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Aerial view of the Chesapeake Beach shoreline at Kiptopeke State Park on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

Kiptopeke State Park Awarded $1,000 Green Grant

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Aerial view of the Chesapeake Beach shoreline at Kiptopeke State Park on the Eastern Shore of VirginiaKiptopeke State Park is awarded a $1,000 Green Grant in the Litter Prevention category as part of Keep Virginia Beautiful’s 13th Annual Green Grants Program.

Every year, government, non-profit, civic, and service organizations in Virginia are invited to apply for grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 that will help address an environmental concern in their community.  Grants must focus on one of the following priorities:   Litter Prevention, Recycling, Cigarette Litter Prevention, or Community Beautification.Wooden walkway leading to the beach at Kiptopeke State Park

Kiptopeke State Park, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, offers recreational access to Chesapeake Bay.  It has accessible trails, beach wheelchairs, free educational programs, and the opportunity to explore unique migratory bird habitats along the Atlantic flyway.

Funds provided by the Green Grant award will be used to purchase cleanup equipment and supplies to combat marine debris along the 5.1 miles of beach coastline at the park, as well as add new signage about litter and marine debris in the Chesapeake Bay. They will be developing an interactive educational display located at the South Beach entrance to demonstrate how long certain litter will last on land and in the bay.

According to the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, “As much as 80% of marine debris comes from land-based sources such as plastic bags and food containers. Abandoned or derelict fishing gear, vessels, and other water-based sources also significantly contribute to the problem.”   Marine debris can include balloons, plastic bags, food and drink containers, lost crab pots, oyster bags and cages, fishing line and nets, and any other kind of persistent solid material that is intentionally or unintentionally, directly or indirectly, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment.

Congratulations Kiptopeke State Park, and thank you for taking care of your portion of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline!

 

 

Cleanup supplies on the Eastern Shore

Eastern Shore Waste Watchers Awarded Green Grant

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Eastern Shore VA Waste Watcher is awarded a $500 Green Grant in the Litter Prevention Category as part of our 13th Annual Green Grants Program.

Cleanup supplies on the Eastern ShoreEvery year, government, non-profit, civic, and service organizations in Virginia are invited to apply for grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 that will help address an environmental concern in their community. Grants must focus on one of the following priorities: Litter Prevention, Recycling, Cigarette Litter Prevention, or Community Beautification.

Eastern Shore VA Waste Watchers is an independent, non-profit volunteer community group that promotes the responsible disposal of waste on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. They focus on Eastern Shore litter and trash pick-up along our highways, shorelines, and other crucial points. They conduct annual litter surveys, organize road and water clean-ups, and sponsor a children’s essay contest. In addition, Eastern Shore VA Waste Watchers supports County agencies such as VDOT and Public Works in their efforts to keep the Shore litter-free.

Funds awarded for Green Grants will be used for their “Help Keep the Shore Litter-Free” program, whose goal is to support a cleaner, healthier Eastern Shore. They will purchase supplies needed for safe litter cleanups, such as safety vests, litter grabbers, gloves, and hand sanitizer.

If you’d like to learn more or volunteer to help, Waste Watchers meets the second Wednesday of every month at 11am in the Public Works building in Accomac. Everyone is welcome.

Thank you Waste Watchers, we appreciate the work you do!

Pepsi Employees Clean Up

Great Virginia Greenup

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Pepsi Employees Clean UpThe 28th annual Great American Cleanup is underway!  If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work in your community, Keep America Beautiful is offering a free litter grabber and cleanup kit!

Here in Virginia, we’re celebrating our Great Virginia Greenup, with events all across the Commonwealth.  Thanks to the Pepsi team that helped us cleanup at Lafayette Park in Norfolk, and to all those who came out to the Diamond in Richmond to help Nutsy get ready for the baseball season!   There are many other cities, towns, and groups cleaning up and greening up this spring.  Check out the Events Calendar on our website to get involved!  Here are just a few:

The City of Roanoke says organizing a neighborhood cleanup is a wonderful opportunity to get to know your neighbors and beautify your neighborhood at the same time!  They offer suggestions here from the Office of Neighborhood Services for planning and implementing a neighborhood cleanup.

RVA Clean Sweep is a citizen group focused on making our city a better looking place through citizen-run trash cleanups throughout the area. They promote their own cleanups as well as cleanups from small and large organizations on their meetup page.  They work with citizens, businesses, local and regional non-profits, city and state government to beautify the city they love!

May is Make Danville Shine month, and they are hoping you will show your love for Danville in a whole new way! The goal of Make Danville Shine is to encourage every resident to focus on maintenance, upkeep and beautification of their property, and to assist neighbors who may not be able to do so due to age or disability. This cleanup campaign is a big step in the City’s blight eradication efforts.

The City of Fairfax holds an annual Spring Cleanup Day in April, in which residents, business owners and workers, city staff, friends, and family members come together to make the City of Fairfax a cleaner and greener place.  In 2022, Spring Cleanup Day will be April 23.  Clean Fairfax Community Cleanup Program offers supplies and other resources that support county-wide cleanups by individuals, groups, schools, churches, and businesses.

Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore of Virginia encourages the adoption of highways by individuals, businesses, churches, civic organizations and other groups.  The meet on the second Wednesday of every month from 5:30-7:30PM at The Sage Diner in Onley, VA.

The City of Suffolk will be removing litter and debris from waterways with their Nansemond River Cleanup and their annual Clean the Bay Day, which is a massive litter removal that benefits the waterways and communities.

Each year the Augusta Regional Landfill holds a Spring Cleanup for one week in April. During that week, fees are waived and special accommodations are made for waste.  This year, on Saturday April 9 – Saturday, April 16, 2022, they will offer disposal of household tires, appliances, and automotive waste.  Check their webpage for details.

Chesapeake Recycles Day Event will be held from 9 am-noon on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at Chesapeake Square Mall. Goodwill, SPSA, Shred-It and TFC Recycling will collect a wide variety of items. In general, accepted items will include electronics, clothing, household items, household hazardous waste, and sensitive documents.

Keep Norfolk Beautiful offers supplies and resources for you to conduct a cleanup on your own.  You can choose the place that needs to be picked up, choose a date and time that works for you, and get your family or group engaged!

The Great Virginia Greenup runs through June 21st, so get out there and get busy greening up your community!

River's Edge

$1,000 Green Grant for Greenworks

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River's EdgeCongratulations to today’s award of our 2021 Green Grants — Greenworks Committee, in Accomack County, who will receive a grant award of $1000 for its Community Beautification project!  We’ll be announcing one each day during the month of June. 

The Greenworks Committee unites Virginians in a common mission to engage in litter reduction efforts on Virginia’s Eastern, and to create a cleaner and greener environment. Greenworks Committee will use their grant funds to restore the native plant garden at the Historic Onancock School. Native Gardens play a key role in preserving diversity, beauty, and function of the Eastern Shore’s natural ecosystems. Native plants are often more resistant to insects and disease and require little to no fertilizer, which results in less runoff. They are also more resistant to salt-water stress and capable of providing critical habitats and food for migratory birds, butterflies, and other pollinators.

Through grant funding, Greenworks committee will be able to restore the Historic Onancock School’s native garden to its healthiest state with additional plants, soil, and supplies.

Every year, government, non-profit, civic and service organizations in Virginia were invited to apply for grants for $500 to $1,000 describing how they plan to tackle an environmental concern in their community regarding Litter Prevention, Recycling, Cigarette Litter Prevention, or Community Beautification.  Since 2011, Keep Virginia Beautiful has provided $254,500 for 320 different environmental programs and projects all across the Commonwealth, due to the generosity of their partnership with Altria, as well as additional support from Coca-Cola, WestRock and Keep America Beautiful.

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Broadwater Academy is Awarded $750 for Litter Prevention Project

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Broadwater Academy is selected to receive a $750 Green Grant for its Litter Prevention project that will incorporate composting at the school.

Broadwater Academy is an independent college preparatory school serving Pre-K to Grade 12 on the Eastern Shore that is developing the next generation of respectful, civic-minded leaders and productive citizens. They are making strides to reduce their overall waste output through recycling, composting, and organizing campus and road clean up days. They will establish a composting program that includes incorporating the finished compost into the school garden. Students will use grant funds for materials and tools needed to create compost from food waste at Broadwater. These activities will create good citizens for our future.

Composting is the ultimate trash to treasure!  Good luck to the students at Broadwater Academy!

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Town of Nassawadox’s Beautification Efforts

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Nassawadox plants crepe myrtles to beautify historic area of town.

While I was on sick leave from my “real job” I was looking for ways to be able to help our town with our efforts to try and beautify our town center area.  Unfortunately our town is like so many other small towns, basically no funds to do anything to make the town look better, and it presents a real challenge.  The property in the area around our town center is owned by the railroad, and like so many other businesses which own so much land, there are no funds available to keep the area beautiful.  It is hard enough to keep the railroad operating much less to try to beautify the areas around the tracks.

The Eastern Shore Tourism Commission has been trying to find ways to help the towns to spruce up their areas and we were fortunate in that a local architect, John Snyder, donated his time to draw up an architectural plan for our town center and/or our actual downtown area.  Robert Lentz, a citizen of the Eastern Shore has also been instrumental in helping us to try and realize our goal to beautify the town.  Both of these men have spent countless hours in assisting us in helping to make this “vision” become a reality.  When I saw the plan, I thought what a nice idea and lovely plan for our town.  I then began to wonder how on earth to make it a reality.  Consequently my search for grants to help us attain the goal began.

I felt very fortunate when I located the KVB grant and thought that if we could get this grant it would definitely be a start for our project and give us something to build upon.  I applied for the grant with high hopes but never dreamed that we would be successful, as I am certainly not a grant writer, but someone with a willing heart and spirit only.  You cannot imagine how thrilled I was to receive notice from KVB that our town was successful in obtaining the grant.

Obtaining the grant meant that now we needed to obtain permission from the railroad and secure a lease in order to proceed with our plans for our downtown.  This would be the first of many hurdles.  The railroad was willing to give us a lease but we also had to comply with their requirements for planting and make sure we were not too close to the tracks, so as to impede their daily treks up and down the Shore.  After obtaining this permission, then we had to find a local nursery that would be willing to do the planting and within the budgeted amount.  We contacted 3 different businesses and only one, Hortco Garden Center, expressed any immediate interest in working with us to provide a quote and talk with us regarding this project.  During the time we were working on the planning aspects of who, what, where and when, our area developed a drought condition and I certainly did not want to risk planting and losing the trees and being frivolous with our grant funds.

We have finally been successful in jumping all the hurdles in our path and our crepe myrtle trees are now established.  They are planted in a platform that is close to the railroad tracks.  This platform has historical significance to our town, in that it is where the train used to “throw the mail off the train as it passed through Nassawadox”.  The trains did not stop, just hooked the mail bag on a “mail hook” and proceeded down the track.  In the past because this platform is a gravel type base, it has grown up in weeds and grass.  This summer we will continue to work on further beautifying this platform by keeping the grass under control and exploring ways to further enhance this area in our town.

Our plans for the platform are to try and secure a mail hook, to continue with beautification efforts, and to have signage as to the historical significance of the platform.  We are hoping that the platform will become an area where townspeople and travelers alike can come to take a break from their hectic schedules and enjoy the surrounding area, maybe even visit a few of our local shops.

I am so very excited about the efforts of those who have provided us with a “vision” and hope that we are able to continue with our efforts to beautify a most important area in our small town.  This will only be possible through the efforts and generosity of many people and organizations.

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Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore Signs In!

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Trash Talk, an occasional column about garbage by Jenny OʼNeill

A Sign of the Times

Have you seen the signs sprouting up in parking lots along the Shore? Look for them and pass the word to your friends and neighbors. This summer is Bring Your Own Bag season on the Eastern Shore. Waste Watchers is sponsoring this summer long campaign after being awarded $1000 as part of Keep Virginia Beautiful’s 30 in 30 contest.   We used the grant money to put up signs with that same message. These colorful, double-sided aluminum signs are 18X24 and the design is by local artist Miriam Riggs. (If you want one for your own back door, to remind you as you head out, we will provide them at cost which is $30.)

Walmart and Food Lion in Onley already have theirs up so check them out and thank them for participating. Waste Watchers hopes to see them all around the Shore at Food Lions and Fresh Prides and Dollar Stores and other places where people appreciate being reminded to Bring Your Own Bag. It would be a nice touch to have our Shore pride represented up and down Highway 13 with a local message for a sustainable practice. This is not a radical proposal and sustainable is not a dirty word. Waste Watchers is suggesting that this summer we all make an effort to get in the habit of Bringing Our Own Bags to the store. In my case it took me at least 6 months to really get the habit, but Iʼm a slow learner, so the summer is a good place to start.

Many localities are banning plastic bags or making them cost consumers, but thatʼs not likely to happen here. What we can do is Reduce the use of them in the first place, Reuse them when possible (they are great for lining waste baskets, picking up poop, or carrying tennis shoes just for starters) and then, Recycle them. Here on the Eastern Shore our plastic bags are recycled and thatʼs a good thing. What would be better would be to use less of them altogether.

Weʼve all seen plastic bags blowing in the wind, across the fields, hanging from the trees, and bobbing along the beach. Here on the Shore this is a sadly common sight. Plastic bags, along with other litter, line our roadways.  (Can you believe Iʼm glad the weeds are growing because they hide the roadside trash? Itʼs one of the summerʼs illusions that I actually look forward to. After the long fall, winter, and spring of looking at the garbage in the ditches Iʼm relieved not to see it. But I digress.)

As a Trash Talker for Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore Iʼve been referring to plastic, made from petroleum, as having come from dinosaur bones. My idea was to illustrate how old it was. Well, I was wrong. Turns out that itʼs made from stuff even older than the dinosaurs. Tiny little marine life, plants and animals, millions and millions of years ago, even before the dinosaurs roamed the earth, died and were buried at the bottom of the ocean. Silt and rock covered it and over millions of years the pressure and heat of it all created what today we call petroleum or crude oil.  This is what we make both plastic and gasoline out of.

The point is this: plastic, which is made from petroleum, took eons to make. We use it for a few minutes.  In the time that it takes to unwrap the gift from the packaging, to tote home the groceries, to slake our thirst from bought water in a plastic bottle, it is gone. For a few minutes we may futilely try to warm our fingers on the styrofoam cup and when weʼre done we throw it away. Thereʼs a lack of balance in this equation. Imagine the scales: On one side we have a nonrenewable resource made from pre-dinosaur creatures and plants millions of years old; on the other we have something made from this resource that we use one time and throw away. See the imbalance?

Americans throw away 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour.  Thatʼs just in this country. As for styrofoam cups we throw away 25 billion of them every year.  Billion, trillion, or gazillion itʼs a huge and shocking amount because styrofoam doesnʼt biodegrade.  It doesnʼt break down in nature. It stays around forever. The same thing is true of plastic bags. Which is why, although they have their place in modern lives, it would be a very good thing if we could all use less of them.

Those bags you see in the fields? They cost a farmer thousands of dollars in tractor repairs when one gets caught up in the works. Those bags in the water? Sea turtles think that theyʼre jellyfish and take a fatal bite, clogging their intestines and blocking their airways.

In the trees they hang like some malignant moss, some weird symbol hanging along the roadway. And it is a symbol.  Litter telegraphs loud and clear that we donʼt care about where we live.

I’m sure that everyone reading this is saying “Hey, thatʼs not true of me.”  And I believe you, but we shouldnʼt kid ourselves: going easy on litterers ultimately costs us more than prosecuting them would. That, however, is a subject for another day.

Bring Your Own Bag- itʼs a Shore thing.

Jenny OʼNeill is the Coordinator of Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore

 

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Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore in Action

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Waste Watchers has accomplished the first phase of its Bring Your Own Bag campaign. The attached picture is of our sign up at Walmart in Onley, VA.

We expect to add the Shore Food Lions and possibly Family Dollar Stores soon. Any business that would like a sign can apply to Waste Watchers and/or buy one for $30. The sign was designed by a local artist of great renown.

Jenny O’Neill, Coordinator, Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore

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Nassawadox WINS $1,000 for Beautification

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Virginia’s Eastern Shore is an absolute natural jewel and often overlooked.  The Town of Nassawadox (The Land Between Two Waters) wants to stand out and to beautify and revitalize their community.  They have big plans for several area clean-ups and adding landscaping to the main entrance of the town.  Planting native trees and shrubs along the Route 13 corridor will greatly improve the natural and scenic beauty of Nassawadox and thereby creating a revitalized image of this small jewel on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  For more information on the Town of Nassawadox or their project, please contact Estelle Murphy at 757-442-2025.

KVB provided the opportunity for government, non-profit and/or service organizations in Virginia to apply for one of (30) $1,000 grants in three different categories: 10 grants for plastic bag reduction and recycling, 10 grants for cigarette litter prevention, and 10 grants for community greening and beautification.  These grants are made possible by KVB’s partners, Walmart and Waste Management.

The KVB grant program focuses greater resources and attention on individual localities throughout the Commonwealth and how they are addressing the issues of litter prevention, recycling, waste reduction, beautification and education.

The mission at Keep Virginia Beautiful is to engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.  Our goals include becoming the leading statewide voice, providing a framework for improved communication and collaboration, cultivating and supporting sustainable programs, and engaging citizens by linking them to volunteer opportunities and information through these 5 impact areas:  Litter Prevention, Waste Reduction, Recycling,Beautification, and Environmental Education.

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Waste Watchers of Eastern Shore WINS $1K Grant!

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Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore has been awarded a $1,000 grant in the Plastic Bag Recycling Category.  The KVB grant program focuses greater resources and attention on individual localities throughout the Commonwealth and how they are addressing the issues of litter prevention, recycling, waste reduction, beautification and education. In honor of Earth Month, Keep Virginia Beautiful (KVB) is awarding “30 Grants In 30 Days” in April, 2011.

Waste Watchers (WW) will establish a creative Plastic Bag Reducing/Recycling/Reusing Campaign through the use of signs in grocery store parking lots to remind shoppers to bring their own bags each time they shop.  In addition to signage, WW will create a relationship with larger retail merchants to provide reusable bags at reduced costs during the launch of this greatly needed plastic bag vs. reusable bag public awareness program throughout the entire Eastern Shore.  The “Did You Bring Your Bag” campaign hopes bring a greater connection with grocery store management.   Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore has already made a big impact as they helped convince the counties- Accomack and Northampton to begin recycling plastic bags last year.  For information on Waste Watchers of The Eastern Shore and their project, contact Jenny O’Neill, [email protected] or (757) 787-7468.

KVB provided the opportunity for government, non-profit and/or service organizations in Virginia to apply for one of (30) $1,000 grants in three different categories: 10 grants for plastic bag reduction and recycling, 10 grants for cigarette litter prevention, and 10 grants for community greening and beautification.  These grants are made possible by KVB’s partners, Walmart and Waste Management.

The mission at Keep Virginia Beautiful is to engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.  Our goals include becoming the leading statewide voice, providing a framework for improved communication and collaboration, cultivating and supporting sustainable programs, and engaging citizens by linking them to volunteer opportunities and information through these 5 impact areas:  Litter Prevention, Waste Reduction, Recycling,Beautification, and Environmental Education.