Sustainable Warwick hosts Earth Day celebration at Albert Wisner Public Library

Sustainable Warwick and the Albert Wisner Public Library put together an Earth Day celebration on April 25 that brought together many Warwick organizations and activities that focus on issues of environmental stability and sustainability. The event was hosted by the library and, in addition to Sustainable Warwick (SW), included representatives frim The Repair Cafe, The Coolest Recycling Drive, Too Good to Toss, Too Good to Go, Helpsy, Lions Eyeglass Recycling, and Food Scraps to Compost.

According to Michael Helme, the head of SW, “The basic idea was not only to celebrate Earth Day here in Warwick, but to make local residents aware of and appreciative of the opportunities they have right now to not throw things out in ways that wind up causing significant damage, but rather to either keep them going, donate them to people who need them, or if necessary, to dispose of them responsibly.”

According to SW, these programs are all fairly young but have already had major positive impacts on the local environment. For example, hundreds of residents who might be planning to throw away things they have outgrown or no longer need , bring them instead to Too Good To Toss and then even more residents show up and take items they need, sometimes need badly, at no cost — a win for donor, recipient and the environment. The Coolest Recycling Drive accepts refrigerant-containing appliances, like air conditioners, and ensures that the refrigerants they contain do not get into the atmosphere, and the Food Scraps to Compost program takes in food scraps from Warwick residents, notably at the weekly Farmers Market, and, with the help of some local farmers, turns about 10 tons of food scraps into wonderful compost used throughout the town, and also prevents the release of large amounts of polluting methane.