Join HeatSmart CNY for their first-ever Video Premiere and Watch Party! Find out how congregations can reduce their contribution to climate change by decarbonizing their heating system, at the same time cutting operating costs and creating more comfortable spaces for their community to use. This is a live premiere which will allow everyone to watch together, while HeatSmart CNY will host a live chat and answer any questions viewers may have. Register here: https://youtu.be/LHVKLOwe9u0
Join as we watch two representatives of the Poplar Ridge Friends Meeting in upstate New York, as they detail their congregation’s journey from fossil fuels to cleaner, efficient heating and cooling. The advantages of installing cold climate air source heat pumps for their meeting house will be discussed, including their efficiency, affordability, and wi-fi control capabilities. Learn about the heating and cooling process, and listen to how the congregation and community’s ability to utilize building spaces has increased due to year-round comfort, and how this long-term investment will ensure this space is warm and welcoming while helping preserve our planet for generations to come.
Rosamond Gifford Zoo Earth Day Celebration
From April 22nd to April 25th the Rosamond Gifford Zoo is hosting numerous events in celebration of Earth Day.
Day one kicks off on Thursday, April 22nd from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. where they will be having a zoo cleanup paired with a bottles and cans drive. During this activity, anyone can sign up to help clean up the zoo by helping with weeding, raking, mulching, and trash pick up. It is a great activity to do with family or friends that will really benefit the zoo. If you don’t have time to help with the clean up, the zoo will be accepting bottles and cans as well. The proceeds from recycling these bottles and cans will go towards benefiting the animals in the zoo.
On Friday, April 23rd the zoo will be hosting multiple virtual conservation classes where you can meet endangered species and learn about how the people care for them at the zoo. There will also be zoo educators who will teach you how to help the planet and wildlife with your everyday activities. The class schedule can be found here.
Saturday, April 24th will be the largest event of the celebration. This event, known as “Party for the Planet,” is an annual event that highlights local conservation efforts happening in Central New York. Organizations such as GreeningUSA, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and our own Climate Change Action and Awareness will be there. On top of this there will be free animal demonstrations featuring endangered species with a zoo membership or admission.
To finish off the four day celebration is an event focused on World Penguin Day. On Sunday, April 25th the penguin team at the Penguin Coast exhibit will teach all about the Humboldt penguins. You can learn about the threats they face in the wild and what you can do to help the species. There will be outdoor tables set up with games to teach about sustainable fishing, the diet of the Humboldt penguin, and much more. There will also be a raffle for penguin paintings and other items. Proceeds go towards penguin conservation in the wild.
This celebration is an annual event that is organized by a partnership between GreeningUSA and the Rosamond Gifford Zoo. The zoo is a member of the American Zoo Association and the Party for the Planet is a national Earth Day celebration at many member zoos across the country. GreeningUSA was invited to exhibit at this event many years ago, and starting 5-6 years ago began helping the Rosamond Gifford Zoo organize the event.
The Truth About Recycling
With Earth Day on the horizon it is natural to look for ways we can help reduce our carbon footprint on the planet, and one of the most popular methods for this is recycling. But how much does recycling actually help? The truth is, not as much as we’ve been led to believe. Sadly, only about 9% of our world’s plastic is actually recycled. The majority of our recycled plastics end up in the landfill just like any other trash we throw out. But why is this the case? Is this because people are incorrectly recycling? The answer is yes and no.
The biggest factor involved in plastic waste overflowing into our landfills and our environments is the large companies and manufacturers producing too much plastic to begin with. As of 2020, the Global Plastic Market was valued at 579.7 billion USD and is projected to have an annual growth rate of 3.4% from 2021-2028. This is largely due to an increase in demand for plastics within the construction industry as plastics can be used for a variety of building components such as insulation, pipes, cables, flooring, windows, etc. Plastics have 85% less specific gravity than metals, allowing for potential 80% weight savings and 30-50% cost savings for individual components. Plastics are not all produced with recycling in mind, so the reality is that the big companies are the ones who need to solve this problem by decreasing their plastic production. It has often been marketed that it is up to the people to recycle properly, and that it’s our fault the plastic waste problem has gotten so bad. But the reality is there is a reason that “reduce” comes first in the slogan, “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Reduction of our own usage of plastic is a good way to help with this, but it’s not realistic to assume that everyone will be able to completely avoid using plastic for the rest of their lives. The best way to solve our plastic waste problems is if the big corporations and companies stop producing plastics to begin with. So if the solution to plastic waste is largely up to big companies changing their ways and reducing their plastic production, and we can’t effectively avoid using all plastics ourselves, is there anything we can do individually on a daily basis to help? The answer is recycling, as long as we make sure to do it right!
Nowadays, a majority of people are not aware of the proper way to recycle. When recycling first became popular in the United States in the 70’s and 80’s a multi-stream system was used. This means that different types of recyclables were separated in different containers and sent to different places. People understood this system and made sure everything was properly separated and cleaned before sending them off to be recycled. However, in the early 2000’s China’s manufacturing market began to rapidly grow and they wanted to collect as much raw material as possible. To do this they turned to recyclables. But China’s environmental regulations were lacking, and they began collecting as much of the world’s recyclables as they could in any method available. This led to an overall shift in the global recycling scene to a single-stream system to maximize output and efficiency. This means that instead of requiring people to separate different types of recyclable materials and ensure they were properly cleaned before taking them, China allowed people to throw any and all materials into the same bin and ship them overseas. Much of this uncleaned and unsorted material had to be thrown out as it wasn’t usable anymore, causing a build up of plastics in the environment. In 2018 China began focusing more on reducing their pollution, and started refusing to take any recyclables that contained more than a .5% contamination level. This means both food contamination or material contamination, being unrecyclable materials being mixed in. This was a major problem as the average level of contamination for United States recyclables is 25%.
Since China had been taking all our recyclables for the past 20 years, there was no longer a large enough business in the United States to compensate and take all of the new recycling product that was being produced by its population. Since the business is so small these days, there is not much room for error when it comes to what can be recycled and what can’t. After years of placing everything in one bin and shipping it away, many people are unaware of what goes where and how to separate things properly. So how do we relearn this?
There are some simple tips to remember when learning how to recycle properly:
The biggest thing to do when recycling is to make sure you know what your local recycling rules are. Each city often has its own policies regarding recycling and will often accept/reject different materials than a neighboring city. Make sure to look into what your city’s policies are before putting anything in your blue bins.
The next big misconception is the recycling of plastic bags. Plastic bags often get tangled in the recycling machines and can’t be put through them. Some recycling plants have rules that prevent workers from being able to open any bag that comes through, so even if there is a plastic bag filled with empty water bottles it will still be considered trash and be put in a landfill. Although grocery bags are the common thought when thinking of plastic bags, sandwich bags, bubble wrap, and any flimsy plastic material constitutes a plastic bag.
It is important when recycling not to recycle anything smaller than a credit card. This includes plastic straws, bottle caps, coffee pods, and plastic silverware. These items are too small to be sorted and often jam the machines similar to when plastic bags get tangled up in them.
A huge problem for recycling plants is food contamination. When preparing your recyclables make sure that they are clean, dry, and empty. Food contamination is one of the biggest factors that can render entire loads of recyclables useless and send them straight to the landfill. A good rule of thumb when unsure of how much to clean your recyclables is to clean them enough to where you would be comfortable using them again.
Any item that is made of mixed materials, such as a mixture of plastic and paper, is not recyclable. The only items that can be recycled are items that are made of one material. Anything made of more than one material is not able to be separated and has to go in the trash to not contaminate entire loads.
Plastics are categorized by numbers known as resin codes 1-7, and it’s important to know what number your plastics are. Each number represents a different type of plastic material that the object is made out of. Different places have different rules regarding which types of plastics they recycle, so it is important to know which materials, or codes, your area accepts. But the resin code does not tell the whole story. Shape matters too.
Lastly, one of the most important things to do when recycling is to avoid what is known as “wishcycling”. This is when people optimistically put a plastic that they are unsure of into the bin in hopes that it will be recycled anyway. However, if this plastic is not recyclable it can contaminate the entire load and cause all the plastic it is with to go straight to the landfill. Therefore it is important to only recycle materials that you are confident are able to be recycled. If not it is better to place the item in the trash.
It is important that we begin to take the time to learn and refocus our efforts on properly recycling. That way we can ensure that we reduce the amount of trash that gets sent to our landfills each day. However, it is also important to not rely on recycling to solve all the problems regarding plastics. Plastic pollution is a major problem damaging our environment, and the most impactful step we can take against it is to reduce our overall plastic usage. Recycling is a good way to lessen our carbon footprints when we need to use single-use plastic, but the best thing we can do is to avoid using as much plastic as possible, and petition for the decrease of plastic production by the companies and manufacturers that are contributing the most to the problem.
Donations
To help combat climate change and support the work of CCAA please click here to go to our donations page.
-Peter with his sculpture “Honoring the Onondaga Creek” in the background
Peter is a retired architect and a sculptor. As an architect his interest in the environment was sparked by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright who was famous for integrating the built and natural worlds. The principles of design revealed in nature have much to teach the artist wanting to create great art and thus became Peter’s inspiration.
When his son, Greg, worked as an environmental educator in Japan in the 90s and especially when he created the project, “The Search for Wisdom on How to Have a Sustainable Planet,” hiking the length of Japan, interviewing farmers, foresters, fishermen and others, Peter’s awareness and concern for environmental issues grew.
In 2011 Peter designed a public art piece for the Valley neighborhood in Syracuse and was introduced to the significance of the Onondaga Creek to the Onondaga Indian Nation. In the process he met Oren Lyons, the Onondaga Faithkeeper. Because of Oren’s enthusiasm for Peter’s design symbolizing abundance and “Water is Life,” he encouraged the Onondaga Nation to help pay for a larger version of the sculpture.
In 2014 Peter attended the Climate March in New York City with his kids and grandkids. However, it was in 2015 when he became alarmed when he met a couple at a friend’s party in La Jolla, California. The couple shared about a new organization: “The Climate Mobilization” and emphasized their message: “Our house is on fire and we need to act like it – this is an emergency!”
Spurred by the worry about the world his six grandkids will live in, he returned to New York determined to be a climate activist. He sought out groups in which he could participate and became active in the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. He discovered CCAA at the 2015 filming of the award winning “A Sea Change” at the Palace Theater. The following year Peter volunteered at the CCAA self-guided tour of clean energy installations.
In 2019, he co-created CCAA’s visual display for the state fair and manned the CCAA booth for 14 shifts: http://www.petermichel.com/ClimateCrisis-ImpactsOfAWarmingPlanet.html. In addition he created a handout: 5 Things an Individual Can Do to Help with the Climate Crisis (downloadable from this page). Also in 2019 he attended a “Drawdown Solutions” conference at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. He then wanted to spread awareness about these solutions (drawdown.org) and with two people who had taken Al Gore’s Climate Reality Training set up a speakers committee. Jim D’Aloisio and Hilary McMannis have given their presentations at Syracuse’s Maxwell School and LeMoyne College respectively. Drawdown presentations were put on hold due to the pandemic, though Peter has since joined Rotary and the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group District Leadership team. Currently he is making Drawdown Zoom presentations to Rotary Clubs.
Beside his deep concern for his grandkids and all children, he is both saddened and motivated by the thought that all the magnificent art, architecture and creations of mankind will go for naught if no one is around to appreciate and benefit from them.
ABOUT CCAA
Climate Change Awareness & Action (CCAA) was formed for the purpose of educating others and actively working towards reversing the human caused climate disruption that threatens the earth. We are a local 350.org group, centered in Syracuse, New York.
Our mission is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through individual and community education and action while supporting fair and just public policies and legislation.
UPCOMING EVENTS
CCAA holds its monthly meetings on the second Tuesday of every month. If you’d like to learn more feel free to email cc.awareness.action@gmail.com.
For a comprehensive list of events pertaining to sustainability and climate change, subscribe to the GreeningUSA News Digest at http://www.greeningusa.org/ or to publicize an event you are organizing contact info@GreeningUSA.org.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
If you are interested in working on the issue of climate change, please contact us at cc.awareness.action@gmail.com or call at 315-308-0846. Don’t worry about your skill level. We are all learning. We need people who can:
Post to our Facebook Page
Update our website using WordPress
Help with our newsletter
Organize events
Work on legislative campaigns
Create Mailchimp campaigns
NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE
Editor: Jacob Stewart Publisher: Yvonne Chu Chair: Peter Wirth
From April 22nd to April 25th the 
