Month: August 2024

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Meeting

A Sustainable Future for People, Wildlife, and Water on the Santa Cruz River

In-Person: Ward 6 office, 3202 E 1st St
Tuesday, September 10, 6:30-8:00 pm

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Did you know that the Santa Cruz River is the 4th most endangered river in the United States? Learn how we can protect this precious river by working to establish the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge.

Designation as an urban national wildlife refuge protects crucial green space, improves and maintains wildlife habitat connectivity, ensures equitable access to the river and surrounding landscape for local communities, and honors the rich cultural and historical connections to the revitalized river. Urban refuges also improve equitable access to the outdoors for local residents by protecting green spaces that support community health and well-being. An urban wildlife refuge designation can protect threatened open space in perpetuity.
 
The ecologically and culturally vibrant Santa Cruz River flows through the heart of Tucson. The proposed refuge boundary would run through both Santa Cruz and Pima Counties. It would include multiple properties along the river to maximize outdoor access and enable holistic habitat protection. The refuge would include several access points along the river where it parallels downtown Tucson.

Our speaker will be Luke Cole, director of the Santa Cruz River program in Sonoran Institute’s Resilient Communities and Watersheds team. Luke joined Sonoran Institute in 2018 and manages the ongoing projects on the Santa Cruz River, working with staff and collaborators to restore and enhance this Living River in the heart of southern Arizona and northern Sonora. Prior to joining the Sonoran Institute, Luke worked for the Washington, D.C. city government tracking the District’s green infrastructure and water quality improvement programs with a focus on coordinating tree planting programs and policy.  Luke has a Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an M.S. in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, and a B.A. in biology from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
 
Luke will present on this community-led conservation project to protect the health of the Santa Cruz River and the native and endangered species that rely on the river. He will provide an update on how this important project is progressing and provide an opportunity for people attending the meeting to write their support for the establishment of the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge.

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Event

Orange Bag Program a Detour from Tucson’s Path to Sustainability

Health, Environment & Climate need a Plastics Detox instead

Tucson residents should reduce and refuse single-use plastic, rather than tucking it in an orange bag, said a Tucson nonprofit dedicated to sustainability.  In a report released today, Sustainable Tucson criticized the Hefty ReNew program for maintaining continued reliance on fossil fuels to produce plastics and for posing serious health and environmental risks by activities like burning plastics in cement kilns and in other high-heat processing.

August 20, 2024

Sustainable Tucson maintained that the corporations behind Hefty ReNew, Dow Chemical and Reynolds Consumer Products, “have a vested interest in fostering demand for single-use disposable plastic, not curtailing it.” The group called on Tucsonans to “shift their focus to reducing and refusing single-use plastic and other disposables instead of spending money buying even more disposable plastic to collect material that was designed to be used once and then thrown away.” 

Sustainable Tucson called on Mayor Romero and the City Council to adopt “front-end strategies that prevent the generation of plastic waste in the first place over approaches that seek to manage it after the fact.”  The report outlines six measures the City could take to “actively promote alternatives to single-use plastic and incentivize new ways to bring products to consumers in refillable and reusable packaging.”

 The report details six key findings:

  • The Hefty ReNew program perpetuates wasteful throwaway systems and single-use habits.
  • Hefty ReNew underscores the fossil fuel industry’s pivot to plastic production as its next major growth market.
  • The program fails to address plastic’s widespread threats to the environment and human health. 
  • Repurposing plastic waste into alternative building and construction materials is not circular. 
  • Turning plastic waste into burnable fuels and/or small amounts of chemicals through pyrolysis and other high heat waste facilities is inefficient and dirty. 
  • Sending plastic waste to cement kilns to create energy is also highly polluting.

Kevin Greene, Chair of Sustainable Tucson’s Zero Waste Committee, is available for interviews.  He may be reached at kevin@sustainabletucson.org, 520-639-8253.

Sustainable Tucson is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to build an equitable and resilient community that will thrive long into the future in harmony with our natural desert environment.

Download the full report here.

heftyrenewst

Categories
Event Meeting

Circular Economy – Is It Possible?


August 13, 2024 @ 6:00

We are again on Zoom, in order to accommodate our out-of-town speaker. 
See you on Zoom.
Nature does it.  Can we do it,?

The average American produces 4.9 pounds of waste per day.  Landfill space may seem abundant, but even now, municipalities worry that their landfills are overfilled.  Increasingly, governments and individuals are looking for ways to reduce or eliminate waste, with concurrent goals of conserving resources, reducing pollution, and fighting climate change.

Key to these efforts is switching to a circular economy – extending the life cycle of products and materials through integrated strategies of repairing, sharing, reusing, refurbishing, and recycling.
 
Join us for a conversation with two local leaders in this movement.
 
Topics will include:Seven pillars of the circular economyThe three models of resource use:linear, reuse, and circularHow circularity can save not only materials but also our climateStrategies for circularity – local, regional, and nationalThe global $4.5 trillion economic opportunityOur Presenters: 
 
Stephen Menke received his Ph.D. in Molecular biology at the University of Wyoming, and recently retired from his position as Associate Professor of Enology at the University of Colorado, after a long career in higher education.  With Rocky Baier, he founded Tucson’s Repair CafĂ© in 2021. 
 
Rocky Baier graduated from the UA in 2020 with a B.A. in Journalism, having spent her undergraduate career reporting for The Arizona Republic, The Daily Star, The Jerusalem Post, and the Wall Street Journal.  She now serves as the Sustainability Analyst and Reporting Coordinator for the University of Texas in Austin.  Since co-founding the Tucson Repair Cafe, she & Stephen have started Eco Lizard, a reusable takeout container service.