Let's Band Together Against Cankerworms!

When the air is crisp and the leaves are turning colors and piling up in my yard, Spring seems so far away. But it’s just the right time to protect our trees from the pesky, springtime pest – the cankerworm.  These little green inchworms fall from the trees in early spring, covering everything – your hair, car, pet and sidewalks - for a few weeks making walking around outside a little less enjoyable.  Not only are cankerworms a nuisance, they also eat the new leaves off trees like the Hungry Caterpillar on steroids.  This makes it harder for the trees to make food for themselves just as they are trying to get their growth-spurt on.  The trees have to expend more energy to make more leaves, leaving the trees vulnerable to attacks from pests, diseases, drought, and other hazards.

One way to control cankerworms is to catch the female moths before they lay their eggs, thus thwarting the hungry caterpillars before they are ever born.  Female cankerworm moths are wingless, so they have to crawl up the tree trunk to lay their eggs. Putting a band around the tree covered with sticky glue will catch these moths, stopping them from laying their eggs in the trees which means fewer caterpillars are born in the spring.  Banding works best when most of the trees in an area are banded, so it’s important that neighbors help each other to band most of the trees in their neighborhoods.

You may have seen some of these bands around trees in town.  For the past few years, a coalition called Trees Across Durham has spread the word through the “Band Together” campaign by providing education workshops, materials, and support for people to band their trees. Tree Across Durham provides kits that you can pick up for free at our offices in the General Services Department at 2011 Fay Street. The kits include fabric for the tree binding layer, tar paper, instructions, and a tag to leave with your band to inform and inspire others! Due to demand we are not able to provide staplers or spreaders this year. Materials for tree bands can also be found at various local stores like Stone Bros & Byrd, Durham Garden Center, and the Scrap Exchange.

Unfortunately, this year there is a shortage of Tanglefoot, the sticky glue that you put on the bands to catch the moths. So band together with your neighbors and friends and share Tanglefoot. If you can’t find Tanglefoot, here are some alternative suggestions:

• Turn Guerrilla Tape or duct tape sticky side out and wrap it around the tree band.
• Vaseline – use sparingly and reapply as needed.  You may want to create a barrier to keep the Vaseline from running down the tree as it gets weathered.

Remember, it’s important to take the tree bands down no later than May 1st to avoid tree rot under the band as the weather gets hotter and more humid.

For more information, including a locally made video on how to band your tree, go to www.TreesAcrossDurham.org and click on “cankerworms”. Please call 919-560-4197 ext 21269 or email info@keepdurhambeautiful.org for more questions or to reserve your kit!

Feeling Gratitude

This time of year we like to reflect on all of the positive changes we have made to communities in Durham. We would not be able to accomplish our many tree plantings, stream and neighborhood clean-ups, garden installations, and more without you!

Whether it has been the gift of funding or the gift of time, we thank you for your generosity. Even more, we want you to know that your effort has made a huge difference. Here are just a few things you accomplished in the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year.

None of this would have been possible without your help! You make these events both extremely rewarding and also impactful. Let's see if we can push these numbers even higher for this coming year!

Thank you, 

The Keep Durham Beautiful Team

How will you celebrate America Recycles Day?

America Recycles day is this Wednesday the 15th! What are you doing to celebrate? Here are a few ideas to get you started. 

Did you know that plastic bags and film CAN be recycled, just not in your curbside bin? You can bring your used grocery bags, Ziplocs, bread bags, case wrap, or any other clean, dry, stretchy plastic film to any participating grocery store with a collection bin. This Wednesday the Duke Coastal Society is hosting a Plastic Bag Collection at Environmental Hall on Duke Campus. They’ll be giving away free reuseable tote bags to everyone who brings at least 10 plastic bags or one bag full of film! Find more information on the Facebook event page. You can also read up on why plastic bags are so devastating for our environment. 

Participating stores like Harris Teeter provide recycling bins for plastic film.

Our own signature event for America Recycles Day is going to be a tour of the Sonoco Recycling Facility this Friday the 17th! This large facility services the City of Raleigh, City of Durham, Orange County, Chatham County, as well as some additional smaller communities and several private haulers. As you can imagine, they receive a lot of trash! Get the skinny on what is and is not accepted by your local recycling program, as well as the reasons why. You might be putting items in your bin that are dangerous for the facility workers, or maybe even not recycling everything you could! Spots for tour will fill up fast, so please register on our website. If you can’t make the tour, consider organizing your own! Just contact Sonoco for more information. 

A mountain of recycling at the Sonoco Recycling Facility.

On Friday evening in Durham Central Park, our friends from The Durham Originals and Don’t Waste Durham are hosting a documentary screening of REUSE! Because You Can't Recycle the Planet. The film follows Reuse Pro Alex Eaves' cross-country adventure to the 48 contiguous U.S. states. On his journey, he finds endless reuse solutions for our waste problem that are not only sustainable, but many of which are easy and fun! And he learns just how reuse truly benefits "people, planet, and wallet." There will be food trucks, a reuse apparel popup shop, and a Q + A with the director himself! We’ll be there too, so come hang out with us! Watch the film trailer here, and find more details on the Facebook event page.

Lastly, get a jump on your sustainable seasonal shopping at the Multiple Choices Holiday Market this Saturday the 18th! Don’t Waste Durham will be present with some clever zero-waste gift options, along with several other amazing vendors. You can also find some other zero-waste gift ideas here.

If you'd like to learn more about recycling, including what more YOU could be recycling at home, check out Keep America Beautiful. Change happens when people like you get involved by organizing recycling events, educating friends and family about the importance of recycling, and being an ambassador for waste reduction. #getrecycled

The 3rd Annual Monarch Festival- A Retrospective

A Monarch Butterfly enjoys some Milkweed at the Festival. Photo by volunteer Caroline Gilmore.

It was finally happening. After months of planning and a few ever-so-short weeks of frenzied preparation, the day of the third annual Durham Monarch Festival had arrived. And conditions were perfect. When I arrived at the crack of dawn to help set up, the cool morning dew was still condensed on the grassy field that would be our base of operations for the next 9 hours. A few volunteers had beaten me to Sandy Creek Park and were quietly munching on donuts, saving energy for the festivities ahead. I stopped for a moment to take in the park, and then walked over to greet our first round of volunteers and begin converting the verdant expanse into a sea of tents.

The Durham Monarch Festival is a celebration of monarchs. Not the royalty of Europe, but that of the insect kingdom: the monarch butterfly. This is a bug worth celebrating. Each year, its species undertakes an extraordinary migration from the southern boundaries of Canada to the heart of Mexico. And it’s a societal journey: each year, four different generations of monarchs hatch and die while travelling. Imagine if you were about to arrive in a place after a roadtrip that had started when your great grandparents were your age! This is truly one of the most amazing migrations on our planet.

This Monarch Festival isn’t just an abstract celebration of this migration, though. The festival’s location, Sandy Creek Park, carried special significance as a certified Monarch waystation. The park is full of plants designed to attract pollinator species, and its location in North Carolina means it’s the point where some of the fourth Monarch generation, the group that makes the flight to Mexico, begin their journey.

Scanning the field that morning, it was difficult to imagine that this beautiful preserve was once a sewer treatment plant. The site was abandoned in 1984 and sat for almost 2 decades before being bought by the city in the early 2000s. Beyond a few amenities structures: a bathroom, pavilion, and paved trail, however, almost the entirety of the work done on the park has been done by nonprofits and volunteers. The park now hosts a butterfly garden, miles of trails, a wildlife viewing area, and much, much more. And behind a lot of this work is one dedicated individual: John Goebel.

It wasn’t long after had arrived that I spotted John walking quickly across the field with a look that spoke to both anxiety and excitement. “Are you ready for the festival?” I asked as he got closer. He responded jokingly, “Ask me again at 4.” Such a response might’ve provoked a stab of fear from me from any other person, but I knew John was prepared. While the city holds the deed, Sandy Creek is really John’s park. Almost every project inside the park was initiated by him, including the Monarch Festival. He works at least 10 hours a week in park upkeep, and it’s John, not the city, that holds on to the key to the park gate. For his efforts to protect the park, John was awarded Durham’s neighbor spotlight award in June.

John and his wife walk through the festival

I saw John later on at the festival, this time grinning ear to ear as he walked hand in hand with his wife across the grassy lawn. He had reason to be jovial: the festival was in full swing now, and what had been an empty field only a few hours ago was now a sea of people. The nonprofit vendors provided fantastic displays where visitors could interact with a multitude of animals- from snakes to birds to, of course, the monarch butterfly. The Mexican and Canadian Consuls gave speeches about the importance of the butterfly and how it represented the unity of the continent. What followed the speeches was the most memorable, and perhaps most important part of the entire festival: a release of recently hatched Monarch butterflies into the wild. As John walked with the butterfly cage towards the main event tent, he was soon thronged by eager children and intrigued adults. At the count of three he had some children pull open the wire door to the cage. Butterflies soon began fluttering out, sometimes in droves and sometimes one at a time, each one followed by the “ooo”s and “aaah”s of the crowd and enthusiastic applause. This is why the Monarch Festival is special. There are plenty of festivals that celebrate fauna, but few can lay claim to contributing to a mass migration as uniquely amazing as that of the Monarch Butterfly.  

Soon after the butterfly release the crowds began to disperse. The vendors took down there tents. The food trucks drove off.  As we packed our Keep Durham Beautiful tent into our white Astro van, I looked out onto the again empty field, now covered in the long shadows of an autumn evening, and knew one thing: I could not wait until next year.

Travel the Recycling Loop with Us: Three Events for the Three Rs!

America Recycles Day, a program of Keep America Beautiful, is a nationally recognized day dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States. Every year on or around November 15, event organizers educate neighbors, friends, and colleagues about the importance of recycling through thousands of events.

Keep Durham Beautiful is participating in America Recycles Day with three separate events throughout October and November, one for each of the three Rs (Reuse, Reduce, Recycle).

Reuse!

On Saturday, October 21st from 8am to 2pm we’re inviting the community to join us at the Durham County Stadium for our second ReUse Rodeo, which provides residents the opportunity to drop off gently used items to be repurposed back into the community. Donating items rather than throwing them away not only helps to divert waste from the landfill, it helps support your local community!

Accepted items include books, clothing, furniture, working electronics, household appliances, cookware, tools, craft supplies, miscellaneous household items, toys, wood, non-perishable food and more. A complete list of accepted items can be found on the ReUse Rodeo event page.  All items donated on-site will be given to participating non-profits, which include TROSA, First Pages, The Scrap Exchange, Recyclique, Durham Rescue Mission and Holt Elementary PTA. Donation receipts will be available for tax purposes.

Keep Durham Beautiful has partnered with the City of Durham Solid Waste Management Department, and the Durham County Division of Solid Waste Management to provide free electronics recycling and paper shredding at the event. Plastic film and bags, which cannot go into curbside recycling containers, may also be recycled at the event.

Reduce!

On Friday, November 3rd, Keep Durham Beautiful has organized a Waste Audit within the Durham General Services Department where we are housed. A waste audit is an analysis of your facility's waste stream. It can identify what types of recyclable materials and waste your facility generates and how much of each category is recovered for recycling or discarded.

As part of the Bull City Workplace Challenge, the “Green Team” of the General Services Department, which includes KDB staff members, has been working to make changes to the amount of waste our facility sends to the landfill. As of this year, our facility not only provides bins for separating recyclables, but compostables as well! Having an audit will help us to further reduce the amount of waste being improperly disposed of in our facility. Stay tuned for the results!

Recycle!

On Friday, November 17th we’ve organized a tour of the Sonoco Recycling Facility on Industry Lane in Durham. We will be inviting members of the public to take the tour with us, so stay tuned to our website and Facebook as these spaces fill up quickly.

Interested in organizing your own America Recycles Day event? It’s easy! Keep American Beautiful has this handy toolkit to help you plan a successful event for your school, office, or neighborhood. When we all pitch in a little, we can make a big difference. Happy Recycling!

Durham Originals Sustainability Tips: Food, Fashion, Awareness

One step at a time, I spiral up the carpeted staircase making my way up to the third floor. I pass by glass windows looking down carpeted hallways as my hand slides up the stair railing. Looking side to side, a paper sign with handwritten directions guides me to a wooden door of Suite 303. As I knock, the wood reverberates and I hear it click open, unveiling the cozy space that is the Orange St. Collective. Its name automatically makes the idea of a space with just energy and ideas coming together bubble up in my mind. As I step inside, I find this to be reality with diagrams drawn on whiteboards, cheery posters about upcoming projects scattered on tables, and an expansive, handcrafted diagram of the feminine economy that spans from the floor to the ceiling on a back wall.

Wearing a beautiful, deep navy dress with stitches of white embroidery is Daria, with her unwaveringly calm but enthusiastic energy. This energy and passion for her work has taken her far as she is the founder of The Durham Originals and a board member for Keep Durham Beautiful. Behind her on a shelf are a few pieces of her work, organic cotton shirts that she has designed. The colors are light, mossy greens, soft creams, and gentle blues with smooth, rounded letters spelling “The Durham Originals” in a loose cursive.

As we move towards a back room to talk, the coziness of the dimly lit sitting space gives way to the eclectic as we take a seat at a worktable made from an upcycled white door. I try to shift myself so that I don’t bump into the faded golden doorknob near my elbow.

 Daria has brought a cutting board and X-Acto knife with her so she can continue her work while we talk. While busy, she loves her work and was inspired to become an entrepreneur after being a bartender and going back to school for graphic design. She united these skills with her desire to take action as she learned more and more about humanity’s effect on the environment.

 “This was at a time when climate change was being able to be talked about more,” she tells me. “And so I started watching all these Netflix documentaries and realizing what is actually happening in the world.”

Prior to this self-education, she felt like most of us do as we move through our daily lives. We use plastic water bottles or partake in “fast fashion” without thinking or even knowing about the consequences of those actions. These unknown facts can be staggering, though. It is not often that we think about how 13.1 million tons of textiles are trashed each year or that nearly half of that said trash is completely reusable. It was through her awareness of these issues that The Durham Originals was born.

“Durham Originals is a way to connect with people and promote sustainable living, a sustainable lifestyle, and to show people there are very easy, simple steps that make a huge difference,” Daria explains to me. “Fashion is one of the most wasteful industries and is overproducing cheap stuff that’s single-use. Having organic cotton benefits everything: who wears it, who makes it, etcetera.”

While it can be overwhelming to think about the sourcing of every piece of your clothing, and sometimes you may not have the option to be selective, there are plenty of other ways that small actions can add up. I asked Daria what people should focus on in their daily lives if they want to make a shift. Her answer boiled down to fashion, food, and single-use plastic.

In regards to fashion, buying secondhand comes before buying new. By stepping into a thrift store and browsing the racks you are saving 7 lbs. of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere for every 1 lb. of cotton reused. Otherwise, invest in brands such as Durham Originals that are committed to sustainable production to feel sound about your clothing choices.

Food is another part of your daily life where small changes add up to make a impact. “If we can reduce the amount of animal products we consume then we can really make moves and change the course of climate change,” Daria explains to me as she slices her X-Acto knife through some cream cardstock. But she understands that even this can sometimes be daunting, “Just trying to reduce is helpful, it’s definitely a process, nobody can change overnight.”

Aside from just the food you eat, how you are eating it is something that being mindful can be helpful. A lot of to-go packaging is “single-use waste that is petroleum based that produces copious amounts of stuff that’s good for five to ten minutes,” she tells me. Instead, try to be mindful about carrying a reusable mug, your own silverware, or a reusable straw. Even just bringing your own reusable mug for coffee on the go instead of using a disposable coffee cup can make a huge difference. One cup doesn’t seem significant at the moment, but think of all the times you’ve gotten coffee on the go. More and more shops are starting to get used to people bringing their reusable options, such as filling reusable mugs for coffee or tea or people asking for no straw with their beverage.

Each of these pillars of The Durham Originals is what attracted her to become involved with Keep Durham Beautiful, as well. “I grew up with them,” she says with a smile, stacking the cut outs she has been working on. “That was back when they were just Keep America Beautiful, though.” She explains to me that working on The Durham Originals just instantly connected her to organizations with similar initiatives, such as Keep Durham Beautiful. Not only has she worked alongside with Keep Durham Beautiful, but is one of our board members continuously helping us brainstorm and accomplish projects.

When I ask her what the most rewarding part of her work with Keep Durham Beautiful has been, she replies with a smile, “Connecting with the community and being part of the community has been one of the most rewarding things.”