Walkin' the talk

Residents at Reeds Landing, staff at Shriner's Hospital promote green living agendas By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor In a perfect world, we'd all drive zero-emission cars, recycle or compost everything in our homes, use energy-saving lighting and appliances, and employ less toxic methods of keeping our yards up and cleaning our homes and clothes. But let's face it, we all live in the real world, and here, living "greener" takes education, effort and most of all, commitment. Can it be done? You bet. In fact, greener living is taking place right now in Springfield, in some places you wouldn't expect. The Reeds Landing 'Green Sox' It's easy to overlook this retirement community, set back off Wilbraham Road on the shores of Lake Massasoitt. But there's a grassroots movement brewing in this bucolic community of cottages and apartments, assisted living and continuing care facilities, that made PRIME take notice. Recently dubbed the "Green Sox," this group of about eight environmentally-minded retirees have been working with the management of Reeds Landing over the past few years to, essentially, clean up its ecological act. "Prior to the formation of the Green Sox, we had an ecology committee that met once a month to determine what we could do," said Dr. Joel Cohen, the former department head of the Biology and Health Sciences departments at Springfield College. A retired microbiologist, he told PRIME he is very concerned about the environment. "I'm concerned that if we don't do something about recycling that [the world's population] is going to find [itself] under a pile of slowly degrading trash. Bacteria don't like to eat plastic and paper doesn't break down very quickly in landfills," he said. Reduce, reuse, recycle In fact, one of the first suggestions the ecology committee made was to improve Reed's recycling program. Cohen, a Springfield resident, said he had been an avid recycler. Several residents who had formerly lived in Wilbraham were also accustomed to a more aggressive level of recycling. "They were doing some," said former Wilbraham resident and Johnson's Bookstore owner Charles Johnson as he gave PRIME a tour of Reeds. "But with the experience from Wilbraham, we felt they could do more." It was not just the residents who could do a better job at recycling, he said, but also the administrative and other management areas of the facility. Today, all offices at Reeds have paper recycling bins and the trash rooms on each floor include containers where residents can separate paper, plastic and metal recyclables and mercury-containing batteries, such as those in hearing aids, from regular trash. Framed explanations of what's supposed to go in each container help guide those that are not as accustomed to sorting their waste. It's not perfect or easy, Cohen said, but they continue to spread the word. "I still think we have a great deal of education within," he said. "No matter how hard we try, in some areas people are not recycling." "People who have not lived in locales that do recycling are not ready to do this," he continued. "It takes [them] longer to become acclimated to the idea." Johnson said they also encourage the re-use of items when possible. "I've always been sensitive to trash, waste and the potential for re-use," he said. "We're working with the office to reuse paper .we turn out 50 new menus a day [and] we're looking into effective ways to recycle, such as cutting them into smaller size notepaper. "The ultimate goals is zero trash," Johnson said. "The odds of getting there are slim, but we have to try." Lighting and energy consumption is another area the Green Sox has tackled at Reeds. Johnson said the management at Reeds had swapped out all the major light fixtures in the facility for more energy-efficient units a few years ago. "The electric company went 50/50 with us because we're such a large facility," he said. "Now we're promoting that all residents pick up the swirl-style [fluorescent] lightbulbs." Cohen said these bulbs are available in the store run by Reeds residents "at a very low rate as opposed to the grocery stores." "In my own apartment I have six to eight lamps and all are are using the new fluorescent bulbs," he said. "Some of the bulbs I put in lamps before I moved here. They've lasted seven-and-a-half years." Though Cohen acknowledged that there is a problem with recycling the mercury in these bulbs, he said he believed there are companies currently studying the problem of fluorescent bulb recycling. Another energy-saving move Johnson said the Green Sox are promoting to residents is to "turn their thermostats a bit lower and wear a sweater." Another area that Johnson said the Green Sox/ecology committee is helping Reeds explore the development of a composting program for the facility's food scraps and organic waste. "Allied Waste told us about Shriner's Hospital doing composting," Johnson said. "That was an eye-opener. Big Y does composting, too." He said that there is also a group of restaurants in Amherst and Northampton that are participating in a composting program. "There's an outfit that picks up from the composting collection bins and takes it to Greenfield, where 12 farms do composting," Johnson said. "We're looking into composting," Cohen said. "But to pick up material from individual apartments and other areas will be a little difficult." Taking a look at toxins "We are also trying to see the best way we can change some of the materials that are being used by groundskeepers here, making sure we are using the right kinds of chemicals on the grounds for weed control, and using the correct type of cleaning materials," said Cohen, who also shared that he is very concerned about the overall effect of chemicals in the environment on global warming. He said that the Green Sox have been working with Housekeeping to come up with cleaning products that are "biodegradable, and not toxic." We are dealing with elderly people living here," Cohen said. "And they may be more susceptible to the action of [ toxic chemicals]." Both Johnson and Cohen said Reeds also hopes to work with Springfield College in the near future to begin studying ways to improve the quality of the water in Lake Massasoit. "You used to be able to swim in it," Johnson said. "You can't now." Spreading the word About six months ago, the Green Sox also started making an effort to share their spirit of environmentalism with the public. With the help of the Darby O'Brien advertising agency and the blessing of the administration at Reeds Landing, the Sox initiated a series of "green topic" lectures at Reeds. "We were developing an advertising and marketing campaign for Reeds," agency owner Darby O'Brien told PRIME. "As we got rolling we asked to speak to quite a few residents about what interested them. We found a high interest in environmentalism." O'Brien said he also found residents were interested in "doing something relating to the environment with the community." Based on these conversations, O'Brien contacted Bill Ravanesi, Longmeadow resident and regional director of Boston-based Healthcare Without Harm, and pitched a series of public environmental lectures at Reeds. To date the topics have included household chemicals, chemicals in cosmetics and plastics. Deborah White, a member of the marketing staff at Reeds Landing, said response for the cosmetics and plastics lectures were so large Reeds had to schedule both an afternoon and evening session. "We've had [Bill] here talking on various topics," said Nancy Nieske, another Green Sox member. "We'll have more talks with Bill on more topics." Helen Kidess, another Green Sox member, said she sees these lectures as tapping in to the public's growing awareness of environmental issues. She referred to the educational effect as a "multiplier factor." "I see Reeds Landing as a spearhead and a leader in terms of communicating this [environmental message]," she said. "By having these lectures . anyone who comes in will reach 10 other people." "I like the expression 'walk the talk'," said Kidess, referring to the goals of the Reeds Green Sox. "I hope Reeds Landing is a vehicle for the message .we're living the message here as a community." Shriner's Hospital for Children "Reeds Landing came over and sat with me and I told them what we've done [with composting]," Hermine Levey Weston, director of quality management for the Springfield Shriner's Hospital told PRIME when we called. "I don't know what Reeds took out of my presentation, but they were very excited," she said. She said that Reeds was one of three places she's talked to about the composting program this year. "I presented the information at a national conference in June, I spoke with Reeds, and also Mercy [hospital] just recently," she said. Levey Weston said the composting of all kitchen and tray waste is just a part of the hospital's overall effort to go green. "We started a green team here at the hospital about 18 months ago," she said. "We walked around the hospital and asked staff what they thought they could do to make the hospital greener." She said people were very enthusiastic and "when I went around with my clipboard, everyone had an idea." "There were things as easy as getting more paper recycling containers in departments," Levey Weston said. "To more complex ideas, such as having our excess plastic from the manufacture of orthotics recycled." When the hospital decided to start this project, Levey Weston said she "didn't know how far it would go." "We ended up redesigning our entire waste management facility. It was paper, trash and biohazard. Now we have paper, mixed metal, glass and plastic, compost, plastics from the orthotics, regular trash and biohazard," she said. Before setting up the composting portion of waste management, Levey Weston said Shriner's contacted a consultant from the region's Center for Ecological Technologies. "He came and showed us how to do it so we wouldn't make mistakes," she said. "It's pretty simple, but there are procedures that need to be followed in a hospital or nursing home setting." She also said Shriner's was able to get underwriting for the program's setup fees from the Department of Environmental Protection. In addition to composting kitchen waste, she said Shriner's now also recycles the oil from the frying machines in the kitchen. "We have someone who comes by and collects the grease to make biofuel," she said. "It used to go to a rendering company. [Now] it reduces emissions in the community." And though the hospital swapped from incandescent to fluorescent lighting for all major fixtures some years back, a recent in-service program for employees about ways to live greener at home has renewed the interest in using compact fluorescent in desk lamps. "I gave away compact florescent lightbulbs to everyone who attended, and everyone was very excited," she said. She said the hospital also now has "little stickers that we put on computer screens that say 'go green, turn off your screen'," timers on lights and in some areas motion detectors that switch light on and off. "One of the things you can't underestimate or quantify is the spirit that goes around with doing these things," she said. Editor's Note: Hermine Levey Weston told PRIME she is available to speak to other institutions in the community who are interested in finding ways to "go green." She can be reached directly at 787-2035.