Green Day highlights renewable energy, technology

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A volunteer helps pull a canoe from the depths during the Traverse Area Paddle Club's Boardman River Clean Sweep on Friday. A group of divers and above-water volunteers removed tires and other debris from the river. Special to the Record-Eagle

July 9, 2011

Organizers make use of compostable plates, cups, forks

BY JAMES RUSSELL jrussell@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Sat Jul 09, 2011, 07:14 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — Windmills, solar panels and electric cars joined inflated beer cans and giant cows on the Open Space for the National Cherry Festival's Green Day.

Kim Elliott, co-director of Friday's event, said the day is designed to showcase the latest in renewable energy trends and technologies.

"It benefits residents by bringing attention to renewable energy options, ways to save money and reduce pollution in northern Michigan," he said.

Chris Dunkel and her team from the nonprofit Great Lakes Energy Service drove a 44-foot trailer from the Lansing area for the day. The trailer is 100-percent powered by solar and wind energy; inside are several exhibits to teach kids about energy, including interactive computer games and a look inside a wind turbine. They can even build their own solar-powered car out of Legos.

Dunkel said the hands-on approach is a great way to reach kids.

"Instead of just preaching to them, they get to feel solar panels and see how electricity works," she said. "Adults are limited in changing their way of thinking. By teaching kids about this from the start, it gets to be second nature."

Festival organizers said they try to make the eight-day event as environmentally friendly as possible. For the second year in a row, all plates, cups and silverware used at food stands are completely compostable. Official vendors at the Open Space can't sell plastic bottles or pop cans, so almost all the waste can be broken down.

Don Wylie, who helps run the festival's waste and recycling efforts, said that makes it easy for people to keep the event green.

"As much as people say they love to recycle, they don't always do it," Wylie said as he supervised one of the many "Green Teams" responsible for emptying the garbage and recycling bins. "Everything's made with corn syrup, so they break down really fast."

The festival produces a lot of trash, and it's Wylie's job to make sure it's cleared away as smoothly as possible. There's a compactor on-site that can hold garbage from 140 full 50-gallon bins. Wylie said they've nearly filled it almost every day this week.

Trash that doesn't make it to the garbage bins remains a problem, and teams of volunteers scour downtown for litter. On Friday, members of the Traverse Area Paddle Club and the group Boardman River Clean Sweep took to the river to pick up trash along the shore.

Club member Steve Somers said they typically fill as many as 10 50-gallon drums in just one day along the river. The group receives a small stipend from the festival for their work, as long as they do it during the festival.

"I just wish we could do this on Sunday," Somers said as he waded through the water beneath Union Street bridge. "We do this now, and it'll all be back in a couple days."