June 14, 2010

The Citizens Climate Corps held a School Composting Seminar on June 14, 2010, from 6:45pm-8:45pm at the Wilkins Community Center.
At this seminar, 18 people from 9 different school, synagogues and institutions learned:

• How to work with their school district or institution to begin a composting program;
• Why composting is great for the environment;
• Various methods of composting, including information about our region’s only professional food waste composter and on site worm composting;
• How the CCC helped Quaker Valley School District initiate their composting program.

Background:In the Winter of 2009, members of the Composting Team at the Citizens Climate Corps approached Quaker Valley School District about the possibility of starting a composting program in the school district.

Readthe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about how the CCC helped Quaker Valley get started.

Composting Fact: Every ton of food waste diverted from the landfill, saves 6 tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent) emissions, mostly through the avoidance of methane formation. The US sent 25 million tons of food waste to landfills in 2005. Composting this mass would be the equivalent of removing 7.8 million passenger cars from the road.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The CCC held our launch event in Botany Hall at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh.
The event was successful because 25 enthusiastic individuals participated in brainstorming activities and action idea formation. Participants then voted on their favorite action ideas. The top three ideas drove the creation of our first three actions.

Our teams will be working on these actions over the next few months. If you would like to get involved with one of these teams, please contact us and we'll connect you to the team leader. Email us at moc.liamg|sprocetamilcsneztic#moc.liamg|sprocetamilcsneztic.

The CCC's first action teams:

School composting program - This team will be approaching a school in western Pennsylvania to start a composting program for yard and food waste.
Tire pressure checks - This team will be setting up tire pressure checks. The appropriate tire pressure can significantly increase miles per gallon efficiency and therefore decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
Energy-Free Day - This team will be working with a university to create energy-free days on campus where energy use will be intentionally reduced on certain days.

Here are some photos from the launch event:

Sharon introduces the CCC at our launch meeting.	A citizen team brainstorms about ways to reduce CO2!
More discussion about how to reduce CO2.	Voting on our favorite projects.
Discussing the voting results!