National Marina Day
As fishermen and boaters, we understand the important role that marinas play in our lives. Not only do they give us access to the state’s most valuable resource, they play an important role in our economy. The marine industries account for 200,000 jobs and an economic impact of more than $16 billion dollars a year.
In recognition of their importance, the Association of Marina Industries and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection are celebrating Saturday, June 11 as National Marina Day.
Marinas across America are opening their doors to the public for one day to showcase their role as family friendly gateways to boating and fishing and to highlight the responsibilities they take on in protecting the environment. National Marina Day events in Florida:
- Activities at Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor in St. Augustine include a blindfolded dingy race, pirate invasion and a homemade sailboat race. Events start around lunchtime on Saturday.
- Fernandina Harbor Marina in Fernandina Beach will host an open house from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Activities include a dockside boat show and their official designation ceremony for the Florida Clean Marina Program at 12 p.m.
- Fishermen’s Village Yacht Basin in Punta Gorda, another Florida Clean Marina, is hosting 10 different boat clubs, offering free weekend dockage for the event and small boat sailing races.
Find more National Marina Day events in Florida.
Find Easy Actions boaters can take to protect our aquatic lifestyle.
Smart Water
Reuse storage tank (Photo by Shanin Speas-Frost)
Hot, cold, boiled, frozen or steamed, fresh water tops our must-have list. On average, Floridians use 6.7 billion gallons of fresh water daily. Each day we also produce billions of gallons of wastewater (showers, laundry, dishwashing and such), which we could just as well use again, particularly since our state is drought prone.
Fortunately, Florida is one of the most water-efficient states in the nation, with more than 420 reuse systems. According to DEP’s Reuse Inventory, in 2010 reclaimed water was used to irrigate 281,781 residences, 525 golf courses, 877 parks and 324 schools. More than 10,000 acres of citrus crops (mostly in central and southwest Florida) are irrigated with reclaimed water.
Reusing water helps ensure that our Florida faucets continue to flow with fresh, clean water used for drinking, cooking, showering and washing the dishes. Besides, irrigation with reclaimed water costs less than fresh tap water. Another plus – reclaiming water instead of disposing of it in waterways helps protect water quality in bays and rivers.
Contact your utility company or water management district to find out if reclaimed water is available in your area. If reclaimed water is not available, contact your local elected officials, city planners or water management district to learn about plans for water reuse.
The more water we reuse, the more we’ll have on tap for quenching our thirst, icing tea, steaming veggies and boiling shrimp.
Learn more about water reuse in Florida.
Florida Water Reuse Week, May 15-21
DEP’s Reuse Inventory
Earth Day at the Capitol 2011
For the tenth year, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Environmental Education hosted Earth Day at the Capitol in Tallahassee. Area students who attended the event learned about our environment and some easy ways to protect it. At the Easy As One station, students learned how to pack a waste-free lunch and other easy actions kids can take to protect air and water quality, conserve water and reduce waste.
More than 200 students pledged to adopt one more habit to help protect the environment. Among the pledges: watch less TV; take shorter showers; tell parents about leaky faucets; plant a garden; plant a tree; pack a waste-free lunch; reuse or recycle plastic bags.
Learn more easy actions for kids that help protect the environment – on Earth Day and every day.
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Easy Numbers
I don’t trust numbers. I spent the whole fourth grade learning that division and multiplication are totally opposite operations only to discover that 10 x 1 = 10 and
10 ÷1 = 10. And zero throws all kinds of kinks in an equation. My checkbook never balances and I can’t figure out what percent daily value of nutrients I get from a cup of coffee. But even a mathphobe can find the positive in some numbers. The number of items collected through Easy As One events is one such number.
On Earth Day 2010, DEP launched Easy As One, a public awareness initiative to encourage citizens to adopt more sustainable habits that protect our air and water quality, conserve water and reduce waste. As of today, we’ve diverted tons of paper and electronics, beaucoup cell phones and chargers and truck loads of plastic bags, meds and ammunition from landfills.
Item Collected Amount Collected
Paper 73,400 pounds
Plastic retail bags 40,980
Cell phones 1,311
Cell phone chargers 1,512
Meds 33,100 bottles + 1,113 pounds + 383,483 pills
Ammunition 645 pounds
Electronics 74,232 pounds
Easy As One will continue to host events throughout the year and we hope you will continue your green efforts and expand your repertoire of easy actions that reduce waste, conserve water and protect air and water quality. Thank you to those who brought items we were collecting to our events. One simple action, like participating in Easy As One events, has lead to extraordinary results.
Apply Now for a Green School Award
The Green School Awards program, now in its third year, is accepting applications for the 2010/2011 school year. Public or private K-12 students, teachers, classrooms, schools and school districts can apply. Application deadline is June 21, 2011. Winners will be announced at the Learn Green: Green Schools Conference and Expo in Palm Beach County in November 2011.
The Florida Green School Awards Program recognizes and documents the achievement of students, teachers and school administrators to enhance learning by implementing green school initiatives in Florida. Last year, applicants for the Florida Green School Awards program saved more than 43,000 gallons of water and 56,126,468 kilowatt hours of electricity and reduced waste by nearly 5 tons.
Additionally, the schools saved $5.2 million dollars through greening efforts. With that kind of green, Florida can keep about 106 teachers in the classroom, buy more than 10,000 new computers or 263,000 new text books. As for environmental rewards – cleaner water, cleaner air, less waste – priceless.
Though a school’s traditional focus is on reading, writing and arithmetic, more schools are adding sustainability to the “things to learn” list. Since 16 percent of Florida’s residents spend at least six hours a day, five days a week during the academic year at school, the campus and the classrooms are also excellent venues for teaching and learning green habits that lead to a healthier school population, a healthier environment and a healthier bottom line.
If your school is greening, whether through a recycling program, water or energy conservation, flex fuel or a school garden, you can apply for a Green School Award. If you know someone in school who is doing great green things – student, teacher, administrator or support staff – encourage them to apply as well. One easy way to protect air and water quality, conserve water and reduce waste (both environmentally and financially) is to green your school and share the information with others.
Apply online for a Florida Green School Award.
Learn Green: Green Schools Conference and Expo
The Florida Green School Awards is a partnership between DEP’s Office of Environmental Education, Florida Department of Education, Florida’s Foundation and Sustainable Florida, Collins Center.
Easy As One in Orlando
Learning one new way to protect air and water quality and reduce waste is easy as stopping by the Go Eco Orlando Green Expo, a one day community event designed to introduce consumers to a variety of eco friendly products, services and resources.
While at the expo, you can find energy and water conservation information, ask Master Gardeners about Florida-friendly planting, attend workshops on solar water heating and electric systems. You can also recycle that old cell phone that’s taking up space in your cabinets or drawers.
DEP’s Easy As One team will be collecting used cell phones and chargers (both working and non-working). Phones will be donated to the 911 Cell Phone Bank where data is cleared, phones are refurbished and sent to law enforcement agencies and victim assistance programs where they are distributed to those who may need emergency communication. Phones that can’t be refurbished will be recycled. Those who bring used cell phones to donate will receive a day pass for free entry into a Florida State Park (while supplies last).
Whether you’re shopping for shoes or shopping for information, you can find it all at the mall.
Go Eco Orlando Green Expo
Saturday, March 19, 2011
10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Orlando Fashion Square
East Colonial at Maguire Rd.
Spring Planting Fever
No matter the calendar date, it’s spring in the Florida Panhandle—temperatures in the seventies, humidity in the eighties. Tank tops and sandals, sweaters and boots crowd the closet.
The sunshine and warmth bring many outside to inventory available gardening space and to plan for spring planting. On my deck, damage assessment finds the oregano and one lone 
petunia survived the pipe-bursting, 17-flake-snow-flurry winter of 2010/11.
At the office, a quick survey finds several colleagues with spring planting fever. Julian will plant cherry tomatoes again this year. Last year’s crop produced enough to share, and saved him about $2.99 a pint, so he had money and tomatoes. Nancy has planted a spinach, radish and herb salad. Ann’s strawberry baskets are showing signs of life. I’m on a quest for Thai basil and Kathalyn wants lemon grass.
Home-grown edibles save money, protect air quality and reduce waste. Walking to and from the garden creates zero emissions. A bowl of fresh strawberries from a back porch requires no packaging.
While you’re browsing seed catalogues, wandering the aisles in garden centers or researching the possibility of planting an olive tree or raspberry bushes in your Florida garden, remember to consider the environment.
Tallahassee Community Invited to Go Green While Spending Green
Recent studies say the average shopper spends close to an hour and a half when they visit their local mall. While wandering the corridors on the weekend, they may try on a few clothes, wander through isles of books or grab a slice of pizza or cup of coffee at the food court. On March 12, shoppers in Tallahassee can add protecting the planet to their to-do list for their lazy Saturday.
For the second year, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Easy As One team will be on hand outside the Governor’s Square Mall to give shoppers three easy opportunities to do their part to protect the environment. First from 10 a.m. to noon, free paper shredding and recycling will be offered to help citizens properly dispose of documents they may want securely shredded and responsibly recycled. Second, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Easy As One team will collect working and nonworking cell phones and chargers for proper recycling, and third, partnering with A Bags Life campaign, they will be collecting all retail plastic bags for recycling.
Even shopaholics who venture outside to the Easy As One collection site can learn just how easy it is for each one of us to make sustainable choices. Those who participate in the cell phone and retail plastic bag recycling will receive a day pass to any Florida State Park or a reusable bag for those days not spent window shopping for new shoes.
Get Ready for Tallahassee’s Super Clean Sweep – February 26
You have probably heard the saying, “Many hands make the load light.” When it comes to cleaning up local neighborhoods, it couldn’t be more appropriate. DEP’s Easy As One initiative is teaming up with Keep Tallahassee-Leon County Beautiful to support the 16th Annual Super-Clean Sweep event focused on cleaning up the Tallahassee community. Volunteers will do everything from planting trees, flowers and shrubs to painting over graffiti and, of course, picking up litter. DEP will be on hand at Tallahassee’s Lake Ella on February 26 from 7:30 – 11:00 a.m. to share information regarding the proper disposal of compact fluorescent light, (CFLs), prescription medications and batteries along with other sustainable habits, in an effort to encourage the continuation of good environmental deeds long after the event is over.
Citizens who stop by to drop off unwanted cell phones and retail plastic bags for recycling will receive a free state park day pass, good for a whole carload to any of Florida’s 160 award-winning state parks.
To lend a hand with Tallahassee’s Super Clean Sweep, visit www.ktlcb.com. For more information on DEP’s Easy As One initiative, go to www.dep.state.fl.us/easyasone.
A Convenient Way to a Cleaner, Greener County
What brings together an environmental agency, law enforcement and a recycling campaign? That would be the Lee County collection events held last week that gave residents an easy way to recycle their old cell phones, retail plastic bags and unwanted medications.
DEP’s Easy As One initiative, along with Lee County Sheriff’s Office ‘Operation Medicine Cabinet’ and A Bag’s Life campaign hosted five events at five locations from February 8 through 12. Expired medications, both prescription and over the counter, along with syringes and other medical supplies were collected by Lee County Sheriffs with astounding results.
According to Stacey Payne, Lee County Sheriff’s Community Relations Manager, over the course of the five days the department collected 383,483 pills, 513 ointments and creams, 3,015 patches, 32,020 syringes, 1,142 inhalers and 2,412 liquid meds. One prescription took the record as the oldest ever collected – it was from 1964.
DEP collected hundreds of plastic bags and dozens of cell phones, chargers, cell phone batteries and stray chargers, all of which will be recycled, then handed out hundreds of free State Park passes to those who donated their broken and outdated phones.
Also on hand were the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Crime Prevention and K-9 Units, Lee County Sheriff’s Office Explorers and Volunteers, Abby Home Care Services, K-consulting, Brookdale Senior Living, Lee Elder Abuse Prevention Partnership, Delta Family Counseling, Lee Memorial Blood Mobile, McGruff the Crime Dog and The American Red Cross. While recycling their unwanted items, attendees could meet a member of the K-9 unit and its handler, try the Impaired Driving Goggles exercise challenges, have their blood pressure checked by Abby Services, donate blood at the Lee Memorial Blood Mobile or have their kids fingerprints taken. Convenient and good for the environment all at the same time – now that’s easy!
