As reported in last month’s newsletter, Greentown has adopted the Permanante Creek channel from the Santa Clara Valley  Water District. Help us celebrate GreenTown’s creek adoption and stewardship by joining our first creek cleanup on Saturday, May 21st from 9am-noon. Sign up for this free event at: http://permanentecreek.eventbrite.com/ We will meet at Heritage Oaks Park on the corner of Portland Ave. and Miramonte. This will be a great opportunity to see and learn about the channel (which is normally inaccessible behind fencing). Gloves and trash bags will be provided. We plan to pick up litter and trash along the Permanente channel (the gates will be unlocked on this day for creek cleanup volunteers) and if time permits, also the section upstream that borders Heritage Oaks Park. There are several good reasons to participate in the May 21st cleanup, which also happens to be National River Cleanup Day: Volunteer locally while others do the same nationwide Learn a bit of creek history and some current problems Demonstrate your concern for birds and downstream wildlife that depend on this creek by picking up items that can injure or kill them Stop the flood of trash that makes its way from creeks to the Bay and eventually out into the ocean When done we’ll bring our bags of trash back to Heritage Oaks park for sorting, counting, and photographing. Some of the plastic will be saved for a future art project.

GreenTown Los Altos gives a green thumbs up to the Los Altos School District Living Classroom Program for winning Acterra’s Business Environmental Awards in the “Environmental Project” category. The prize, announced in late April, rewards “a specific environmental project that has demonstrated significant leadership in a focused area, such as resource conservation, environmental outreach, pollution prevention, or minimizing carbon footprint.” Kudos to program founder Vicki Moore, Program Director, Mike Sanderson, and Los Altos School District middle school teacher, Courtney Cadwell, who helped develop many of the lesson plans. “As a Living Classroom docent, I know first hand how effective the Living Classroom lessons are in engaging students in garden-based science, social studies and math lessons,” notes Margie Suozzo, Chair of GreenTown Los Altos’ Leadership Team. Living Classroom lessons are available for all elementary grades (typically there are 4-6 lessons per grade), with new lessons being piloted at the middle school level. Some examples include the following:They cover a range of topics, from science to social studies, using garden-based instruction, e.g.: 2nd graders, whose curriculum includes studying plant lifecycles, examine wheat in a three part lesson, from seed to pretzel; 3rd graders, studying the Ohlone, harvest and measure corn, beans and squash produced in a traditional three-sisters garden; 6th graders sow and grow plants that were critical to ancient civilizations highlighted in their curriculum. Walt Hayes, Chair of Acterra’s Business Environmental Awards Judging Committee notes that “Our team found this project totally inspiring in all ways, including features like its creativity and comprehensiveness, its integration with state curriculum standards, how its turnkey approach avoids burdening teachers, and the way it achieves all those goals on a minimal budget. ” GreenTown gives the Living Classroom program our green thumbs up! For more information, contact the Living Classroom program, please contact Mike Sanderson at 650-947-1103.

Once you’ve signed up for the Drive Less Challenge, here’s how to log your trips. Sign In to Your Account You’ll see a page that looks like this: You may find that your “nickname” and password are already filled in.  If not, enter the name and password you chose when you first signed up.  Then click Login. Next, you’ll see a page that looks something like this: Under “where did you go?” select the type of trip you took (work, errands, etc.) from the dropdown menu. Under “how did you get there” select your mode of transportation (walk, bike, bus, carpool, drove car alone, etc.) Enter the miles and the date and click “Log this trip.” Your total miles, “green” miles and CO2 will be tracked for you. Any questions, email us at bike@greentownlosaltos.org or comment on this post. Bike! Walk! Win!

Los Altos businesses have really stepped up to entice you to get out of your car and walk, bike, skate, or carpool.  So far, 24 businesses in Los Altos have contributed some fantastic prizes totaling over $1600 in value, including: Bike Gear Gift certificates and gear from Bicycle Outfitter and Chain Reaction Eats Gift certificates from Andronico’s, Baskin Robbins, Brian’s Restaurant, Chef Chu’s, Esther’s German Bakery, Rick’s Café and Sumo Sushi and some goodies from Peet’s. Services and Health Products Teeth Whitening by Dr. John McBirney, DDS Gift certificates for nail, hair and healing arts treatments from Jolie Madame, Andiamo Salon and Firefly Willows and for health products from Peggy’s Health Center. Alterations by Paris Tailor Gifts and Products for Your Home Gift certificates from Alabasta Flower Shop, BK Collections, Cranberry Scoop, Hartman Fashions, Linden Tree, Los Altos Hardware and Vintage Bath. How Can You Win These Prizes? Sign up for the Drive Less Challenge by visiting www.drivelesschallenge.com and clicking on “Take the Challenge.”  Be sure to select “Los Altos/Hills” as your community.  Compete as an individual or gather up some friends, co-workers, fellow students or neighbors to compete as a group.  Then log your trips and your miles. Prize Categories Most Green Miles by Mode (e.g., bike, walk, bus, train, carpool, small electric) Most Green Trips Most Green Shopping Trips Best Blog Story Most Improved (must input a baseline) Greenest Group Largest Group We also plan to do a few random drawings, so you could win a prize just by signing up for the contest! #bike #contest #fun #walk

Students at the GreenTown Los Altos table with Mike Barnes On April 5, 2011, Joe Eyre, GreenTown’s Water Stewardship Chair, and I staffed a table for GreenTown Los Altos at the annual St. Francis High School Earth Day Every Day event. This event, held on campus during lunch breaks, was organized by the St. Francis High School Environmental Club Moderator, member of the Science faculty, Roberta Chisam, as well as students of the Environmental Club. GreenTown Los Altos was joined by representatives of the Fish and Wildlife Agency, The Pacific Gyre Clean-Up Project, Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department, the Plug-In Car Initiative featuring a GM Volt, and Summer Winds Nursery featuring native plant species. I offered students information about compostable containers that the GreenTown Co-op is offering to restaurants in Los Altos. These containers are environmentally-preferable to styrofoam take-out containers.  Our compostable containers can be disposed in the compost stream and break down in 180 days leaving a non-toxic residue that supports plant growth, whereas biodegradable containers, made of some organic material and some petroleum-based material, must be disposed of in a landfill because the resulting residue is toxic and will not support plant growth. St. Francis students at the Earth Day event Joe Eyre offered information on our water conservation and stewardship effort. Both of us were able to talk about the upcoming events on the GreenTown Los Altos calendar, including an April 27 talk at the Los Altos Library on water-saving lawns and the Permanente Creek Cleanup on May 21. The creek cleanup event is particularly relevant for St. Francis students as Permanente Creek runs right behind the campus. It was an enjoyable afternoon and it was great to see the interest by the students in advancing their understanding of environmental issues. By Mike Barnes Chair, Business Co-Op Program GreenTown Los Altos

Here are some top ways to help you and your families be water stewards. Average residential use of water Conserve Water Get a Water Wise House Call from the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Reduce outdoor water use through efficient irrigation and native plants. Take advantage of water district rebates for toilets, washers, and turf replacement. Stop water waste inside and out. Reduce Watershed Pollution Protect our streams and the Bay by: Tuning up your irrigation and/or use drip to prevent water overspray that runs into storm drains and to the creeks.  Native plants help by using less water. Eliminate or reduce lawn chemical use: synthetic fertilizers, weedkillers, and pest killers that kill stream life. Wash your car at the car wash.  Do not hose off your driveway. Minimize Wastewater Pollution Chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other substances cannot be removed by the Regional Water Quality Control Plant and end up flowing into the Bay with the released effluent.  Minimize this by not dumping anything in the wastewater.  Properly dispose at hazardous waste dropoff sites. Think about what you eat You can take short showers for a year and save less water than eating a pound of beef, which requires over 2,500 gallons of water to grow and produce.  Other foods, such as butter, pork, and almonds are also very water intensive. –Joe Eyre, Chair Water Stewardship Committee

Water is a unique resource necessary for sustaining life and not substitutable with any other substance. As our population and economy grow, it is important to efficiently manage the water we have and protect our watersheds. The GreenTown Los Altos Water Stewardship Program educates and encourages Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents to: Conserve water, both indoors and outdoors.  We want to build the ethic of wise water use that will enable a high quality of life for future generations. Reduce pollution to our streams and the Bay. We have the vision of healthy, passable streams that would enable Steelhead trout to return. We also want to minimize wastewater pollution that ultimately flows into the Bay. Our committee is currently working on several exciting projects and could use more volunteers! For more information or to join, contact: Joe Eyre, Water Stewardship Committee Chair at water@greentownlosaltos.org or (408) 857-8609.

On Monday, March 7, GreenTown Los Altos volunteers toured Alameda County Industries (ACI), the recycling facility used by the City of Los Altos’ solid waste and recycling hauler, Mission Trail Waste Systems (MTWS). Louie Pellegrini, co-owner of ACI and MTWS, gave the tour. Teresa Montgomery, outreach coordinator for MTWS, who helped organize the visit, and Denise Donahue, in charge of MTWS’ commercial sales, joined us for the tour. Check out photos from the day. GreenTown Los Altos members and Mission Trail staff In the ACI process, all commingled recyclables collected at curbside are delivered onto the floor of the facility and then moved by front-end loaders to a conveyor, where the sorting process begins. A combination of hand-picking by employees and automated sorting follows. Hand pickers pull off of the conveyor: (i) those items that are problematic for the huge automated sorter to handle, (ii) materials that contaminate the final bales of recyclables, and (iii) trash. We saw workers pulling off large pieces of cardboard and funneling them into a bin for later recycling. Plastic bags were pulled off to reduce contamination of the paper recycling stream. Because of their low weight, these products tend to follow paper and high-value plastics (numbers 1 and 2) through the automated sorting process. Workers also pulled trash, off the line. We witnessed workers wrestling with a rather awkward set of broken and discarded vinyl blinds, which were ultimately, trashed. Next the recyclables goes through a series of blowers and magnets to separate out specific materials. Heavy glass falls into a recycling hopper while paper and plastic bottles are blown up and into a stream of their own for later separation. A magnet pulls out the metal cans. Once separated, cardboard, paper, HDPE and PET plastics, miscellaneous plastic, glass and metal are each baled and shipped to manufacturers who use the materials to create packaging or other products. “Everyone should be required to do this once a year!” says Barbara O’Reilly, a tour participant. Indeed! The experience certainly makes you more mindful of what you put in the recycling bin. The recycling tour revealed that certain waste products are very difficult to successfully process as recyclables: the main culprit being plastic bags! Currently, about 15 percent of what comes in as recycling ends up in the landfill as “residue” from the recycling process. We can help reduce this number. Here are our main take-aways from the tour: Buy less packaging! You can start by buying less, reusing more, bringing your own bags and purchasing items in bulk. Recycle plastic bags at the grocery store. If you do end up with plastic bags (and they are ubiquitous), bring them to your local grocery store drop-off for recycling. These stores typically get a much cleaner stream of plastic bags than our recycling contractor can. Plastic bags recycled from grocery stores end up as plastic lumber. Plastic bags in the residential recycling stream, often end up as contaminants of other recyclable materials. Read your recycling guide. MTWS Residential Services Guide (Los Altos) and GreenWaste’s Recycle Guide (Los Altos Hills) tell us what we can and can’t put in the recycling, compost and trash bins. Trash the trash. Don’t throw trash in the recycling bin! Of course, one person’s trash is often another person’s treasure. If it’s in decent condition or can be salvaged, see if you can give it away on Los Altos’ freecycle. By Margie Suozzo #Waste

Did you know that drunk drivers are more attentive than car-driving cell phone users? Cell phone use in the car is one of the hazards faced by bicyclists in town, according to representatives of the Los Altos Police Department. This and other bicycle safety facts were presented by a fun group of police officers, including Sargents Matthew Hartley and Paul Arguelles and Officer Eric Brooks at the GreenTown’s Bike and Bike Safety Expo on March 29, 2011. Expo-goers had a chance to ride the Google Trike — used to map pathways for Google Maps StreetViews. They checked out a folding bike and witnessed the impressive acceleration of a “belt” bike from Chain Reaction; they got to ride a 3-wheeler and check out a pretty cruiser and tandem from Bicycle Outfitters, and had a chance to see Mike’s Bikes’ electric bicycle. Participants also learned from Dave Prion of Bicycle Outfitters about safety vests, lights, racks, and bags that make getting around town by bike both easier and safer. Karen “KJ” Janowski of GreenTown Los Altos wrapped up the evening with a call to join the Drive Less Challenge. Tablers at the Bike and Bike Safety Expo included the above-mentioned bike shops as well as the Los Altos Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, and Safe Moves, a bike safety education organization. Several participants walked away with $20 gift certificates or a rear bike light from Mike’s Bikes, two won lovely GreenTown t-shirts, and one especially lucky participant, Mike Gospe, won a bicycle and helmet from Safe Moves. The Expo rendered all participants just a little more prepared for the Drive Less Challenge! Beginning on Earth Day (April 22) and running for two weeks, the Drive Less Challenge is a fun social competition to encourage alternatives to driving solo.  Participants can sign up online and participate as individuals or in groups.  You keep track of how you get from place to place, taking opportunities to walk, bicycle, take public transit, or carpool instead of driving alone. Riding your bike or walking to run errands, buy groceries or dining out is great for your health, fun and good for local businesses. Compete for prizes in several categories or just for bragging rights! Are you ready? If not, visit your local bike shop, plan your bus route, arrange carpooling, and sign up at www.drivelesschallenge.com. For more information on the Bike and Bike Safety Expo, see the article and video produced by Los Altos Patch.

GreenTown volunteer Gary Hedden attended the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards on Tuesday, March 22, World Water Day. These awards go to organizations, agencies, businesses and individuals whose programs and leadership have advanced water conservation in Silicon Valley. During the ceremony Gary observed the passion that so many people bring to this cause with the award highlights being: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies now treats their waste water for reuse as make-up water for their cooling towers, saving 70 million gallons per year!! San Jose State University now recycles water for irrigation, toilet flushing and other uses, saving 80 million gallons per year. ET Water Systems supplies high-tech irrigation management systems that use real time weather data to control the sprinklers, allowing homeowners and businesses to reduce water use by as much as 50%. Our City Forest. This San Jose non-profit promotes the value of trees to purify our air and water as well as cool our cities. And Ken and Sally Coverdell with Blue Sky Designs and Blue Sky Farms in Half Moon Bay, show what individuals can do. They reduced their water use by 80% by converting to native landscape and capturing storm water runoff. As a side note, the event was held at the Humane Society Silicon Valley in Milpitas. This is a new facility built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification standards. The society wanted a facility that was beautiful and healthy for their animals while being energy and water efficient. They use extensive natural lighting, solar power, water-efficient kennel washing and much more. The facility is quiet and the dogs and cats “on display” seem very happy as they play with some of the 800 volunteers who help out. Outside they created low areas to capture rain and irrigation water that can seep down to the aquifer below. Finally, their landscaping uses a combination of native plants and artificial grass, saving thousands of dollars a year in watering and mowing. For more information on the awards, visit http://www.waterawards.org/

Barbara O’Reilly, a volunteer for GreenTown’s Water Stewardship Committee, passionately believes that our members should learn about and care for one of our local streams so that we can understand their history and what it takes to make them healthy enough to support fish and other wildlife. “What better way to get to know our watershed than to be responsible for a part of it,” says Barbara, a longtime GreenTown volunteer. To make this a reality, she has spearheaded a two-part effort to manage sections of Permanente Creek just north of Loyola Corners. The first section runs along Heritage Oaks Park and represents the creek in a fairly natural state. Working with the City of Los Altos, she has offered that GreenTown will clean that section. Contrasting this is the Permanent Creek Diversion Channel, for which Barb, on behalf of GreenTown, initiated adoption proceedings from the Santa Clara Valley Water District Adopt-A-Creek program. This channel section runs from Portland Ave. (and Miramonte) to where it flows under Hwy 85 near its connection with Stevens Creek in Mountain View. The Water Stewardship Committee plans to organize educational events on the creek as well as twice-yearly creek cleanups. The first GreenTown Creek Cleanup will be held on National River Cleanup Day, Saturday May 21, 2011, from 9am to noon. Sign up here http://permanentecreek.eventbrite.com to help clean up our newly-adopted creek section, learn about the different parts of the creek, and gain access to the fenced-in area of the channel as part of the cleanup team. Pictures of this channel are shown below. View more photos on our Facebook Page. Diversion Channel from Portland Bridge Diversion Channel by Blach School

The Drive Less Challenge is a fun social competition to encourage alternatives to driving solo.  Participants can sign up online and participate as individuals or in groups.  You keep track of how you get from place to place, taking opportunities to walk, bicycle, take public transit, or carpool instead of driving alone.   Compete for prizes in several categories or just for bragging rights!  Several other local cities – Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City and Burlingame – also are signed up to participate.  The Drive Less Challenge begins on Earth Day, April 22, 2011, and runs for two weeks. To kick off the challenge, GreenTown Los Altos will host a community meeting on Tuesday, March 29, 7  to 9 pm at Hillview Community Center.  Come learn about bicycle/pedestrian safety and about the latest bikes, gear and accessories for safe commuting and errand-running.  A Los Altos police officer will provide safety tips for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists who share the roads.  A bicycle expert will demonstrate useful gear and accessories for visibility, comfort, and carting things around.  We’ll even display some of the latest bicycle styles, including an adult three-wheeler.  Join us!