clean water – Page 17

America Recycles Day

Garbage is a terrible thing to waste!

On America Recycles Day, what commitment can you make to recycle more? I live in a community where my one-sort recycle bin is picked up bi-weekly and compost every week. It is easy!! However, every community has their own rules on recycling and composting. Find recycling information for your community http://earth911.com/

It is a horrible to waste valuable resources by putting recyclables in the landfill where they might sit for hundreds of years(We don’t know how long plastic will last, maybe forever in tiny pieces!)

http://earth911.com/ has a great article on the mistakes we make in recycling. Read it here

Some ideas to help you recycle more:

Bottle caps should stay on bottles.
Magazines and glossy paper can be recycled!
Shredded paper is hard to recycle, it flies around. Compost shredded paper.
Food stained cardboard(pizza boxes) should not be recycled. Again, they can be composted along with paper egg cartons.
Do not put plastic bags in your compost bin. They jam the machines! Bring all plastic bags back to the grocery store for recycling, and reuse them over and over before you recycle them.
Choose glass or aluminum over plastic. Glass and aluminum are easier to recycle.
More ideas
Get into the recycle mindset
Good Luck!

Protecting our Waterways

The leaves are falling, and it is raking season. What does this have to do with water quality?

The substances that turn our lakes and rivers green each summer come from our lawns and yards. We think of leaves as waste, but to a lake they are food. The algae in lakes love leaves, and when we feed lakes too many leaves, algal blooms turn our lakes and rivers green and smelly. Protecting water is everyone’s job What can you do? Simple–remember the land/water connection! What we do to the land we do to the water. Clean your streets when the leaves fall from the trees, and when you mow the grass clean your streets, also. Keep our lakes and rivers clean.

October 2016, Superior Views

October 2016

October has been spectacular on the south shore of Lake Superior. The lake is a deep rich blue and everything on shore is bright gold. The red of the maples has evolved into gold, blending with the yellow birch and aspen. The entire outdoors reflects a pleasant gold hue.

Most of the flowers have turned to seeds, and migrating birds have gone south. All the remaining wildlife is getting ready for winter: Chickadees, nuthatches and flying squirrels empty our bird feeder. Chipmunks and squirrels are eating, digging, and being stalked by a hunting coyote. The adult eagles are paired up and travel as a twosome. The world must look awesome from their favorite pine tree overlooking the big lake, and when they soar above the gold-red landscape.

Pick up One Piece of Trash a Day

This trash could end up in our lakes and oceans breaking into little pieces that last many years.

#TalkingTrashTuesday

The snow has melted, the sun is shining, it is time to pick up litter from the winter. Carry a bag with you to pick up trash. It makes our world look SO much better, and it keeps trash from washing into our lakes, streams and oceans.

Pick up One Piece of Trash a Day https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pick-up-One-Piece-of-Trash-a-Day/267910856667805?fref=nf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-bassett/breaking-the-plastic-addi_b_781569.html

http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/

A landmark new study shows there is 30 times more plastic entering our ocean than previously estimated. http://www.oceanconservancy.org/

Take 3 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=867945456577550&fref=nf Take 3 minutes to pick up trash and what do you find?