Fearrington Village GREEN SCENE Blog

CDAC Discovery Challenge Awardees Train Data Science on Medicine, Clean Water, and Education

CDAC Discovery Challenge Awardees Train Data Science on Medicine, Clean Water, and Education | CDAC
As data science matures as a field, its power to tackle major challenges across all disciplines and industries rises. However, unlocking novel, powerful innovations and solutions for interdisciplinary challenges that benefit, and don't inadvertently harm stakeholders, is a non-trivial task that often requires matchmaking, stakeholder engagement, and a plan for coordination.

Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview

Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview
The U.S. has sustained 291 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 291 events exceeds $1.900 trillion. 2020 sets the new annual record of 22 events - shattering the previous annual record of 16 events that occurred in 2011 and 2017.

How To Help Clean Jordan Lake & Shoreline

How to Help - Clean Jordan Lake
COVID-19 challenges Clean Jordan Lake to find ways to engage our valuable volunteers in trash cleanup. Individuals or groups up to five who are visiting the shoreline anywhere for recreation are encouraged to bring a trash bag and gloves along. More information...

Clearing Up Confusion About Recycling in Fearrington Village

Originally posted on NEXTDOOR (March 03, 2021) by Shannon Culpepper, Chatham County (NC) Environmental Quality Department's Recycling and Education Specialist.

"I have received a lot of calls and emails in the past month about recycling in Fearrington Village specifically. There seems to be a lot of confusion, so I thought this would be a good way to help clear it up!" Here are her comments:

Chatham County Solid Waste & Recycling operates the 12 Collection Centers around the county, including the Cole Park center. Curbside service in Fearrington is provided mostly by First Choice Disposal. The Collection Centers and First Choice accept all of the same items in our recycling programs:

Aluminum cans
Steel cans
Cardboard boxes: please empty and flatten
Paper: junk mail, magazines, paperboard boxes (cereal, pasta, crackers, etc.), newspaper, office paper, paperback books, paper rolls (toilet paper and paper towels), and paper cartons
Plastic bottle, jugs, and jars: any plastic container that has a neck smaller than the base. For example: soda bottles, water bottles, detergent bottles, mayonnaise jar, etc.
Plastic tubs: tubs have a plastic lid that can be put back on. For example, a multi-serve yogurt container is a tub, but an individual yogurt container is not a tub since it has that aluminum peel top.
Plastic clamshell containers (like for berries, cherry tomatoes, etc.) cannot be recycled. Plastic clamshells are made differently than bottles, jugs, jars, and tubs, so when they go through the recycling process they do not behave the same, making them harder to recycle.

Clamshells are accepted in some recycling programs, but Chatham County Solid Waste & Recycling wants our residents to know that the items you place in the recycling have a really great chance of being recycled (more than 90%). There are strong markets for the items we do accept.

Cat food cans cannot be recycled if they are loose. However, if you put the lid back inside the empty can and squeeze the can a little bit, that will trap the lid inside.

Both recycling programs also accept glass bottles and jars. In your curbside recycling bin, you can include glass bottles and jars in with all the other items listed above. At the Collection Centers you must keep glass bottles and jars separate and place them in the glass recycling bin. I am also aware that First Choice asks people not to include caps and lids. After speaking with them about it recently, they are concerned that the containers will be full of food and liquid if a cap or lid is on. Ensure that your cans, bottles, jugs, jars, and tubs are empty and relatively clean, and then put the caps and lids back on. Corks and caps should not be put back on glass bottles and jars though. If you have loose lids, those should go in the trash. Anything smaller than a standard size post-it is too small to be properly recycled.

Items that should not go into a recycling bin are called contamination.

If there is too much contamination in a load of recycling, then it may get disposed of in the landfill. That is why it is really important for everyone to make sure they are recycling right. If you are not 100% sure the item can go in the recycling bin, then you should hold onto it until you find the answer or throw it in the trash if it cannot wait.

If you have any additional questions about any recycling programs, household hazardous waste, please contact:

Shannon Culpepper

Office Phone (919) 545-7874
shannon.culpepper@chathamcountync.gov

A Conversation About Chicago’s Stewardship of One of the Future’s Most Precious Resources: Water.

February 17, 2021

Click on the Poster to Launch Video.

Join Chicago Studies and guest lecturer Sabina Shaikh, Director of the Program on the Global Environment, for her presentation on The Blue City. This lecture will create a conversation about Chicago’s stewardship of one of the future’s most precious resources: water. This presentation was a part of our Chicago Futures series, a lecture series focused on imagining the future of Chicago through turbulent times.

“The Blue City” explored the latest thinking about water innovation, technology, architecture, and urban design to imagine how our region’s connection to fresh water can attract residents and businesses through water, and retain them through an equitable quality of life.

Panelists:

Sabina Shaikh, University of Chicago
Tony Briscoe, ProPublica
Seth Darling, Argonne National Laboratory
Martin Felsen, UrbanLab, IIT, University of Chicago
Alaina Harkness, Current

Recommended Resources:

A Race Against Time to Rescue a Coral Reef From Climate Change

A Race Against Time to Rescue a Reef From Climate Change
In an unusual experiment, a coral reef in Mexico is now insured against hurricanes. A team of locals known as "the Brigade" rushed to repair the devastated corals, piece by piece. Members of a team calling itself "the Brigade" work to repair hurricane-damaged corals off the coast of Mexico. Credit...

Riskiest Spot for Rising Seas Is 50 Miles from the Ocean

Riskiest Spot for Rising Seas Is 50 Miles from the Ocean
The county most at risk for coastal flooding is not in Florida, North Carolina or New Jersey, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It's not even on a coast. It's Cowlitz County, Wash., population 102,000, about 50 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean on the Columbia River.

Climate Change Bringing Back Long-Lost Forms of Fungal Mycotoxins

Climate change is bringing back long-lost forms of food poisoning
Fungal toxins known as mycotoxins, including some thought lost to history, are claiming new territory as the Earth warms. Karen Jordan, a North Carolina dairy farmer and practicing veterinarian, knew she had trouble the minute her cows' hair began to stand up on end.