Sustainable Raleigh News: Volume 4, Issue 2

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CITY OF RALEIGH OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY

Economic Strength...Environmental Stewardship...Social Equity.

You're Invited! Celebrate Environmental Winners

Join us for the 9th annual City of Raleigh Environmental Awards celebration April 21 at The Glenwood Club. The free and open-to-the public reception begins at 6 p.m. with an awards ceremony to follow. Keynote speaker is Jennifer Zuckerman MacDougall, Healthy Living Senior Program Officer of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation. No need to RSVP.

Environmental Awards are presented in nine categories, including youth, regional efforts and the overall Raleigh Environmental Stewardship Award for outstanding efforts recognizing the interconnected relationship between the environmental, economic, and equitable aspects of human society.
New for the 2016 celebration is a Trashion Design Competition, repurposing materials destined for the landfill into a fashion statement.
Winning high school student video public service announcements on stormwater conservation issues.
Urban agriculture implementation grants awarded to subsidize local food efforts.

Active Work Zone Pedestrian Guide Recognizes Best Practices

The City of Raleigh's new pedestrian guide offers easy-to-understand information about how builders can provide safe and convenient walkways through active work zones.

Using bullet point recommendations and photos of best practices, the 36-page document delivers a concise version of City review and approval processes, and dense federal guidelines—specifically those found in the Americans With Disabilities Act and the voluminous Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

Route Fifty, a digital publication from Atlantic Media's Government Executive Media Group, and Sustainable City Network recently featured the guide and its behind-the-scenes development.

Earth Month is Perfect Time to Talk Trash and Recycling

Raleigh Recycling offers free quarterly tours of the City's recycling contractor's sorting facility; the next one is April 1. Each type of material is sorted by people and machines, baled and shipped to a manufacturer to be made into new products.

Solid Waste Services is hosting “Technology of Trash” at the department’s Wilder’s Grove facility, 630 Beacon Lake Drive April 8, 1 - 4 p.m. The free event, part of the N.C. Science Festival, is open to the public. Participants will be able to track a trash truck as it moves through Raleigh, read an email sent by a garbage can and check out a recycling cart so smart it knows if it has been emptied.

The City of Raleigh spring "shred and recycle" event is April 9, 10 a.m. until noon at the Method Community Park, 514 Method Road.

ELF Test Drive Passes

The City of Raleigh piloted an ELF solar and pedal hybrid vehicle last fall. Billed as the “most efficient vehicle on the planet,” the solo unit can carry up to 350 pounds, achieve more than 30 mph through pedaling with the electric assist, and has a 15+ mile range with no pedaling required. The ELF’s battery can charge in 2.5 hours through a standard electrical outlet or 7 hours using the sun’s power.

The onsite test phase evaluated the feasibility of adding these units to the City’s fleet, exploring real-life work scenarios. The Emergency Management and Special Events office found the ELF to be a useful vehicle for its team to use during events and preparation activities. As a result of the pilot, the City plans to purchase an ELF in 2016.

WELCOME...

to the City of Raleigh Office of Sustainability bimonthly newsletter. We hope you enjoy our news, click the links to learn more, and forward it to others who may be interested. To receive future issues, sign up for Sustainable Raleigh through MyRaleigh Subscriptions.

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Raleigh Union Station Pollinator Garden Grant

Thanks to a visionary team in the City of Raleigh’s Urban Design Center, the repurposed mixed-use, multi-modal transit center in Raleigh’s downtown warehouse district will also offer a stopover for winged creatures searching for a bite to eat.

Last fall the team approached Burt’s Bees, requesting a grant to build the Raleigh Union Station Pollinator Garden. Burt’s Bees thought it was a grand idea, providing $10,000 to turn it into reality, and the City Council accepted the grant in January.

Tennis Center Recycling Balls

100 million flat tennis balls are dumped into landfills every year, and each one takes 450 years to decompose. To combat the waste, the City of Raleigh is piloting a collection program using "ad-in bins" at the Millbrook Exchange Tennis Center, 1905B Spring Forest Road.

Efforts such as Project Green Ball and Tennisballrecycling.com funnel used tennis balls to facilities where they are ground up to be part of new materials. reBounces also provides pre-paid shipping labels, enabling communities and clubs to send in collected balls at no cost.

SUSTAINABILITY FACT

The carbon output of hitting "send" on 65 mails is on par with driving an average-sized car 0.6 of a mile.

The culprits are greenhouse gases produced in running the computer, server and routers but also those emitted when the equipment was manufactured.

It gets worse when you send an email with a large attachment; five such messages are like burning 0.27 pounds of coal. Empty your deleted folder: holding one email for 100 days equals keeping 100 emails for one day.