GGNY listserve #5

·         See Recycling in Action – Naef Recycling

·         Recycling education in Onondaga County

·         Crafty bulletin Board education

·         The body of the Go Green Initaitive

·         School of the month

·         Free-cycling

·         Green Tip of the month – Recycling Education

·         News from our neighbors: Tompkins County waste assessments

·         Go Green Initiative at the Northeast Recycling Council’s Fall Conference

·         Up coming GGI events

Interested GGI team participants are once again invited to tour Naef Recycling this spring in celebration of Earth day. Mark Naef of Naef Recycling will be offering tours to school groups for FREE. This is a great opportunity to see how recyclables are separated in a dual stream system! Bus funding is available through OCRRA. Please contact Jennifer Spoor if you are interested at greenupny@yahoo.com

The 5 key components of the Go Green Initiative spell “GREEN”. The first “E” stands for Education, which many schools make their main focus. Fortunately, Onondaga County residents have access to extensive educational resources through OCRRA. GGI schools interested in taking advantage of these free resources simply need to ask at their next GREEN team meeting!

OCRRA Recycling Specialists attend these meetings and provide schools with recycling order forms. These forms allow schools to order blue bins, paper recycling bins, bottle recycling bins, posters, recycling instruction brochures, recycling decals, and “oops stickers”. Schools can also request a classroom presentation given by one of OCRRA’s trained recycling specialists – ALL FOR FREE! Take advantage of this awesome opportunity – schedule your GREEN team meeting today! Contact Jennifer Spoor to schedule your team meeting by email: greenupny@yahoo.com For more information on OCRRA and Onondaga County ’s educational recycling programs please visit: www.ocrra.org

Find your creativity and a public place to post it! Many members of the GGI program are using bulletin boards to educate students, staff and faculty – as well as parents and others passing through – about their unique Go Green Initiative programs. Seymour Magnet’s outstanding bulletin board was designed by Karen Hall, head custodian and GGI advisor at Seymour. Karen updates the bulletin board with GGI related news and pictures, based on the spectacular program she has helped to build at Seymour. At Lincoln Middle School Maureen Cooper and her classroom designed a colorful ode to the Go Green Initiative program on a bulletin board outside of the room. This is a great way to use showcase your schools GGI program and beautify your hallways! Other free educational ideas include: making GGI related PA announcements, hanging posters, tabling at an open house, hosting a special event to kick off the Go Green Initiative at your school etc. Be creative and brainstorm with your GREEN team and don’t forget to share your meeting minutes. Email meeting minutes/ pictures / ideas / suggestions to Jennifer Spoor at greenupny@yahoo.com.

Go Green Initiative GREEN team meetings need to be held on a monthly basis and updates need to be submitted at least after every meeting. Schools who have not already scheduled a GREEN team meeting are behind! Please contact Jennifer Spoor to schedule a meeting ASAP. With the website development right around the corner – don’t be left behind! Get your ideas out for maximum exposure! Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of this awesome and powerful environmental education movement! Schedule your meeting today!

Solace’s Stellar Program

Solace Elementary's Go Green Initiative advisor/teacher Carolyn Messina Yauchzy and the Solace "Green Team" knew it was Recycling Education Month weeks before it was declared. With less than 5 weeks of class time, Solace has amazingly ALREADY developed a spectacular educational program which perfectly corresponds with the teachings of the GGI program. Lessons include regular tending of an active and healthy vermicompost bin in the fourth grade classroom. The bin is available to loan to other classrooms who are thinking about vermicomposting, as well. Fourth graders will be working on a simple presentation so they can teach school-mates the whys and whats of their worm farm. Thanks to the red wigglers and
Carolyn's eager enthusiasm, the outdoor compost heap is growing ever bigger. Each spring rich finished compost is added to various on-campus garden plots, showing the students how the cycle is completed. Math lessons are offered in conjunction with the regular weighing of Solace's paper headed for recycling. (They are now moving on to recycle more of other materials, and hope to be weighing those, as well.) Carolyn has also designed a lesson to encourage waste reduction, during which students follow a pictorial piece of trash from a receptacle to the curb to the landfill. Carolyn and her colleagues at Solace have taught their students not to waste - by explaining to them the harmful ecosystem side effects of not recycling and reusing. Environmentally related 5 minute mini-lessons are offered twice a month at Solace's all-school Morning Gathering, to educate the campus community about the GGI and to share and network ideas. Solace is truly a spectacular school! For moreinformation on the GGI program at Solace please email Carolyn Messina Yauchzy at: mountainsong129@msn.com.

Check out the new internet recycling site, for freecycling. Freecycling is an internet network designed to prevent unwanted items from ending up in a landfill by connecting these items to people who want them. All items are free, safe, legal and age appropriate. Hook into the local Onondaga County chapter! Visit

This months GREEN tip is to investigate what is really recyclable, and what isn’t. Common misconceptions in the school go a lot farther than the classroom – students learn by example and take these recycling malpractices home with them. The very premise of “learning by example” is what makes the GGI program so successful. We need to make sure that we are setting a good example for our students and the benefits will show!

Don’t forget – styrofoam is not recyclable (however it is advised that lunch trays are stacked for disposal purposes) And milk cartons ARE recyclable (if milk is emptied out and plastic straws are removed) Post OCRRA recycling information pamphlets in your classroom and review the items with your students in creative ways. You WILL notice a difference.

To request OCRRA recycling information pamphlets please visit www.ocrra.org or email Jennifer Spoor.

Tompkins County Solid Waste offers free waste assessments to organizations within the county, including

schools. These assessments consist of a site visit in which the assessors look at current waste generation

practices followed by a written report of recommendations. Each customized report includes tips about waste

reduction, reuse, recycling, and green purchasing in addition to step-by-step guidelines for creating an

official waste reduction program. All recommendations in the report are optional. With the beginning of a

new school year, Solid Waste will continue contact with the schools, providing support as needed. For more

information, please contact Kat McCarthy at rebusiness@tompkins-co.org.

The fast-growing economic and environmental potential for organics, and expansion of recycling programs at schools and colleges are the engaging topics of Northeast Recycling Council’s Fall Conference October 24-25, 2006 at the Hotel Northampton in Massachusetts. Session will include presentations on the Go Green Initiative by Jennifer Spoor of Naef Recycling; Rhode Island’s Recycling Report Card Method - Chris Ratcliffe, Triple M Production and Proven Methods for Institutional Recycling by Roger Gazowski of Hampshire College and the Five Colleges. Details about the agenda can be found at http://www.nerc.org/meetings/0610Agenda.html. Conference Organizer Mary Ann Remolador can be reached at 802-254-3636 or by e-mail: MaryAnn@nerc.org.

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