Dear Clean Valley Friends,

It’s that time of the year when our clean up bags and gloves are packed away, the education programs are slowing for the holiday season and thoughts turn to what makes CVC run and thrive; our volunteers, supporters and sponsors. I can’t thank you enough for all that you do to help us continue our efforts, whether you volunteer your time at any one of our cleanup or outreach events or you support us with a monetary donation. Together we continue to make our beautiful Roanoke Valley a cleaner, healthier, and better place to live. For more than 35 years, we have worked to provide education, support and outreach efforts to promote recycling, reduce littering, improve stormwater pollution prevention, and engage our

Winter Newsletter

Clean Valley Council

Clean Valley Council

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

On September 20, the dedication of the Ann Davey Masters Sculpture Garden was held at Vic Thomas Park along the Roanoke River. Attended by more than 100 people, including members of the Masters and Vic Thomas families, dear friends and city officials, three sculptures were dedicated: Calling the Powers by Lawrence Reid Bechtel, Annie’s Peace by Betty Branch and Vertical Break by the late Paul Ostaseski. Many thanks and kudos to Laura Wasko and Sandy Murray, commit-tee co-chairs for spearheading this effort in coordination with the City of Roanoke and the Roanoke City Arts Commission. It was a sunny, clear, blue-sky day tribute to the lovely, dedicated and passionate woman who nurtured, developed, and grew this organization. We invite you all to take a walk on the greenway this spring to enjoy the sculptures amidst the wildflowers in this park setting right next to our Roanoke River. Thanks again to all those who supported the efforts to honor and commemorate Ann!

ANN D. MASTERS SCULPTURE GARDEN

citizens with the benefits of protecting our natural environment. We do good things each year and to keep you better informed on our activities and upcoming events we introduce this inaugural newsletter. Look for our biannual newsletter and quarterly e-news briefs in 2013 and let us know how we can continue supporting, serving and protecting the won-derful environment we are all so lucky to call our home.

Happy Holidays and we look forward to seeing you all next year! - Cristina Siegel

During the 2011-2012 school year we provided over 700 free programs for 19,000+ students! Our education programs continue to evolve and grow and the high volume of requests we receive has spurred us to increase our staffing to two full-time environmental educators, Dawn Luther and Daniel Harrison. These fantastic and fun educators are leading the charge as we edu-cate youth of all ages throughout the valley on recycling, waste reduction, stormwater pollution and natural resource conservation. In addition to our classroom programs, we get the kids outside planting riparian buffer trees, marking stormdrains and in the creek doing stream health sampling. Two great interns joined us this year too, Erin O’Donnell and Caitlin Verdu who helped with education programs, office tasks and even creating stormwater brochures in Spanish. Thanks Erin and Caitlin!

EDUCATING FUTURE ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS

OUTREACH PROGRAMSNorth Cross high school students spent a day with us planting trees along Tinker Creek as a service project with the Upper River Roanoke Roundtable. None of these kids had planted trees before, but by the end of the day they had hauled burlap covered roots, shoveled soil, mulched, and watered 15 trees, creating a wonderful protective riparian buffer. A North Cross middle school group helped mark over 35 storm-drains, while also picking up litter, around their school, and in nearby neighborhoods. The painted marking they applied says “Drains to River,

Program Highlight: This year marked the 14th year of Earth Summit, our day-long environmental summit for high school students. Ninety students and their teachers from 5 High Schools attended our program called Plastics! Students learned from local recycling experts during a panel discussion and engaged in activities to learn more about plastic waste and recycling, and plastics effects on the environment and human health. Earth Summit evolved from the dream of a young intern and continues to be an engaging and rewarding experience for all involved.

Meet the educators

We’ll Come To You! Want to learn more about recycling, trash facts and litter prevention, electronic waste, composting, stormwater pollution prevention, and how you can make a difference? We do presentations and coordinate service projects for your class, Boy Scout, Girl Scout, church or other group. We also offer programming for adult groups, civic organi-zations and businesses on a variety of environmental topics. Give us a call and schedule a program for your group.

Daniel HarrisonEnvironmental Educator

The Bag Coat!250 Plastic BagsJust 25% of the average amount of plastic bags the average American uses annually.

Dawn LutherEnvironmental Educator

No Dumping” to help educate folks about the pollution hazards caused by dumping anything down storm-drains. They learned first-hand about the plethora of cigarette butts, plastic bottles and other trash the ends up in the stormdrains and eventually our creeks and rivers. Thanks to both these groups for their hard work to benefit our environment.

Since 1999, the amount of electronic waste produced in the US has increased over 120% and only 25% of that 2.37 million tons of E- waste is recycled. This year we contin-ued our great E-waste collection partnership with Roanoke Natural

Foods, Goodwill and Natural Awakenings Magazine and added new partners Yokohama Tire, Wades Food and Friendly City Coop to expand our collection to new sites in Salem, Christiansburg, Radford and Harrisonburg.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to bring your old electronic gadgets and gizmos we collected over 27,100 lbs of electronics. The Roanoke Natural Foods location topped the list with 201 donors bringing in 14,807 pounds of electronics. Wow! Computers and related equipment were 50% of the material collected, along with 22% TV’s and 28% other electronics. Bringing your old electronic goods to be recycled responsibly benefits the environment and our community by: reducing the environmental and health impacts of the toxic components like lead, cadmium, and chromium found in old electronics; reducing the amount of materials sent to landfill; increasing the re-use and refurbishment of old equipment; and reducing of energy needed to make new goods.

E-WASTE COLLECTION EFFORTS

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!You all collected 58 TONS of trash and more than 500 tires during our 2012 Clean Valley Day and Fall Waterways Cleanups. Wow! We are so lucky to have the most consistent and dedicated cleanup volunteers in the state. On Clean Valley Day we had 70 teams with 1368 volunteers out scouring the Valley for winter’s trash. During Fall Waterways Cleanup we had 45 Teams with 816 volunteers out to clean up our creeks and rivers. Many volunteers attended the after-cleanup celebration picnic; what fun. Super volunteers, good food, great exhibitors, and wonderful music provided by our friends Watershed Conspiracy: a perfect way to spend the fall day making our Valley a cleaner and healthier place.

Thanks to all our sponsors: Orvis, City of Roanoke, Roanoke County, Town of Vinton, Roanoke Natural Foods & Coca Cola. We couldn’t do it without you.

We love the trash data you are collecting for us! This data is used in statewide reports, and helps us provide information to municipalities and agencies for legislation and other needs.

11,000 Trash ITems

4538 DrInk ConTaIners

3900 FooD ConTaIners

1200 CIgareTTe ITems

800 PlasTIC Bags

easTer egg (w/ CanDy)nerF gun

mannequIn leg

17 gallons oF PaInT

golF Balls

soCCer Balls

muFFler

TV seT & saTellITe DIsh

PlasTIC Forks & sPoons

CrIB maTTress

BaskeTBall BaCkBoarD

swImmIng nooDles

razor sCooTer

eleCTrICal ComPonenTs

BICyCles

DesoTo huBCaP

BarBells

BrIeFCase

DIaPers

YOU ARE REALLY STARTING TO PILE IT UP!A sampling of items from the Fall Waterways Data Forms.

2013 sCheDule oF eVenTs

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Citizens Stormwater Advisory Committee

Clean Valley Day

Earth Day Celebration

Blue Ridge Marathon

Citizens Stormwater Advisory Committee

E.C.O. E-Waste Collection

Fall Waterways Cleanup

GreenLiving & Energy Expo

Earth Summit

February 27, 2013

April 13, 2013

April 20, 2013

April 20, 2013

May 29, 2013

September (Date TBD)

October 5, 2013

November (Date TBD)

November 14, 2013

Clean Valley CounCil • www.CleanValley.org • (540) 345-5523 • 541 luCk aVe., Suite 319, roanoke, Va 24016

We appreciate the support of all our volunteers, supporters and contributors. Please consider supporting us by volunteering at one of our cleanup events or service projects next year. We are always happy to have volunteers, interns and groups with a good service project idea. Contact us!

Or, please consider helping us by making a donation. Your support allows us to keep offering our great education and outreach programs. You can contribute by sending in a donation by mail or through our online donation page at: www.cleanvalley.org/donate. Thank You!