Once a month, MAREA holds a meeting with an invited speaker to enlighten and delight us on a topic related to sustainability and renewable energy. The meetings are on the last Tuesday of the month, at 7:00. They are free and open to the public, held in an accessible building located near Kutztown, about 20 minutes from Allentown and 30 minutes from Reading. Join us for coffee, snacks, good conversation and an evening that we hope you'll find informative and inspiring! After the talk we take a break and then have a planning meeting for this year's festival. All are welcome. For more information or to suggest a topic or speaker, contact Bill Hennessy, 484-560-4666, bill@berkssolar.com.  

TEK Park, 9999 Hamilton Boulevard, Breinigsville, PA 18031

For our February meeting, "The Dynamic Power of Native Plants" is the topic of a talk by Susan Tantsits of Edge of the Woods Nursery. Native plants provide four seasons of pleasure, with flowers in the spring, berries in the summer, brilliant colors in the fall and interesting bark and twig patterns in the winter.She will help us better understand native plants and how to use them in our landscape and will take a look at some of the myths regarding native plants. The Pennsylvania Department of Natural Resources has reported that warm-weather invasive species are expanding their range into Pennsylvania. Continued climate change presents opportunities for the expansion of invasive species and leads to bioinvasion, in which a non-native plant enters an area and threatens the livelihood of other plants. 

She'll show us that "going native" can bring sustainable benefits to our lives. Tantsits serves on the Lehigh Carbon Community College Horticulture Advisory Committee and the Floral Design and Greenhouse Management Occupational Advisory committee of Lehigh Career and Technical Institute. She has a B.S. in education from Bloomsburg University and a B.S. in Horticulture from Temple University.

MAREA is planning a series of two-hour workshops on possible topics that include, so far, solar electric design, solar hot water design, structural engineering for solar electric mounting systems, thermodynamics, commissioning solar electric systems, solar oven cooking, reducing electrical use in the home, all about RECs, considerations for commercial solar electricity installations, solar electricity for homeowners and wire crimping for solar installations. Whew! Let us know topics you would like covered and if there's a topic you, or someone you know, would like to instruct. Dates, locations and times will be announced soon. We expect them to be on Saturday mornings with a fee of around $45 for members. We're also nailing down plans for the next solar electric installation workshops. We'll send details as soon as they're available. With ideas or questions, please contact Bill Hennessy, 484-560-4666, bill@berkssolar.com.

MAREA will have a booth at some upcoming events and needs friendly folks to help, no experience necessary!  It's a nice way to spend a few hours, sharing and learning about sustainability progress in our community. We'll provide all the materials and make sure you know what you need to be comfortable, helpful and have a good time. To give a hand, contact Vera Cole, 215-258-0526, veracole@comcast.net. Thank you!!

Lehigh Valley Green Builders Expo, March 19 and 20, Northampton Community College, Bethlehem (www.lvgreenbuilders.org/expo)

Electric Vehicles on Display: "The Cars of Tomorrow on the Road Today," April 30,Macungie Memorial Park, Macungie, PA Details below, thank you!

Reading Area Earth Day, May 1, River Front Park (http://earthdayreadingpaarea.weebly.com/)

Funding is still available in the Pennsylvania Sunshine Rebate programs for residential solar electric installations ($0.75/Watt) and solar hot water (35%). Rebates for residential battery backup are also now included. For details, click here. MAREA is in the early stages of designing research projects, including a longitudinal study of installed residential systems and a survey of installers, and to publish an annotated directory of solar installers. Stay posted!

With questions or ideas, please contact Vera Cole, 215-258-0526, veracole@comcast.net.

 Julie Fiorini, Resource Recovery Coordinator

Waste. Garbage. Trash. Refuse. Who would volunteer to deal with that?!?  But it's a RESOURCE- that's what saving the Earth is about!  So often we throw away our resources- foods compost to rich soils; plastics, glass and metals are made into other products. At the festival this year we were determined to not let things go to waste.  Our Resource Recovery Team had over 40 dedicated volunteers who dared to dive in and sort the compostables, recyclables.

Recycling was an adventure!  People pretty much know the system: cans, plastic, glass.  But some compostable products look a lot like plastic. Our team spent a lot of time sorting compostable cups into the right bags.  After the first day we wised up and started stapling examples on the signs. This really helped a lot.  Cougles Recycling in Hamburg did us a huge favor by picking up the bags at the end of the festival.  It's really great to have local businesses committed to helping the planet!

The best Resource of all was the volunteers that came to help us at the festival.  The Resource Recovery Team worked really hard all weekend long. And I'd like to give a special thanks to the enthusiastic Girl Scouts of Troop 1369, the Boy Scouts that helped prepare the grounds, members of the Sierra Club who put in long hours, students from Kutztown University that were willing to making a difference, our vendors who made the commitment to use compostable products, Will Browder-Little for his help as one of our Resource Recovery Reconnaissance Coordinators, and friends of the festival.  Thank you everyone I look forward to seeing you next year!

At a festival it's hard not to use disposables. With the help of Four Springs Farm we focused on compostable products. With enough heat and the right amount of moisture and time, these products break down into soil. There's a whole range of items-from forks and spoons to coffee lids and straws-that are made from corn, paper, sugar cane stalks, even bamboo. Some of them are like plastics, others are the kinds of paper products we've been using for years.  Four Springs Farm generously let us fill one of their farm trucks over the weekend.  They even gave us some compost that we put in baggies at the Resource Recovery Stations so people could see the wonderful black soil.  Throughout the festival it was very important for us to make sure that only compostable material was in those green compostable bags. Over the next year or two  these will be turned into compost and spread on the farm.

The huge effort started with setting up the Resource Recovery Stations. These were not mere trash cans, but a place for people to consider the every-day reality of disposables.  The twenty stations consisted of three containers each grouped together with big signs: Compost, Recycle and Landfill (little bucket!). For Compostables and Recyclables, we used Windsor Barrel's new Halo bag and frame system; a post in the ground attached to a metal ring which held open the bag. Clear and translucent bags helped people see what was already thrown away, and made the quick choice easier.  Our team could also see right away if something didn't belong. It was no problem for volunteers to reach in and sort items into the right place. This simple process of sorting as we went helped us to stay as clean as we could and gave us the opportunity to talk with people about composting and recycling.