Thank you for a great Earth Day Festival 2010!

Thanks to all who attended 2010's Nashville Earth Day Festival.

Amid all the devastation caused by the recent flooding, we recall with happiness the Nashville community's enthusiastic participation in this year's Earth Day Festival.

Our final figures from the event show that this year's Earth Day Festival was the best and the biggest that Nashville has ever seen.

The Festival featured 103 exhibitors and 14 food vendors, plus 19 merchants in the new Merchant Village.

For the first time since the Festival began its current run at Centennial Park, the event generated more recyclables (0.25 tons or approximately 500 lbs.) than trash (380 lbs.). The Festival also produced an impressive 210-280 lbs. of composting materials.

A big thanks to all the organizers, vendors, performers, volunteers and especially the attendees - all 20,000 - 25,000 of you - who helped make this event the best Earth Day Festival yet in Nashville.

The continuing growth and success of the Earth Day Festival demonstrates that Nashvillians really do care about the environment and show our city leaders, businesspeople and the community at large that support for environmental issues is stronger than ever here in Middle Tennessee.

Remember that Earth Day may only come once a year, but Nashville has ongoing Earth Day-related events such as neighborhood tree planting scheduled throughout the year. We will soon be adding a newsletter sign-up form to the Nashville Earth Day Festival website.

Meanwhile, show your Earth Day dedication proudly by wearing the official 2010 Nashville Earth Day Festival t-shirt. The shirt sold out at the festival itself, but you can still order the shirts online.

Strike a Chord Shirts!

Due to the overwhelming demand for the "Strike a Chord. Go Green." T-shirts at this years festival we have decided to place another order so that all of you who were not able to get the shirt in your size will now be able to do so. Orders will start shipping out in early to mid May.


All sizes are $12.00

Size

Men's Small Men's Medium Men's Large Men's XL Women's Small Women's Medium Women's Large Women's XL

P.S. The buy now button has been updated and should be working now...Sorry for those of you who tried to order and were not able to.

The Merchant Village Lets You Shop Eco-Friendly at the Earth Day Festival!

In the past, you could learn all about eco-friendly living at the Nashville Earth Day Festival, but you couldn't actually buy any green products to put all your new Earth Day knowlede into practice.

But now, for the first time ever, the Merchant Village makes its debut at the Nashville Earth Day Festival, giving you a chance to buy eco-friendly products straight from the producers.

All the products at the 20 Merchant Village booths are eco-friendly. Some are made from all natural ingredients. Others are created using reclaimed wood or recycled fabrics.

Among the merchants in the Village you'll find a wide array of products, including all-natural cosmetica and skincare products made in Knoxville (along with a makeup artist to help perform green makeovers) and all-natural toothpaste from a dentist in Murfreesboro.

In the past festival organizers were reluctant to allow product sales at the festival for fear of inadvertently selling 'greenwashed' products. But this year local entrepeneur Jennifer Casale, proprietor of East Nashville eco-emporium The Green Wagon stepped up to organize the Merchant Village.

"We have all kinds of amazing people participating in the Merchant Village," says Casale. "These are people who are making sustainable products that support the Environment and health of the people who use them."

So come on out to the Festival, learn about how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle and then shop the Merchant Village to find Earth-friendly products you can take home to incorporate in your daily routines.

The Merchant Village should be easy to find at the Festival. All the merchants will be grouped together under a huge 80-foot long tent which should be open for business throughout the day from 11 am to 7 pm.

You're already saving energy - now you can save the environment too.

You know that saving energy is eco-friendly, so maybe that's why you already switched from old-fashioned incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs that require less electricity to produce the same amount of light.

But did you know that CFL bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, a hazardous metal, and therefore should not be disposed of with regular household trash?

Bring your old CFLs to the Nashville Earth Day Festival where Metro Beautification (a division of Metro Public Works) and TDEC will be collecting the bulbs for proper disposal.

You can also bring in old-style mercury thermometers and swap them for new free digital thermometers. The digital thermometers are safe because there's no risk of mercury exposure if the thermometer breaks.

Metro Beautification will also have information on how to properly dispose of other types of hazardous household waste by bringing them to Metro's hazardous waste disposal center on Doctor Richard Adams Road, off Trinity Lane.

You're already saving energy. Now you can save the environment too and ensure your own health by keeping mercury out of landfills.

Earth Day Festival Model Home

How would you like to save some money on your household utility bills – while helping the planet at the same time?

Sound intriguing? Then stop by the Green Model Home at the Nashville Earth Day Festival and let the experts at E3 Innovate show you how easy it is to reduce your home’s energy needs.

E3 Innovate is a Nashville-based home performance company. Simply put, E3 helps homeowners make their homes more energy-efficient, comfortable and healthy. The firm focuses on cost-effective upgrades such as insulation, air-sealing and duct-sealing.

The Green Model Home will demonstrate how investing in energy efficiency can greatly reduce your utility bills while making your home more comfortable and healthy.

Green aspects of the Model Home could include eco-friendly interior finishes, like sustainable flooring (bamboo or renewable hardwoods) and paints with no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The Model Home will contain environmentally preferable products like high-recycled sheetrock on the inside, while highly-recycled outside cladding and reflecting shingles will be featured prominently on the home’s exterior. “The reflecting shingles reflect radiant heat to keep the house cooler in the summer,” explains E3 Innovate co-owner Jeff Middlebrooks. “Reflecting shingles can keep the heat in your attic down in the 90-degree range in mid-summer instead of letting it become a 150-degree box.”

The Green Model Home will also feature renewable energy systems such as a geothermal heat pump and solar panels.

Homeowners will be relieved to know that some of the eco-friendly materials on display in the model home (such as the recycled drywall, no-VOC paint and recycled interior cladding) cost no more than conventional materials. Other products, such as spray foam insulation, may cost more up front, but can save homeowners a lot of money in the long-term. The calculation works the same as with CFL bulbs – they cost more than incandescent bulbs up front, but they last longer and provide impressive energy cost savings too.

The Model Home gives E3 Innovate a chance to teach people how they can combine energy-efficiency improvements with renewable energy systems to create a zero-energy home that actually produces as much energy as it uses. “We want to demonstrate how easy it is to make a zero-energy home,” says Middlebrooks. “Zero-energy homes are not some sort of futuristic spaceship. They are things that can be built right now.”

So come on out to see the Green Model Home at the Earth Day Festival. There will be workshops at the home throughout the day and plenty of opportunities to get a hands-on look at the latest and greatest energy-efficient products and improvements for your home.

ReCYCLE Your Cycle @ Nashville Earth Day Festival!

Do you have an old bicycle that’s just gathering dust in your garage? How about bicycle-related accessories such as helmets, spare parts, air pumps, even water bottles?

If so, head on over to the Nashville Earth Day Festival on April 17^th and look for Dan Furbish from Oasis Center, a nonprofit organization on Charlotte Avenue that provides a range of services to at-risk youth and their families.

For the second year in a row, Furbish and Amy Eskind will be running a program called ReCycle Your Cycle that accepts tax-deductible donations of bicycles and related items on behalf of Oasis Center.

What if your bike is so messed up that it’s not even in riding condition? It doesn’t matter. Furbish still says the bike can be ripped apart for its useable parts.

What happens with the donated bikes? Furbish collaborates with Halcyon Bike Shop on a program at Oasis Center called The Workshop that gives youngsters ages 11 to 17 an opportunity to learn valuable bike mechanic skills and even potentially take home a free ride.

When the six-week program begins, each child chooses a bike, then takes the entire thing apart. The following weeks, the children slowly rebuild the bikes with the help of mechanics from Halcyon who volunteer their time. In addition to learning mechanical skills, the kids also learn about road safety and find out how to use Nashville’s growing network of greenways and bike lanes.

At graduation, each child who has completed the program gets to keep his or her bike, plus a lock, a helmet and a tool kit.

“The goal was to start a program where the kids had something to do after school and could build something concrete to take home,” says Furbish. “The bike also provides transportation. We found that a lot of kids were so dependent on others for transportation that they ended up spending a lot of time bored at home. A bicycle allows them to explore the city, get to stores and visit friends. We make an effort to show them how to use the greenways in Shelby Park and all over the place. Plus a huge aspect of the program includes mentoring from all the volunteers who come in to show them how to work on the bikes.”

Last year, Furbish says that ReCYCLE Your Cycle collected a ‘mindblowing’ 130 bicycles at the Earth Day Festival. With the help of generous Nashvillians, he’s hoping to equal or surpass that number this year.

Don’t forget that your bike donations to Oasis Center are tax-deductible and that experts will be on hand to help estimate the value of your donation.

Furbish plans to be at the festival all day. Look for the ReCYCLE Your Cycle program in the same tent as Walk Bike Nashville (which will apparently be providing valet bike parking for attendees.

As someone involved with helping at-risk children explore the city by bike, what does Furbish think of Nashville’s bike-infrastructure. In comparison with other parts of the country, he still feels Nashville has a long way to go, but slowly but surely he sees the city on its way to becoming a lot more bicyclist-friendly.

If you want to help make Nashville a more bike-friendly town, Furbish says that there will be opportunities at the Festival to sign up to volunteer at future Walk Bike Nashville events.

And if you have the skills and interest to volunteer at the Oasis Center’s bike Workshop, just email Furbish at dfurbish@oasiscenter.org to get involved.

The Wild Cow @ Nashville Earth Day Festival!

When you’re attending the Nashville Earth Day Festival on April 17, keep a lookout for The Wild Cow.

Don't worry - we're not talking about some enraged bovine, but rather East Nashville's favorite new vegetarian and vegan-friendly all-natural restaurant that will be dishing out tasty wraps, soups and natural sodas to Festival attendees.

(If you do get a soup, expect your spoon to be made from biodegradable corn-based material!)

In case you're curious about the difference between vegetarians and vegans, vegetarians don't eat meat, but they do still chow down on animal products such as cheese and eggs. Vegans try to avoid animal products altogether.

All the dishes on The Wild Cow's menu are compatible with vegan diets. If you see cheese listed on the menu, it's actually soy-based 'vegan cheese' -- although the restaurant does give non-vegan customers the option of choosing dairy cheese from free-range Organic Valley cows.

Since The Wild Cow opened on Eastland Avenue in December 2009, Nashvillians of all persuasions have been praising everything from the Vegan Philly "Cheesesteak" (made with seitan) to the Portabella Sandwich (all dressed up to tantalize your taste buds with homemade tahini dressing and roasted red pepper). Folks with gluten allergies also have lots of options on The Wild Cow's extensive gluten-free menu.

What's the connection between The Wild Cow and Earth Day? Melanie Cochran who co-owns The Wild Cow with her husband John says that people should realize the connection between being animal-friendly and being earth-friendly. "Whether you eat meat or you're vegetarian, we'd like people to think about where they get their food and where it comes from."

Before opening The Wild Cow, Melanie worked on a documentary about the pollution caused by so-called 'factory farms' - jumbo-size operations that raise animals like chickens, pigs and cows to feed America's meat cravings. She says that factory farms are a main cause of water pollution in America and that people who live near factory farms can have respiratory problems from the air pollution that the factory farms emit.

Meat-eaters are certainly welcome at The Wild Cow. In fact, Melanie estimates that at least half of her customers are meat-eaters who just enjoy eating a healthy, vegetable-based meal from time to time. But she does point out that from an environmental perspective raising animals for food is not a very efficient use of land.

"The amount of water and land required to raise farm animals is incredible," she says. "And we don't get nearly as much food from those animals compared to the food we could get from just raising crops on the land. To feed a cow for years and then just get a few meals out of it, well it's not a very good return on the land."

As you can guess, environmentally-friendly practices are big priorities at The Wild Cow. Even all the restaurant's cleaning-products are cruelty-free, meaning they are not tested on animals.

If you've ever been curious about what vegan food tastes like, just saunter on over to The Wild Cow booth at the Nashville Earth Day Festival and give it a try. It may sound tough to be vegan, but Melanie says that it was actually easier than she expected for she and her husband to make the switch from vegetarian to vegan a couple of years ago. "If you are passionate about the reasons to eat vegan, then it becomes pretty easy," she says. "We feel like we are living in sync with our ideals."

As for The Wild Cow's participation in the Earth Day Festival, Melanie says that the restaurant is honored to be participating in the event. "We're glad that the organizers saw that vegetarian food should be considered earth-friendly," she says. "We hope to continue to participate year after year and hope that people attending the festival will appreciate having some vegan food options."

Vendor details -

The Wild Cow, 1896 Eastland Avenue, Nashville, TN 37206. 615-262-2717

Just the Facts...

Welcome to the Nashville Earth Day Blog!

There's just one month to go until the big April 17th Nashville Earth Day Festival celebrations at Centennial Park.

The park seems like a fitting place to celebrate one of Earth Day's core issues of Sustainable Development considering that Centennial marked the beginning of Nashville's public park system.

Here's what you need to know about the Nashville Earth Day Festival -

- The event will be held rain or shine in Centennial Park on West End Avenue in Nashville

- Festivities will take place from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.

- Admission is free!

- The festival will include displays from community groups, environmental organizations, farmers, eco-friendly businesses and government agencies.

- There will be live music all day long. This is Nashville after all!

- This will be a family-friendly event including entertainment, children's activities, educational programs and even a scavenger hunt :)

- Look for the Merchant Village where you can help the planet while also helping small businesses by buying eco-friendly products directly from the entrepreneurs who make them.

- Many kinds of food and drink will be available for purchase.

- There will be lots of recycling opportunities.

Want to get involved in the fun? Volunteers are needed! Help for at least two hours and you'll walk away with a free Nashville Earth Day Festival t-shirt.

Stay tuned for more updates between now and the big day. We'll be posting more information on the Festival, on Earth Day and environmental news here in Music City.

Have any questions about the event? Drop us a line and we'll do our best to get you the answers.

Look forward to seeing you at Nashville Earth Day Festival 2010. Come out and help us make this year's event the best ever!!