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March/April 1998
Newsletter Co-Editors:
Diane Mellinger, Jeff Myers, and Rudy
Osenbaugh
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March/April 1998
Newsletter Co-Editors:
Diane Mellinger, Jeff Myers, and Rudy
Osenbaugh
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This spring the IRC will be an environmental sponsor of the Ninth Annual Earth Day Indiana Festival. The festival will be held on Saturday, April 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the American Legion Mall and Veterans Memorial Plaza in downtown Indianapolis. The festival is the single largest one-day environmental event in the state drawing more than 10,000 participants. The festival provides a forum for not-for-profit organizations, various government agencies and local companies to communicate their environmental activities and success stories directly with the festival-goers.
This year's festival theme is "A Healthy Environment Makes A World Of Difference." As an environmental sponsor, the IRC will join 11 other environmental sponsors in promoting the festival, staffing an information booth, and conducting a community outreach project (the upcoming annual conference). Ten corporate sponsors underwrite many of the festival's costs, and WTTS Radio, WXIN-TV, and NUVO Newsweekly handle festival promotion.
There will be over 90 exhibits at the festival along with many special events. Eight alternative fuel vehicles will be on display. The Steel Recycling Institute, hosted by the Cinergy Corporation will be scooping out free ice cream all day long. There will be professional musicians entertaining the festival-goers, and a children's tent will have 14 hands-on activities for young people to make different arts and crafts using recycled materials.
The IRC wants to sign-up new members, communicate the importance of recycling, and encourage interested parties to attend the Annual Conference on April 28 & 29th. With the Governor's Environmental Conference taking place on April 24th at the Indiana Convention Center, the IRC will close out the month of April with a bang.
For more information about Earth Day Indiana Festival, call IRC Board Member, Jeff Miller, at 317/328-1189 or via email at Jeffrey [email protected].
If you want to help staff the Earth Day Indiana Festival IRC booth and join in the fun, please contact the IRC office at 283-6226 or email [email protected].
The Regional Household Hazardous Waste Task Force (RHHWTF) is at it again! The group has just received approval of an IDEM grant proposal to develop a statewide household mercury awareness and collection campaign. Mercury has many sources in the average home, from thermometers and thermostats to fluorescent bulbs, batteries and automatic shut-off irons. While mercury is safe when contained inside such products, it can pose a significant health threat if the product should break. When disposed of with trash, mercury is released into the environment through incinerator emissions and landfill gas. Once in the environment, mercury can bioaccumulate in the food chain causing a variety of neurologic disorders, which can ultimately lead to death. The effects are especially insidious in children.
The intent of the project is threefold: to educate residents about the dangers and sources of household mercury; promote the purchase of safer non-mercury products; and provide convenient mercury collection locations throughout Indiana. The goal is to reduce the release of mercury into our environment. Collected mercury will be recycled. Through this project, the group seeks to significantly reduce the threat of mercury for all Hoosiers. The campaign is scheduled to kickoff in October 1998 to coincide with National Child Health Month. IDEM hopes all solid waste districts in the state will choose to participate. For further information about this project, contact Susan Haislip at 812-354-2924 or Jeff Myers at 812-659-3788.
The text is now available in two separate books: Edition A, containing translations in Hmong, Laotian, Korean, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Chinese; and Edition B, containing translations in Spanish, Somali, Russian, Farsi, Bosnian, and Arabic. Both editions have identical English language exercises, so you can use both languages simultaneously.
These new editions have been expanded to include more information on the positive results of reducing and recycling waste, as they directly affect students' lives.
For information on ordering these textbooks, contact Multi-Cultural Education Services at 612/767-7786 or by e-mail [email protected]. Both books are also available as pdf documents through this website: http://www.pro-ns.net/~larue
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