Oak Park Earth Fest 2013 April 20

Oak Park’s fourth annual celebration of green living – Earth Fest – is scheduled for 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Sat., April 20, in the LEED Gold-certified Public Works Center, 201 South Blvd. This year’s event will focus on the zero waste movement. Most aspects of the festival, including event banners and food service products used for chefs’ demonstrations, will be reusable or compostable. Organizers will have sorting stations located at the event to help attendees compost and recycle as much waste as possible.

“Green living means being smart about our resources – not just consuming less but also creating less waste. This year's focus on zero waste will help folks learn about reducing waste at home, in the garden, at school and work,” said Maria Onesto Moran, an Earth Fest organizer. “Our vendors range from a restaurant using goat milk produced in Chicago, to composting experts offering free information on backyard composting.”

In addition, Earth Fest plans to partner with Oak Park’s Public Works Department to offer a close-up look at the many services provided to the community. Kids and parents can explore snow plows, heavy-duty trucks and other essential pieces of equipment.

Dozens of Earth Fest vendors will provide plenty of hands-on activities, free samples and information for families. Some of the day’s scheduled highlights include:

• Free composting and organic gardening consultations

• Up close and personal visits with urban goat farmers
• Chef demonstrations from Marion Street Cheese Market and Constructive Chaos
• Details on zero-waste lunch initiatives in Oak Park’s schools
• Car sharing information
• Tips on eco-friendly landscaping
• Important details on raising chickens and keeping honeybees in Oak Park

Back by popular demand, Earth Fest once again will feature Recycle Alley – an on-site opportunity for residents to bring items that aren’t part of the regular blue bin recycling program. Items to be recycled include blue jeans, glasses, hearing aids, prescription medication, CFL light bulbs, cell phones, rechargeable batteries and corks.

For more information on Earth Fest 2013, call 708.660.1443 or e-mail maria@ghexperts.com.

Information also is posted online at www.oak-park.us/earthfest.

[Article information taken from the Village of OP web site:  http://www.oak-park.us/earthfest/]

Green Tuesdays in the Village

Green Tuesdays in the Village is an annual public lecture series on various environmental topics and issues specifically relevant to the Village of Oak Park. Started in 2006, this is the 8th annual event. This year’s theme, Green Days of Future Past, is a timeline account of community and household practices and activities in the Village of Oak Park from the past, present and beyond ... where have we been, where we are now, and where are we headed?

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Click to view/download Green Tuesdays PDF Schedule

Why Buy Fair Trade Coffee?

Black Gold

Co-sponsored by Whole Foods, One Earth Film Festival is hosting a free pre-festival preview of three films focused on fair trade, coffee and waste.  Join us at Whole Foods - River Forest (7245 Lake St, River Forest, IL) on Thursday, February 21, 2013, at 7 p.m. to learn what fair trade is, why it's important and also to sample Whole Trade Guarantee coffee.  RSVP to the store at 708.366.1045. Join the Facebook event to receive updates.  Call 773-315-1109 for more information. During the prescreening event, we'll watch and discuss a clip from Black Gold (Marc Francis; Nick Francis/2006/78 min).  Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.  But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.

Black Gold follows the story of Tadesse Meskela, one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy.  As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.  Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent.  New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.

AWARDS: Winner: Best Achievement in Production, British Independent Film Awards. Winner: Best Documentary, San Francisco Black Film Festival.  Nominee: Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival.

cupofcoffee

We'll also view the 15 minute film, For the Price of a Cup of Coffee (Hypatia Angelique Porter/2007/15 min).  What is the cost of convenience?  For the Price of a Cup of Coffee is a short environmental documentary examining the life cycle of a paper cup and the repercussions of a society reliant on convenience.  Why are less than 1% of coffeeshop patrons bringing their own cup?  Why do we have so much garbage, and where does it go? What is the true cost of a disposable culture?  Shot throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including interviews with local activists, environmental experts and coffeeshop owners. This film is full of information that all consumers should know about the products that we use everyday, and the steps we need to make towards a more sustainable world.

AWARDS:  Festival Favorite, Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival 2008. Best Documentary, Epidemic Student Film Festival 2007.

Finally, we'll explore Fairtrade Africa (Rob Holmes, Founder/Pres. GLP/2012/5 min).

Fairtrade Africa - Short Version from Green Living Project on Vimeo.

Produced by award-winning media company Green Planet Films.

We hope you will join us at Whole Foods - River Forest (7245 Lake St, River Forest, IL) on Thursday, February 21, 2013, at 7 p.m. for this very special One Earth Film Festival preview night!

Working Bikes

Saturday, Mar 2, 3P/Greenline Wheels, Oak Park - Tickets;

Sunday, Mar 3, 3P/Brown Cow, Forest Park - Tickets

2012/5 min

Follows the Chicago organization by the same name that removes discarded bikes from the waste stream and then rehabs the bikes for donation.

Programming note:  will be screened with Contested Streets and Bikes Belong (Saturday).  Will also be shown with The Clean Bin Project (Sunday).

For the Price of a Cup of Coffee

Thursday, Feb 21, 7P/Whole Foods Market, River Forest preview night- RSVP call 708.366.1045

Hypatia Angelique Porter/2007/15 min

What is the cost of convenience?  For the Price of a Cup of Coffee is a short environmental documentary examining the life cycle of a paper cup and the repercussions of a society reliant on convenience.  Why are less than 1% of coffeeshop patrons bringing their own cup?  Why do we have so much garbage, and where does it go? What is the true cost of a disposable culture?

Shot throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including interviews with local activists, environmental experts and coffeeshop owners. This film is full of information that all consumers should know about the products that we use everyday, and the steps we need to make towards a more sustainable world.

AWARDS:  Festival Favorite, Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival 2008. Best Documentary, Epidemic Student Film Festival 2007.

Programming note:  will be screeened with Black Gold and Fair Trade Africa.

The Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary

Saturday, Mar 2, 3P/River Forest Public Library - Tickets

4 min/

This mockumentary is narrated by Academy Award-winner Jeremy Irons and tracks the “migration” of a plastic bag from a grocery store parking lot to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the Pacific Ocean.

Programming note:  will be screened and discussed along with Bag It - is your life too plastic?

 

Bag It - is your life too plastic?

Saturday, Mar 2, 3P/River Forest Public Library - Tickets

74  min/FAMILY

Bag It has been garnering awards at film festivals across the nation. What started as a documentary about plastic bags evolved into a wholesale investigation into plastics and their effect on our waterways, oceans, and even our bodies.  Join the Bag It movement and decide for yourself how plastic your life will be.

Program note:  Bag It will be screened and discussed along with The Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary.

Film program sponsored by Keep Oak Park Beautiful.

The Clean Bin Project

Sunday, Mar 3, 3P/

The Brown Cow, Forest Park

 -

Tickets

76 Min/FAMILY

Is it possible to live completely waste free? In this multi-award winning, festival favourite, partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least garbage.  Their light-hearted competition is set against a darker examination of the problem waste.

 Even as Grant and Jen start to garner interest in their project, they struggle to find meaning in their minuscule influence on the large-scale environmental impacts of our “throw-away society”. Described as An Inconvenient Truth meets Super Size Me, The Clean Bin Project features laugh out loud moments, stop motion animations, and unforgettable imagery. Captivating interviews with renowned artist, Chris Jordan and TED Lecturer Captain Charles Moore, make this film a fun and inspiring call to individual action that speaks to crowds of all ages.

Oak Park Launches a Repair Café

What do you do with a broken toaster? Or a lamp that no longer lights? Or with a sweater that has  holes? Throw it away? Certainly not! The Lifelong Learning Center and local volunteers are organizing the first Repair Café in Oak Park, IL starting in January, 2013.

At the Repair Café, located in the Lifelong Learning Center at the Oak Park Arms, 414 S. Oak Park Avenue, everything centers on making repairs and sharing knowledge. Various volunteer experts will be available: electricians, seamstresses and general handy people to help make all possible repairs free of charge. Tools and materials will also be on hand. People visiting the Repair Café can bring along their broken items from home. Toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, toys, crockery... anything that is broken is welcome. And can more than likely be repaired. The specialists in Repair Café almost always have the know-how.

By promoting repairs, the Lifelong Learning Center wants to help reduce mountains of waste. This is absolutely necessary, according to Nancy Bauer: "We throw away piles of stuff…even things which practically have nothing wrong with them, and which could easily be used again after a simple repair. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten that they can have things repaired. Or they don’t know how to make the fix themselves. The Repair Café wants to change all that."

The Repair Café is also meant to put neighbors in touch with each other in a new way, by showing that a lot of know-how and practical skills can be found close to home. Nancy Bauer: "If you repair a bike, a CD player or a pair of pants together with a previously unfamiliar neighbor, you look at that person in a different light the next time you run into them on the street. Jointly making repairs can lead to pleasant contacts in the neighborhood."

Nancy points out that repairs can save money and resources, and can help minimize CO₂ emissions. “But above all, The Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is.”

We can’t guarantee that you’ll walk out with a workable item, as we may not have the skills or necessary parts on hand.  But we’ll give it our best shot.  To increase the chances of successful repair, please call the Lifelong Learning Center at 708-848-5251 in advance, and leave a message letting us know what kind of item you might be bringing in to be fixed.  We have a group of volunteers ready to assist you, and knowing a bit more in advance about the repair projects means we stand a better chance of having materials and knowledge available to get the job done.  (If you have the item’s Owner’s Manual, please bring that, too).

Repair Café Foundation:  The Repair Café concept arose in Amsterdam, where the Repair Café Foundation (see www.repaircafe.nl) has regularly been organizing gatherings since 2010. Since January 2011, the foundation has provided support to local groups in the Netherlands wishing to start their own Repair Café. The foundation also supports the Repair Café in Oak Park, IL., USA.

Oak Park Brings Curbside Composting to Community

With the goal of decreasing the amount of organic refuse sent to landfills, the Village of Oak Park launched its first ever food scrap curbside composting pilot program in 2012. The pilot program, which ran from April through November, was open to the 1,300 residences located south of the Eisenhower Expressway from Harlem Avenue to East Avenue.  A dramatic example of the potential of the program can be seen at one local elementary school,  Beye School, which began participating in the program this Fall.  Beye has reduced its lunchroom waste to just 3%, meaning it is operating a 97% waste-free lunchroom. And due to its overwhelming success, the Village has decided to expand the CompostABLE pilot program throughout the entire Oak Park community. The expanded pilot will be available to single-family residences, up to and including five-flat households using Village refuse and recycling services. Participants will receive a special mobile cart for organics that will hold the approximate equivalent of three bags/containers of yardwaste that is collected in the current program.

The program will be offered on a voluntary, subscription basis. The subscription cost will be $14 per month, which is about the cost of one yardwaste sticker per week. Subscribers who use the organics cart for their yardwaste and food scraps will not be required to purchase yardwaste stickers.  There are no restrictions on sharing a cart, so residents who maintain backyard compost piles or who mulch grass clippings may wish to investigate sharing organics carts and costs with neighbors.

The MOST IMPORTANT THING to know about this program is that it is not like your standard backyard composting. This program takes and composts: (soiled or clean) paper, (soiled or clean) paper napkins, (soiled or clean) pizza boxes (!!!), (soiled) cardboard. It takes ALL food waste even the darn leftovers that you can't put in the backyard compost pile. It is basically what Berkeley and San Francisco and many European cities have been doing for a long time.

Organics carts will be delivered during the last two weeks in March. Organics pick-ups will begin on your regular collection day starting April 1. Information on how to sign up for the CompostABLE program can be found here.  Make sure to review the document, and return the card located at the bottom  of the page to sign up. Please be sure to include your email address for monthly program updates and event information.

Residents who participate in the project will receive a 96-gallon cart for the weekly collection of organics, an under-sink collection bucket and a box of compostable bags for food scraps. Both yardwaste and food scraps may be placed in the organics cart. However, food scraps must be contained in a bag labeled compostable that meets ASTM 6400 standards.

Need more information on the Village CompostABLE program? Please contact the Village Public Works Department at Works at 708.358.5700 or email publicworks@oak-park.us.