPont plant in Wurtland came to Wurtland Middle School on Thursday with enough of the seedlings for all 330 students, plus their teachers, and a few more for an outdoor classroom the students plan to construct.

“We hope they’ll take them home and plant them. We’re trying to be a good neighbor,” said plant manager Tim Albert. “These kids are the future. Some of them are the folks that will work at the plant in a decade or so.”

Dupont purchased the trees from the Kentucky Division of Forestry and donated them to the school. The seedlings come in bags the size of feed sacks, 100 to the bag.

Students helped teachers separate the seedlings and carefully wrap the roots in wet paper towels.

“This is a good way to learn how to put a diaper on a baby,” said Skyler Nichols, a sixth-grader.

He is looking forward to taking a tree home to plant, because he still has the one he received in a similar giveaway when he was in second grade. That tree now is between eight and 10 feet tall.

“I like this idea because it helps put out more oxygen,” Skyler said. “Since people cut down all kinds of trees, this is a good way to replant them so they don’t all disappear.”

Some of the trees will end up in the outdoor classroom, which is the brainchild of Wurtland’s seventh- and eighth-grade community problem solving team, said team adviser Lori Newman. Dubbed “Project Earth,” the classroom was conceived as a tool to raise awareness of environmentally friendly practices, she said.

It will include habitats for butterflies and bluebirds, planting beds for vegetables or botanical projects, an erosion station to demonstrate the effect of water dripping on limestone, and lots of flowers, shrubs and trees.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.

from the Ashland Daily Independent:

Approval for Boyd recycling program could come in July

By CARRIE KIRSCHNER - The Independent

Published: April 03, 2008 11:33 pm

ASHLAND — The launching of a countywide recycling program is in waiting mode while state environmental officials review a grant needed to launch the program.

Marion Russell, Ashland’s acting director of public services, said a joint committee of Ashland and Boyd County officials submitted the application earlier this month. Approval could come as early as July.

Russell said the grant seeks more than a half million dollars to be used to purchase equipment to run the proposed recycling program. Funds are also being requested for an extensive public education campaign, he added.

Ashland began recycling last September using prior grant funds from Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet to purchased 20 single-stream containers to collect recyclable items. The containers, paid in part with city funds, are now in place at four different locations throughout Ashland. As of the end of February, more than 88 tons of recyclable material had been collected in the containers, Russell said.

Ashland contracts with Rumpke Consolidated Companies to empty the bins on a weekly basis. The company handles the material at its facility in Hanging Rock, Ohio.

All that will change if the grant proposal is successful. The joint recycling committee envisions a self-supporting recycling program that could eventually turn a profit — the city now pays Rumpke a fee to empty the bins.

Materials would initially still be collected in containers at drop off sites throughout Boyd County and neighboring areas, but the materials would be sorted and baled at a jointly-owned facility proposed at the old county garage and then sold.

The committee plans to use inmates from the Boyd County Detention Center to perform the labor, although at least one full-time supervisor will need to be hired, according to the committee.

If successful, committee members say they would eventually like to see the program expanded to include curbside pick-up.

Ashland Commissioner and committee member Cheryl Spriggs said the plan has been well received both by residents and potential buyers. She said vendors interested in purchasing the material have already begun calling.

The committee has been working on the proposal since last fall, touring facilities in other Kentucky counties including those in Lexington and Maysville. A future trip is planned to visit a newly opened facility in Pikeville.