Tag Archives: #recycle

Green Guide to the Utah Arts Festival

It’s that time of year again! The 2013 Utah Arts Festival kicks off today, Thursday, June 20^th and runs through Sunday, June 24^th.

We love this annual gathering in the heart of Salt Lake City that celebrates art in its many forms – from paintings to pottery, music to performance art, delicious food and drink and much much more!

The Utah Arts Festival places a priority on reducing its impact on the environment, with their eARTh Team spearheading this effort.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Last year the Festival recycled more than 18 tons of plastic and cardboard and 2 tons of glass! When you visit the Festival this weekend, be sure to look for the Waste Wise Stations located throughout the venue and dispose of your waste accordingly.

Getting There

We recommend leaving your car at home, or at the very least carpooling, to this wonderful event. Skip the traffic altogether with our favorite air-friendly options:

Public Transit: Use the Library Station on the TRAX Red Line or the Courthouse Station on the Blue and Green TRAX lines. The 2, 205 and 228 also access Library Square.

Bike: Ride your bike to the Festival and enjoy free bike valet parking and $2 off admission! The bike valet is located on 400 South next to the City-County Building, mid-block between State Street and 200 East. During the 2012 Festival, over 1,566 bikes were parked at the valet lot. That’s a lot of cars that stayed home!

Powering the Festival

This year Rocky Mountain Power and its Blue Sky customers will help “green” the Utah Arts Festival even more by supporting renewable energy equal to the energy used to power the event. Support from Blue Sky customers is making it possible for the Festival to avoid 87,398 pounds of CO2 emissions. That’s like planting 1,027 trees or taking seven cars off the road for a whole year.

Other Green Tidbits

The Festival sends vegetable oil used at their food booths to a local business that converts it into bio-diesel.
Compostable food waste is also captured from food booths, diverting 700 pounds from the landfill last year alone.
Electric plug ins on Washington Square make gas generators a thing of the past.

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Stop by to say “hello!”

SLCgreen will be at the Arts Festival, so keep an eye out for our booth and be sure to stop by. We will have a wide variety of helpful information about all things green in SLC!

The Leonardo UpCycle Project

Our friends at The Leonardo have a very cool project that we just had to share with our readers!

The UpCycle Project takes items destined for the landfill and uses them to fuel innovation and creativity. Residents can drop off their old clutter which will then be up-cycled into a cool Art or Science project. Then stop by The Leo’s Tinkering Garage or the art Lab @ Leo to take part in one of their fun up-cycling activities!

Here’s a sample of items they are able to accept:

Materials can be dropped off any time during regular business hours. More information is available on their website.

Earth Day in SLC

With Earth Day right around the corner (Monday, April 22nd) we wanted to share a few tips and events to help our residents green their lifestyle and commemorate this special day in Salt Lake City!

15 Earth Day Tips that Really Make a Difference

We spotted this excellent article on The Daily Green, and thought we would share their 15 tips to a greener lifestyle. We love how simple their recommendations are, and the fact that each of them can have an impact! Get the full scoop on The Daily Green.

Avoid waste: recycle. Salt Lake City makes it easy to recycle common household waste with curbside mixed recycling and curbside glass.
Give up plastic (and paper) bags. Bring your own reusable grocery bags and save money, energy and natural resources.
Stop buying bottled water. Buy one reusable water bottle and save some serious cash. We recommend aluminum or stainless steel.
Stop receiving unwanted catalogs. We have tips on stopping unwanted junk mail on our website.
Give up conventional detergents. Natural cleaners have less chemicals and work effectively at cooler temperatures.
Give up hot water (at least in the clothes washer). About 90% of the energy used during a wash cycle is to heat the water.
Give up the clothes dryer. Or optimize your dryer loads.
Check for leaks in your toilet. Save water and money with a simple test.
Use recycled toilet paper. It costs about the same as regular toilet paper.
Give up paper towels. Invest in some reusable microfiber towels, which can be easily washed and reused again.
Run a fully loaded dishwasher. Save energy and water when you skip partial loads.
Lower the temp in your fridge. The fridge accounts for 10 to 15 percent of the average home energy bill each month!
Give up 2 degrees. Set your thermostat to 78 degrees or more during the summer months.
Give up dry cleaning. Check the labels when you purchase new clothes.
Stop wasting gas! Be idle free, avoid jack rabbit starts and stops and check your tire pressure.

Earth Week @ The U

The University of Utah is celebrating Earth Week with a variety of events. View the Earth Week schedule.

Get Involved in SLC

Service in the City has created an excellent handout that outlines a variety of events and other opportunities in conjunction with Earth Day 2013. Check it out and get involved! (PDF)

SLC Schools Recycle!

Our friends at the Salt Lake City School District are leading the pack when it comes to school recycling.

Since 2009, Salt Lake City School District has recycled over 3.9 million pounds of paper and cardboard! By recycling that much paper, the district has saved over 30,000 trees, which is equal to over 6,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. To put it in terms that we can all visualize, that is like taking 1,258 cars off the road for one full year.

The district has reduced its landfill waste by over 1.5 million pounds per year through their recycling efforts. As a result, the district has reduced waste stream management expenses by more than 20%, keeping more taxpayer dollars in education and out of the trash. And that is something that we can all agree with.

Help your neighborhood school by recycling your paper!

Did you know? Schools earn money by recycling paper and cardboard. Since 2009, over $38,000 has been paid to schools, providing principals with a little extra discretionary spending money. Community members are encouraged to bring their paper recycling (only) to their neighborhood school GreenFiber container.

This is a great option for residents, especially those that live in multi-family units that do not offer on-site recycling.

Learn more

Learn more about the Salt Lake City School District’s recycling efforts on their new website. Information on their energy and water conservation efforts is forthcoming.

Before “Recycle” Comes…

Reduce and Reuse!

Did you know that over 1,300 tons of garbage is buried in the Salt Lake Valley Landfill every day?

Salt Lake City residents already have access to no less than four waste bins (garbage, mixed recycling, compost/yard waste and glass). Proper use of these bins is crucial to waste diversion, which is a technical term that basically means that the more waste we recycle in one form or another, the less garbage fills up the landfill.

But before recycling comes reduce and reuse. Everyone can reduce waste by incorporating some simple choices in their everyday shopping patterns.

Strategies include:

Reusing items more frequently
Buying items that last longer (skip the disposables)
Not buying items you don’t need (save waste AND money)
Paying attention to excessive packaging on items

We have some great tips on reusable products like water bottles and tote bags, reducing junk mail and environmentally preferable purchasing on our SLCGreen website.

Do you have any questions? Let us know!

We ♥ Compost

Seriously. We do.

The ability to take a large segment of Salt Lake City’s waste, prevent it from filling up our landfill, and then use it to make gardens thrive, is a miraculous thing in our eyes.

Composting is nature’s way of recycling. You can turn fruit, veggies, grass, branches and leaves into dark, crumbly and sweet-smelling soil amendment. It saves you money by lowering your garbage bill (switch to a smaller waste bin and save) and helps you avoid purchasing expensive commercial fertilizers.

Salt Lake City residents have two great options – curbside compost or home composting.

Curbside Compost: Also known as the yard waste program, or the tan can, curbside composting is made easy with a 90 gallon bin picked up weekly. Currently the tan can is “vegan” – meaning it only accepts green waste. The wheels are in motion to expand curbside composting to accept more forms of food waste, so stay tuned! In the meantime, maximize your curbside bin with tea bags and coffee grounds.

Home Compost: Enjoy the spoils of your composting efforts at home! Build your own composting bin and watch your garden thrive. More home composting tips.

With two easy ways to get the job done, we bet you will ♥ compost too!