2017: Year in review for Bay Village Green Team

The Bay Village Green Team had a successful 2017. Bay Village Bay Days was a much more environmentally friendly event last year, as the Green Team partnered with Bay Village Kiwanis to reduce landfill waste. Over 1,000 pounds of food was composted during the event, and the 20-yard recycling dumpster was filled to the top with recycling. To put this in perspective, five years ago the event would fill two 30-yard landfill dumpsters; this year one landfill dumpster was used, and it was only 2/3 full.

The Bay Village Green Team also partnered again with BAYarts to reduce waste for their large benefit, Moondance, held annually in September. Moondance strives to be a zero-waste event, with everything composted or recycled. The Green Team provides volunteers for the event to help vendors and guests discard their waste appropriately.

The Green Team also partnered with Bay Village city officials to administer a $5,000 recycling awareness grant from the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District. The funds were spent on a shredding event at the police station, educational mailers to Bay Village residents, and composting and recycling bins for the Dwyer Senior Center.

Last spring, the Bay Village Green Team received a grant from the Bay Village Foundation to purchase an outdoor water bottle refilling station for Cahoon Park. The fountain is three levels, with a water bottle filler, a drinking fountain and a dog fountain, and was installed by the Bay Village Service Department. The goal is to reduce the use of plastic water bottles at Cahoon Park. I urge you to go check it out if you haven’t, it’s pretty cool. The team also purchased a bottle filling station for city hall.

The Bay Village Community Garden is a project of the Green Team, and it had another successful year. The garden is all-organic and has been a very popular activity for residents to grow their own vegetable and flowers during the spring, summer and fall months.

The Cleveland Indians invited the Green Team to provide recycling volunteers during weekend games for the regular and post-season in 2017. Green Team volunteers had a blast doing this, and it has helped the Indians increase the amount of bottles recycled during games and keep them out of the landfill.

There were two waterway cleanups in the creeks in Bay Village last summer which were hosted as a collaboration between the Bay Village Green Team, the Bay High School Project Earth Club and the Bay Village Foundation. The Green Team hosted three additional cleanups over the summer. These cleanups were successful and well-attended by concerned residents. It is extremely important to clean up our waterways, as Lake Erie is one of the most plastic-polluted Great Lakes.

The Bay Village Green Team’s goal is to make Bay Village a model sustainable community to ensure it remains a healthy place for people to live. The next Bay Village Green Team meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 16, 6:30 p.m., at the Bay Village Library. Please join us!

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Volume 10, Issue 1, Posted 9:35 AM, 01.09.2018