Plastic Plague I: Albuquerque BioPark Display

In this first entry on institutions' campaigns to raise awareness of the "Plastic Plague", I'm using the title from an exhibit at the Albuquerque BioPark. 

The AZA Mid-Year Meeting, including we from the Green Summit, visited this past March. We saw some good green efforts, including this plastic messaging approach. 

I particularly like the chalk board for creating pledges. Public commitments to green changes are indicators of increased likelihood of behavior change.

Best of all, the BioPark follows up on this messaging with no plastic bags in the multiple gift shops on site. The ones they do use, they give for free and they're made from recycled content. Good job Wildlife Trading Company.

....because this stuff never goes away.

The Power of Hope: Monarchs or GDP?

You can imagine Supergirl telling Superman "this constant saving the planet is hard work!"

We greenies feel that way too, and sometimes it is overwhelming.

Each time I get to that point where I wonder about the futility of hoping for global reversal required for human survival I come across that person who cheers me on, who makes a change I hadn't expected, or tells me of a great success story.  

Bob Beatty at The Lyndhurst Group and AASLH has saved me a couple times. When my mom

www.learnaboutnature.org

started recycling even when I wasn't around, it blew me away, and so did this speech from Mexico’s National Commissioner for Natural Protected Areas, Alejandro del Mazo Maza. He gave it at the Opening Forum Ceremony of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's World Conservation Congress earlier this month: This last season we received around 84.7 million Monarch butterflies and had a 255% increase from last season. This pair of small wings have already moved three countries. President Pena Nieto, President Obama, and Prime Minister Trudeau made a commitment to protect the Monarch butterfly across our countries. And we are getting there. When there is will, there is action, and where there is action there are results.

Del Mazo closed with this: Today most countries are measured by their GDP, in a few years from now, countries will also be measured by the amount and quality of their natural resources. Today the conservation of nature is see as a public spending, a luxury; conservation of natures should be a public investment.

We who work at zoos, gardens, museums, and heritage sites are in the business of public investment. We educate, inspire, and engage the people who grow up and do this work, the people who are grown up and still learning - and still voting, and the people who are grown up and choosing new ways to live and work. 

Every day we do this. We cannot stop, or rest, but we can certainly cheer for each other share our successes, and keep up the good work. 

Green Gift Shop Ideas: I

Along with the posts on water bottle ideas, and recycling options, here is the first on some green gift-shop ideas.

Maggie Stern's stitched items (the heron pillow (right, and yellow wren bag at bottom). There is a good variety, you can choose US-made and organic materials, and they are lovingly designed by a great gal and terrific artist. If you have a special design she may be able to recreate it for you.

I like the reusable bags that fold into their own pouch and end up looking like a fish (for aquariums or zoos), and a flower or fruit (gardens); now if there were just one that looked like a side-entry federal mansion the historic sites would be happy too!  Has anyone found these bags made in the US? So far I only know of China.

I also like Matchstick Gardens  - buy these great little items in bulk for $1.75 each or less, and use them as give-aways, promote them as stocking-stuffers or party favors, and sell them at the cash register. You'll be spreading flower and herb gardens everywhere! 

Maggie Stern's yellow wren

Water Bottle Filling Stations II

Are You Serious About Banning Bottled Water?  

The Detroit Zoological Society is. This is an indoor water bottle filling station in the education building:

This is me joyfully filling a water bottle and checking the counter: over five thousand bottles saved!

The trouble with filling a water bottle at a drinking fountain is that the flow rate is too low and the angle is impossible.  These filling stations are hands-free solutions to all those problems - and look mom...no plastic bottles to recycle! 

This is an Elkay (www.elkayusa.com) retrofit module - costing not quite $700 - to put on top of your existing water fountain yet still keep the water fountain!  

There are free-standing modules for outdoor locations, too.  Each allows water bottle filling plus two heights of drinking foundations.

Really? - What are you waiting for?