The first 500 people to purchase a family membership for just $25 will have their membership converted to a lifetime membership.

Each section of the museum will represent an individual topic of sustainability, and each of the areas will be created and put together by a different group, organization, institution, business, or class of students.

The museum will include an area for the general public, an interactive children’s museum, and an art gallery displaying fascinating works made from reused materials.

Learn more about the center and the museum at www.mvrcfs.org .

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This has to be one of the most resourceful, sustainable ideas you have ever seen. You absolutley must check out the website.

Plans are under way to acquire a 145, 000 sq. ft. former manufacturing building that also has over 11,000 sq ft of office space. Spread out over four floors that includes a sprawling full basement, the building sits on two and half acres, and includes 150 secure off street parking spots. Although it is built for have duty industrial, it sits right smack in the middle of residential housing.

Some of the initial project ideas for this building are:

Sustainability Museum {general public area, children’s area, and an art gallery full of pieces made of reused waste materials}

Constructing/Commercial Waste Storage and Re-use

Recycling

Worm Farm/Composting

Solar Heater Assembly

Rooftop Garden

Mushroom Farm

Sustainability Conference Center

Sustainability Youth Camp

Business Development Center

Fitness Center

. . . and much more. Additional facilities to house projects/programs that are not appropriate for this site will be sought out and acquired, once this building becomes . . . sustainable.

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The first problem is all of the time that is wasted by folks standing around holding up cardboard signs and begging for money.  The second problem is how much of our waste is going to our landfills that has value. (Not to mention that we pay to dispose of that which has value).

Here is what I suggest:  We find a large vacant building(or build one) and make a small investment so that it can be used as a manual sorting facility.

What that would require is:

1. a surface to place materials on
2. a place for people to stand (or sit) with access to those materials
3. containers to place the sorted materials in.

Yes, of course there are a number of ways to do this based on the amount of investment a community chooses to make. Conveyors would be nice, especially if they are powered, but a space and some containers are really all that you need to make this work.

In the Dayton area, there are millions of dollars worth of valuable recyclable materials taken to the landfill each year. The saddest part is that we actually spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in tipping fees throwing the millions of dollars of materials away!  On top of that, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year disposing of other materials that could be composted.

Some neighborhoods and communities have a fairly decent recycling rate, while for other neighborhoods and communities, recycling just doesn’t take place at all.

I suggest that we open a residential waste sorting facility where trash from neighborhoods/communities that don’t recycle much can be brought. Then anyone without a job, anyone struggling to pay child support, anyone who has an urgent financial need . . . anyone who needs or wants to earn a little extra money . . . can drop by and sort out some of the trash. Rather than being paid an hourly rate, they will be paid a commission based on the volume and value of what they sorted out of the trash.

No longer would anyone have to waste their entire day standing at the side of the road begging for money to buy a meal. Seriously, that is such a huge waste of time! Come on now, you’ve seen people that stand at the same corner for days . . . weeks . . . sometime even months. Occasionally someone stops and gives them a dollar, but the return on their time is dismal.

Sorting trash can be a little dirty at times, but it doesn’t have to be hard work at all. People could be seated while they work, and they are totally free to work at whatever pace they choose. They earn the value of whatever they sorted, less a portion used to cover the cost of the program.

Remember now that the true value of the materials sorted comes from two directions. There is the market value of the aluminum, plastic, or steel itself, but there is also the value of no longer having to pay to take it to the landfill.  That value includes the tipping fee, the vehicle expenses to drive it there, and the employee costs to drive it there!  That all factors in.

Certainly there is a start up cost involved, but look at the return. No longer will anyone in our area ever have to stand at the side of the road holding up an unreadable sign and begging for money. No longer would anyone in our county be forced to beg for what they now would be able to earn.

Residents of our county throw away over a hundred thousand tons of recyclable (or compostable) trash each year. The four most valuable materials in that trash are aluminum, #1 plastic(PET), #2 plastic(HDPE), and steel(food cans). The combined value of those 4 materials that is thrown away each year is several million dollars. We have some room to work here folks.  Let’s get on it!

BTW: If someone needs transportation to the sort center, they could take the RTA. Once they get there, their bus fare would be deducted from what they sort and sent to RTA. It’s a little more complicated than that, but very do-able.

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There are many things that need to be considered and put in place in order to effectively change the appearance of a community or city.  There is far more involved than just going out and planting flowers, trees, and shrubs and putting down some mulch. The following is a list of some of the essential elements of an effective urban beautification program. I have listed these in no particular order.

• Evaluate/determine available resources:

1. Funds – Although there is a lot that can be done without any dedicated funds, above all else, money can reduce labor requirements. (grow plants -vs- buy plants; collect wood chips -vs- buy mulch; weed -vs- treat beds; manual water -vs- automatic water  etc . . .)
2. Plants – Any community has an abundance of perennials and flowering shrubs on private properties that are begging to be divided in order to flourish. Many of our vacant properties are rich with plant resources.
3. Equipment – Power equipment could be made available from municipalities, park districts, rental companies, or even contractors wanting to give back to their community. Unless renting, the equipment will usually come with an operator too.
4. Tools – many people have tools they no longer use do to changing physical limitations or lifestyle changes.
5. Raw materials – most communities have reasonable access to manure, wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves which when combined create enriched, workable, lower maintenance soil.
6. Labor – There are more opportunities than simple volunteers. Juvenile judicial systems as well as adult can provide win win opportunities.  Creative motivation can bring out increased numbers of workers as well.
7. Soil – Ironically, some of the oldest deteriorating communities have the deepest richest soil. The reason is obvious as these older homes have been building up humus from grass clippings, often for one hundred years or more (easily identified where lawn surfaces are well above sidewalks). Much of this soil can be borrowed and utilized in areas where rich soil is lacking.
8. Nursery space – An effective beautification program will designate areas where young (small) plants can be grown out before placing in primary beds. Nearly all plants will increase in size faster when given more space to grow without the competition of a dense clump.

• Evaluate / determine / prioritize locations to be beautified:

1. Visibility – The benefits of your hard work can be drastically limited if few people will see the fruits of your labor. Primary corridors are often the best choices for beautification projects because they will positively influence the greatest number of people.
2. Current appearance – It is also a good idea to target the areas that look the worst because improvements will be most noticeable.
3. Current conditions – Soil conditions as well as existing growth will determine how much work will be required to beautify a location. It is far easier to beautify a bed that was formerly a flower garden than a space filled with clay and gravel.
4. Accessibility – Consideration must also be given to how far workers must travel to maintain a planting. This may play a minor role in project selection or may determine a specific labor recruiting strategy. Are
5. potential planting areas in a given neighborhood consolidated or spread out?
6. Risk – Although vandalism should not be a reason to avoid working in an area, it is a reality that must be considered. You have to anticipate it and prepare for it so as to not grow discouraged when it occurs.

• Select plants for projects:

1. Annuals VS Perennials –  

• Watering: generally annuals require far more watering.
• Bloom: generally annuals bloom all summer while perennials usually bloom for a much shorter time.
• Annuals have to be re-planted each year while perennials only need to be dug up and divided every 3 to 5 years.
• Mulch: It is easier to mulch around perennials whereas annuals are grown to cover the bed so that less if any mulch is needed.

1. Low maintenance – The ideal plants for urban beautification will require little or no watering, grow in compact clumps, and yet can easily be divided into many plants to fill in large areas.

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There are two basic ways to provide fishing access to the deeper areas of one of our local lakes.

One of these is rental boats which have these advantages:

• provide  access to any and every portion of the lake
• provide the mobility to “try” numerous different locations on a given outing
• provide the ability to follow the fish during different times of day, or different times of year.

The other method of providing access to fish deep water would be to build a large fishing dock. There are several key advantages to this option as well. You could build a stationary dock for added stability, but I believe a floating dock would be more than adequate as far as stability goes, but would hold a large advantage of being able to be moved to various locations if the need arises.

The advantages of building a dock to fish from are significant. Here are a few:

• First of all, it is much easier to simply walk out on to a dock, than to load up into a boat. This also applies to being much simpler access for handicapped individuals.
• A dock provides a large area of shelter(for fish), and if used as a place to feed the fish regularly, it can become a magnet to draw fish from all across the lake. To further take advantage of the dock, aeration devices could be mounted in the immediate vicinity of the structure and light fertilizing applications could be administered from the dock as well.
• The structure of the dock provides locations to mount fish feeding stations, and lights for fishing at night. Lights would make night fishing convenient for fishermen, and also would attract fish by attracting the small aquatic organisms that bait fish feed on which in turn would draw the larger fish. Lights would also attract insects, which would attract even more fish.
• Other possible features of a dock might be a roof to provide shade for fishermen and additional shelter for fish.  Permanent rod holders could be made available all around the dock too, as well as other special features that would make fishing simpler and more fun {benches/seats, music, bait holders, etc . . .}
• A dock would make it far easier to monitor and/or control what was being caught on the lake. It would also provide an easier opportunity to sell bait.

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Monster Smallie taken from GMR

First thing to say is that we have a new web site: Greater Dayton Fishing association.

The Dayton area has several beautiful public lakes where people can fish, but to be honest, the fishing isn’t all that great . . . certainly not all that it could be.  At Eastwood Lake, the water near shore is just too shallow and any decent fish spook off too easily. At Madison Lakes the shore drops off quickly, but like most area lakes, nearly every cast brings back a tangle of weeds, instead of a fish. To put it simply, you have to work a lot harder than you should have to in order to catch fish in the public waters in the Miami Valley.

That is why we are starting the Greater Dayton Fishing Association. One person by themselves can only do a little, but when hundreds (or thousands) of individuals organize for a common cause, a whole lot can be accomplished. Please drop by, check us out, sign up, and tell all your friends!   click here

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I believe that the most effective way to remove excess nutrients from our rivers is to grow plants . . . but wait, there is a catch. The only way that growing plants will effectively remove nutrients, is if you harvest what you grow.  Otherwise, many of the nutrients will simply process back through the system and remain in the river. Even more important is that if you don’t harvest plant material, it will die, and the decomposition process will steal crucial amounts of oxygen from the water.

So, I am here to suggest some of the most cost effective ways to remove excess nutrients from rivers by growing and harvesting plants.

First of all, let me say this – the fact that you are harvesting plants is one of the key components of making your program cost effective – by adding value to what you are doing. If all you did was grow and harvest plants to remove nutrients, your program would be cost prohibitive, and would not make economic sense. However, when you are able to produce and harvest a product that has commercial value, it becomes far easier to justify the expense of removing nutrients from the water.

Plant # 1 – Duckweed:  There are several reasons why duckweed is an excellent crop to grow to remove nutrients from our rivers. Research has shown that duckweed is an excellent nutrient sink, taking up large amounts of both nitrogen and phosphorus. Duckweed is also very fast growing, able to double it’s mass in as little as two or three days. The fact that it floats and is not rooted on the bottom is what provides for some creative and cost effective ways for it to be harvested. As long as there is a drop in elevation, duckweed can be captured in a screen, while water flows past. It is even possible to use the current of the river to power a spiral water pump that would remove duckweed (with some water), and pump it to a higher location where the crop would be captured, while the water would drain back to the river. Duckweed would be an excellent choice for removing remaining nutrients from discharge water at sewage treatment facilities. All that would be needed would be a staging pond or canal to slow the flow, and then the duckweed could be easily harvested where the water exits and flows on to the river. There already are many existing ponds and lagoons that have nutrient rich water emptying into our local rivers that could be used to grow and harvest duckweed. These could be utilized to clean our water before we go about constructing ponds or lagoons at sites that don’t have them  {that would be phase II}. Duckweed is an excellent animal feed that is richer in protein than soybeans.  It also makes an outstanding compost material and could be used for urban agriculture. There are many creative ways to take advantage of this opportunity. The important things is to start the conversation.

Another plant that would be easy to grow and harvest is the one that grows along the shores of the Great Miami River{Hygrophila?}. This plant dies off in the winter and therefore would need to be harvested just before this happens. This plant would also make an outstanding material for composting and could be used to help create rich urban farmland. You don’t have to grow it(no planting, weeding, watering, or fertilizing), all you have to do is harvest it. And although it would be more costly than growing alternative crops on land, you get the added benefit of removing nutrients from the river bed. It is the dual win that makes this worth considering.

Remember – the only way that growing plants will effectively remove nutreints from our rivers is if you harvest what you grow. The only way that growing and harvesting plants as a means of removing nutreints will be cost effective is if you can add or create value for what is harvested. Urban ag and growing local are two hot topics right now, and if you can combine their popularity with a means of cleaning our rivers, you will have a feasable solution to a serious problem.

The next thing we need to look at is how we can utilize the current and power of the river to collect and remove many of the leaves that end up in the water . . . but that’s another story.

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There are several ways to Painlessly Support organizations without having to dip into your bank account. I am going to tell you about one of the easiest ways to do this: internet advertising.
Companies pay commissions when a website leads them to make a purchase of one of their products or services. This commission does not effect the price of the purchase, and yet can be directed to support your favorite organization. The simplest example is national floral delivery services. If someone goes to the phone book, calls an easily remembered number, or even goes directly to a floral delivery website, they will pay the exact same price for a product . . . and nothing else happens. If that person clicks on an ad posted on a website, and then goes on to make their purchase, a commission is earned by that website. The same price will be paid for the product, but some money will be earned. That money could be going to support your favorite cause, charity, or organization = PAINLESS SUPPORT.
It costs you the customer nothing, you’ll pay the same price no matter how you place your order, but once again, money will be earned.
Now there are at least two companies that have set up web sites that are filled with ads from thousands of companies, and they offer to doante a portion of the commission they earn (from your purchase) to whomever you direct them. The problem is that they keep well over half of what they earn (potentially millions, if not billions of dollars!). Read more about this here!
It is possible to set up a website where all revenue earned would be donated to the organizations selected, not just a portion of it.
In the mean time, this {PANDSCORP} website is using internet advertising to raise funds for two causes: urban farming for the hungry, and cleaning up our local rivers. No funds raised will go toward administrative costs. All revenue for both causes will be used to pay the people who are out growing food or monitoring litter traps, or to purchase needed equipment that will increase the success of each endeavor.
You can read more about this by clicking on the links below, or go directly to our painless fundraising section by clicking here.

 Google contest submission

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