• The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash daily.
• 15 million sheets of paper are used in the U.S. every 5 minutes.
• 100 million trees are cut down in the U.S. for junk mail.
• 93% of plastics used end up in landfills.
• We throw away 96 billion pounds of food every year.

It made us start to think of some creative and unusual ways to recycle and change our behaviors to move that third up to a half or more.

Let’s start first with some basics.  You can recycle just about anything.  When we think of traditional recycling, we think of bottles, cans, and paper.  But are you making the most of your traditional recycling?  While many areas in Virginia have a municipal service or something tied to your garbage pick-up, some of you have to take your recycling somewhere to get rid of it.  While this can be a pain, we encourage you to do it.  We also think of this as drink bottles, food cans, and newspapers.  But have you looked at ALL of your bottles, cans, and paper?  What about the bottle that your shampoo came in?  Have you recycled the can that your paint came in?  While you may have to take that to a hazardous waste recycling area, it can still be recycled.

Paper is also paper.  In addition to newspapers, you should look for magazines, phone books, junk mail, and even things like greeting cards and boxes.  If you look at a cereal box, it has a cardboard box, a waxpaper liner, and a prize inside.  You’re looking at a 95% recycle return.

What about your electronics?  We’ve shared and participated in some e-cycling days, and it’s amazing what has come in.  In addition to old computers and televisions that can be recycled for glass, copper, plastic, and other goodies, people brought printers, keyboards, phones, and old answering machines.  If you used to plug it in, you can e-cycle it.  Those old speakers that lit up your dorm room in college contain paper, plastic, copper, aluminum, rubber, and wood.

And your food?  A cornucopia of opportunity.

For starters, buy smarter.  As consumers, we buy because we “need”.  What looks good for dinner tonight may be healthy and nutritious, and even come in eco-friendly packaging.  But do you really need the five-pound box or are you going to end up wasting some?  While it is good for the environment and your wallet to buy in bulk, you have to be smart.  We throw away 96 billion pounds of food every year.  If we were able to save a quarter of that we could feed 20 million people.

If you do have to throw it away, what do you do with it?  Use it.  The leftover grounds from your morning cup of life joe can be used for plants.  Roses, azaleas, and other flowering plants like acidic soil and therefore like coffee.  Ants and snails, however, do not.  Your coffee grounds can make for colorful, bug-free, and very alert roses.

The same holds true for banana peels.  High in potassium, the peels are good for soil.  They also do a pretty bang up job of shining shoes, and removing warts and splinters.  The enzymes in the peels dislodge the splinter and eat away at the root of the wart.  Who knew?

If you’re not a gardener or it’s inconvenient to compost, start calling garden centers.  Most of them do a great deal of on-site gardening, and would likely welcome your scraps.  A friend of KVB worked for a brewery/restaurant, and he found a local farmer who took everything from cardboard (for lining stalls), to food scraps (for pigs and composting), to spent hops and grains (for the horses and cows).  The Farmer was like many gardening centers:  they called him and he picked it up.  Done deal.

Thinking about what you’re throwing away makes you think harder about what you use.  And every little bit helps.  Think of the impact of one person bringing a canvas bag to the grocery store:  if you go to the grocery once per week and average 5 bags (which is 10 because they double them for your convenience) that’s 520 bags per year, per household.  That doesn’t count the big trips for Christmas dinner and the rush out on Sunday night because you forgot toothpaste.

A group of restaurants in London have started a campaign, Straw Wars.  Their tag line is “Straws are for Suckers”.  It’s a little thing, but think of it this way:

• You buy a soda at McDonald’s.
• Your soda comes with a straw.
• McDonald’s gets it’s straws in boxes, 12/24 per case.
• The average case of straws weighs about 20 pounds, and contains almost 30,000 straws.
• In the United Kingdom alone, McDonald’s sells 3.5 million drinks per day, with straws.

So you have the cardboard that the straws come in, the paper or plastic wrapping the straw, and the straw itself.  It’s a little step, but do you really need it?  Take the next step and sip.  You’ll better experience the body of the shake.

We got you to recycle your bottles. Take the next step. Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

Russell County Fights Cigarette Litter Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

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.

Town of Nassawadox’s Beautification Efforts Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

So what will all of these international cyclists and spectators see when they come to Richmond?  Not much.

Richmond currently has about three miles of designated bike lanes and just over 2% of Richmonders bike to work.  If you travel through the Fan district you can see that many of the students pedal to class, and the same thing happens in Charlottesville, Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, and other college towns across the state.  Richmond residents do, however, love their cars.  The fact that a major river cuts through the middle of the city doesn’t help matters, but still.

Most of us think of biking as a recreation.  They certainly do in Iowa, and they’ve gotten most of the state behind it.

In 1973, a writer for the Des Moines Register suggested to a fellow staff member that it might be fun to pedal across Iowa and write about it.  They invited some friends and planned some scenic routes and overnight stops.  About 300 people showed up at the start, 500 had joined by the middle of the trek, and over 100 riders completed the entire trip.  The coined the trek RAGBRAI, or the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, and it has become an annual event.

The event has become so popular that they’ve limited the actual ride to 8,500 registrants.  If that seems like a lot, consider this:  most of the people who ride aren’t even officially registered.   They just like to ride.  In 1988, it was 23,000 people.  Over the last 30+ years more than 275,650 people have taken the trek.  People come from all over the world, and over 30 states and the District of Columbia have started similar rides.

The District of Columbia, while not always synonymous with reason or sanity, has jumped the bicycle broom.  Washington started a bikeshare program, and has placed 1,200 bicycles at 140 stations across the city and into Arlington.  You can join for a day, a week, a month, or a year, and you just grab a bike and go.  As of December, they had almost 130,000 people hopping on.  The city of Alexandria doesn’t want to feel left out and in October approved a plan to bring the program into that waterfront neighborhood.

The University of Richmond has a program that started in 2009 with 35 bikes.  They’ve since added some mountain bikes and have a recycling program that rebuilds abandoned bikes and sells them to students for $25.  Not a bad deal.

The University of Virginia is trying to get a program going for Mr. Jefferson’s campus and the city of Charlottesville.  It would be one of the largest university programs in the country and feature over 100 bikes.  They hope to have theirs up by Spring of 2013.  What a great way to see the Rotunda!

The folks at Virginia Tech have done a ton of studies of bikeshare programs but do not have one themselves.  Perhaps it’s those darned mountains.  Either way, they have worked closely with the city of Blacksburg to make the area more bike friendly.

The studies that were done at Hokie U dispel the myth that people who bike or participate in bikeshare programs are elitist yuppie snobs.  By studying the demographics in cities like D.C., New York, Chicago, and Denver, they found that those eschewing the auto were a pretty mixed bag.  Riders were well represented by race, education, sex, and income, and the statistics matched up pretty well with their percentage of the population.

One thing that many point to as an obstacle is the up-front cost of starting such a program.  In order for it to be effective, it kind of needs to be cheap for the rider, and in the case of UVA, they’ve spent $35,000 on studies and logistics and are going to need another $500 thousand to get the necessary equipment to start their program.

If you’ve gone to the beach you may have rented a bike.  Great for you, but not a true bikeshare.  Perhaps the answer lies in Miami?

Miami partnered with a company from Canada called SandVault.  SandVault looks for innovative solutions for self serve shared resources.  You know, like a bikeshare.  The rack of bikes is wireless, so you can put it anywhere.  The kiosk is solar powered, so it adds a “green factor” and contributes to the movable feature.  They partner with some other folks to provide the bikes, so the city doesn’t have to be in the bike repair business.  Miami bought the ‘service’, SandVault makes some money, they then share some of the revenue with Miami, and the blue skies of South Florida stay a little more azure.  The neat thing about it is that Miami can move the bikes depending on demographics, events, weather, and need.  For a relatively decent cost to city residents.

The city of Richmond has taken the step of painting some bicycle lanes in town.  This is all well and good, but they’ve been talking about these sorts of things for years.  Trails have been promised, routes planned, studies conducted, and conferences convened.  They haven’t, however, put many feet on pedals.  Perhaps we need to organize a GRAOC (gray-ock), or Great Ride Across Our Commonwealth?  Maybe we need a “Critical Mass” type ride to the Governor’s Mansion?

One thing is for sure:  in a couple of years about a half a million bicycle nuts are going to swarm Central Virginia like locusts and they’re going to be expecting to see some cycling.  We need to saddle up and get in shape.

P.S.  Thanks for the rant Mr. Harper

(Featured Image Courtesy bikesbelong.org)

Now We Just Need Some Bikes. Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America.  When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”

Does this sound like a quote from the most recent Presidential Debate?  Wrong.  The quote is from Founding Father, Virginia native, and environmentalist Thomas Jefferson.

“A change in our climate, however, is taking place…snows are less frequent and less deep.”

Al Gore?  Climate change guru Bill Mckibben?  Nope.  Tommy J. again.

It seems that Jefferson was as concerned about his environment as much as he was concerned about Declarations and fine wines.

In addition to being a philosopher, writer, and scientist, Jefferson was widely known for having a keen interest in the natural beauty of his surroundings and documenting the workings of his farm.  This being a hot time in the election cycle, we thought that we’d take a look at some other presidents and how they impacted our State, and our Nation’s, scenic beauty.

This conversation would be lapse if we didn’t start with Teddy Roosevelt.  Theodore Rex was an avid hunter (Before you get all excited, remember that hunters have a vested interest in preserving and protecting green spaces!), and did a great deal to establish parks and preserves as we know them today.  He constantly harassed Congress until they passed the Forest Reserve Act, which set aside 150 million acres of woodlands as public spaces, and he created the U.S. Forest Service.  As President, he also oversaw the creation of five of our National Parks, and 50 wildlife refuges.  During his term in office, he put over 230 million acres of land under public protection.

We often think of Roosevelt when we think of Yosemite, but did you know that placing Yosemite Valley as a public trust was actually the work of Abe Lincoln?  Even when he was burdened by the Civil War, Lincoln was concerned with our environment.  He also established the Department of Agriculture and the National Academy of Sciences.  The Academy of Sciences continues to lead in new discoveries and innovation in the areas of green and sustainable energies.

While known for his Texas drawl and his work on Civil Rights, Lyndon Johnson did a great deal to foster urban renewal, was a big sponsor of responsible mass transit, and signed the Wilderness Act, placing 9 million acres of federal land under protection.  We’re fond of his wife, Lady Bird.  First off, great name.  Secondly, she was a huge advocate of public parks and beautification.  She once said, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”  Is it any wonder that many of today’s flower hybrids are named “Lady Bird”?

Herbert Hoover gets a lot of flack for being kind of a do-nothing President, but he did love his outdoors!  An avid fly-fisherman, he seemed to seek solace by a stream to escape the troubles of his presidency.  We suppose a few speckleds in the creel would take some of the bite out of the Great Depression.  He did do some real good for Ole Virginny.   One of his favorite spots was up by Old Rag Mountain.  He had a camp built on top of a ridge where he could relax.  That became Big Meadows and Skyland, and is now part of Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive.  Franklin Roosevelt used some of Hoover’s old digs when he dedicated the park in 1935.

Okay, don’t laugh:  Jimmy Carter.

Carter was at the center of a gas crisis, a hostage crisis, and is not remembered for being a strong leader.  What he is less known for is installing solar panels on top of the White House.  He also mandated standard fuel economies for vehicles, fostered a number of environmental protection acts and bills, and wore uglier sweaters than Mr. Rogers.  Carter wore the sweaters as a symbol of his dedication to reducing energy consumption.  He mandated that all of the thermostats in the White House be set at an efficient 68 degrees.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson told the story of the impact of pesticides on our lands and our food supply.  It was published in 1962, during the short presidency of John F. Kennedy.  Kennedy obviously read it, because much of his work planted the seeds for the EPA and many of our current environmental laws.  Perhaps it was the summers on the Cape, but his brother, Robert F. Kennedy was running on a strong environmental platform when his life was cut short, and Robert’s son Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has continued his family’s legacy.  RFK, Jr. is a vocal champion of environmental protection, founding Riverkeepers, Waterkeeper Alliance, and is actively involved in stopping mountaintop removal mining.

As we edge closer to our actual election, we hope that you’ll make a responsible choice with your vote.  Republican or Democrat, Tea Partier or Independent; the choice is up to you.  We can badger you about recycling and planting trees, but your voting choice is yours and yours alone.  We’ll keep our choice to ourselves.

Our next President has a lot of work to do; trimming our deficit, getting some folks back to work, and building our relationships with our global partners.  As our candidates sign pledges on taxes, families, and spending, we hope that your candidate has a pledge to Keep Virginia Beautiful.

Got Green Candidates? Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

It’s almost time for the Great American Cleanup!

The Great American Cleanup is the largest grassroots community project in the United States.  We had a great turn-out last year, and we suppose that Keep America Beautiful heard about our commitment.  This year, they’ve chosen Hampton Roads to be one of the 10 regional kick-off locations in the country!  Way to go Hampton Roads!

The events will begin on Friday, April 27th, and continue on Saturday, April 28th.  The Hampton Roads Cleanup will involve hundreds of volunteers transforming local parks, waterways and recreational areas into cleaner, greener environments.  On the morning of April 27th, corporate and military command teams will join forces with local volunteers to perform cleanup projects at community based sites throughout the region. There will be a “#Green Starts Here” celebration event that evening at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk.  It will thank all of the state dignitaries, local elected officials, military leaders, volunteer team leaders, community leaders, and corporate sponsors for all they do to keep Hampton Roads beautiful.

On Saturday, April 28th, more volunteer teams will spread out around the region to pitch in with other Cleanup events.

The idea is being coordinated by askHRgreen. They’ve been working with communities in the Hampton Roads area for the past six months, trying to identify “transformational” community improvement projects with an eye toward turning local parks, playgrounds and public spaces into greener, more sustainable places to live, work and play. The idea, according to Regional Project Chairman John Deuel, is to connect Hampton Roads volunteers with projects that will be meaningful to their community. In addition, community and environmental leaders may submit requests for new sites to add to the list.

Last year, around 3.8 million people participated in the Great American Cleanup.  There were over 30,000 events in 16,500 communities around the country. Volunteers picked up over 177 million pounds of litter, cleaned 110,000 miles of roadway, and planted 166,000 trees.  Buildings were painted, gardens were planted, and trash was picked up (from cigarette butts to automobiles, and a full sized organ!)  Many of our corporate sponsors are back on board this year, from Waste Management and Pepsi, to LG Electronics and Glad.  We had some great events here in Virginia last year, and thousands of volunteers throughout the Commonwealth, but we’d love to see a bigger turnout this year!

If you want to get involved, or find out about projects close to your community, visit askHRgreen.org.   If your organization or business would like to participate or help sponsor you can contact Mike Baum.  If you need more information, you can reach Keep Virginia Beautiful at (804)665-2908.

Grab Your Gloves! It’s the Great American Cleanup! Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

The James River Association’s Extreme Stream Makeover (ESM) was conducted the week of April 11, 2011 and targeted the Stoney Run watershed, an impaired waterway located within the City of Newport News. The community-wide event focused on three sites, one of which was Denbigh High School (DHS). Thanks to the Beautification and Community Greening grant from Keep Virginia Beautiful, JRA was able to complete a unique project with DHS.

The high school has several underused and neglected interior courtyards, one of which includes a greenhouse connected to a science classroom. In addition to the greenhouse, this courtyard consisted of several large trees, a leaky concrete pond, an old shed, and lots of weedy lawn. The adjacent science class used the courtyard to find worms under the stepping stones, but that was about it. The James River Association (JRA) met with the principal and lead science teacher to determine how this courtyard could become more integrated with their classes and help teach the students about water quality and a variety of native ecosystems.

JRA reached out to the Timmons Group Landscape Architecture and Stormwater team to turn the courtyard into an outdoor learning space for DHS. The design included a rain garden, vegetated swale, 3 rain barrels, a compost bin, native planting beds, and raised beds for vegetable gardening. During the ESM week in April, volunteers helped prepare the courtyard by repairing the pond, preparing the planting beds and rain garden, demolishing the old shed, building the raised beds and the compost bin. Two weeks later, JRA returned to DHS to finish up the work with the help of 180 of their students. The students installed 3 rain barrels and planted 373 plants, including a variety of small native trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennials. Approximately 2,800 square feet of lawn was converted to planting areas. In addition to hands-on involvement, each class received a short educational lesson by JRA staff about rain gardens, native plants, and how all of this affects the health of the James River. Many of the students had never planted anything before and this was a great introduction for them. It also gave students who had experience the opportunity to teach others. Several students were responsible for placing the stones that would direct water from the downspouts to and through the rain gardens, which created an opportunity for them to learn about the flow of water and how the placement of the stones can manipulate the course.

Prior to the makeover, the courtyard’s plant palette had been limited. Now there are over 20 various species of plants on which students can practice their plant identification skills. There are also added benefits for the resident wildlife. Two mallard ducks come to nest in the courtyard every spring. Next year when they return they will be pleasantly surprised with new nesting spaces and plenty of food for their young, thanks to the diversity of plants.

Since the completion of the courtyard it has been warmly welcomed by students and science teachers. By involving the students in the installation they have really taken ownership of the space. They have even started a Courtyard Club that has 10 dedicated students who come out after school once a week to maintain the courtyard. Through this project the students have been inspired to take on the other courtyard at the school to make it a better space.

MEDIA AND AWARDS

The event was covered by several media outlets including the following:

1. Daily-Press (3/25/2011) http://articles.dailypress.com/2011-03-25/news/dp-nws-extreme-stream-20110325_1_restoration-activities-water-quality-volunteers
2. Daily-Press (4/13/2011) http://weblogs.dailypress.com/news/science/dead_rise/2011/04/video_volunteers_help_clean_up_james_river_tributary.html
3. WVEC-TV (4/15/2011)  http://www.wvec.com/home/Volunteers-work-to-restore-James-River-watershed-119936194.html
4. Newport News TV http://www.youtube.com/NewportNewsTV#p/search/0/4QxsxHC1G8c
5. James River Journal (4/11/2011) http://jamesriverjournal.com/news-archives/15288-extreme-stream-makeover-opening-ceremony.html
6. James River Journal (4/16/2011) http://jamesriverjournal.com/news-archives/15350-extreme-stream-makeover-a-success.html

JRA received the 2011 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for the Extreme Stream Makeover initiative. http://www.deq.state.va.us/export/sites/default/info/geea/2011/docs/Gov_Press_Release.pdf

JRA gives Denbigh HS’ Courtyard a Makeover! Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.

Suffolk puts butts in their place thanks to KVB’s grant.

Themed, “Butts Are Litter Too!,” Keep Suffolk Beautiful and the Suffolk Clean Community Commission launched a Cigarette Litter Prevention campaign to reduce the amount of cigarette butts littered in city parks and at major city-sponsored events.

The key to the success of any campaign is education.  Keep America Beautiful, Inc. reports that 62% of butt litter occurs because there is no awareness, education.  We planned to educate the citizens of Suffolk about the fact that cigarette butts are litter too.  This was accomplished by distributing cigarette litter prevention brochures and pocket ashtrays during all Suffolk Clean Community Commission events and major City-sponsored events such as Peanut Fest and TGIF concerts.  We will also grab citizens’ attention through public service messages and visual reminders using the slogan, “Butts Are Litter Too!”

We provided adequate ash receptacles in City parks.  Portable receptacles were purchased for city-sponsored events.  The City of Suffolk participates in Clean the Bay, a regional cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, annually.  Following the day’s events, a look at the reports from the Zone Captains usually show that there were more cigarette butts collected at the cleanup sites than anything else.  During last year’s Clean the Bay Day, the Zone Captain at Bennett’s Creek Park reported 1811 cigarette butts collected.

The intent of this grant is to support sustainable prevention and a measurable reduction of cigarette litter.  While a few city parks already have ash receptacles, most of them did not.  Study results also state that for every additional ash receptacle, the littering rate for cigarette butts decreases by nine percent. With this in mind, grant funds will primarily be used to purchase ash receptacles for the city’s five major and eight neighborhood parks.  With the availability of these ash receptacles, we are hoping for proper cigarette butt disposal.  The City of Suffolk’s Public Works department will provide the in kind service of emptying the ash receptacles at city parks and events.

The project was led by Hattie Lester, City of Suffolk Litter Control Coordinator and Kathy Russell, chair of the Suffolk Clean Community Commission.  Ms. Lester held this position for two years and increased the city’s beautification, community greening and recycling initiatives since coming on board.  She was integral in writing, attaining, and administering a $10,000 Waste Management grant through Keep America Beautiful, Inc. after only being with the city a year.  The grant was used to implement a Recycling Rangers paper recycling program in two Suffolk Public Schools.  She incorporated quarterly recycling drives in the Litter Control Program and has increased the number of community and neighborhood cleanups in the city by 50 percent.  Kathy Russell is the Educational Representative with Tidewater Fiber Company (TFC Recycling).  She has been with TFC Recycling for six and a half years.  However, she has been in the waste management industry since 1994. TFC Recycling provides recycling services for cities of Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Suffolk Battles Cigarette Litter Keep Virginia Beautiful - To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.