Eco-Fair Gives Festival Visitors Chance To Protect Environment, Save Money

ABINGDON, Va. – Virginia Highlands Festival visitors had a chance to learn a few ways to protect the environment and save money at Saturday’s Eco-Fair.

Fair organizer Angie Watland said the Virginia Highlands is one of the country’s most diverse regions in terms of the number of plant and animal species that call it home. The importance of this biodiversity shows through in the fact that just about every state and federal natural resources agency has an office in Abingdon, she said. Many other nonprofit conservation groups – including the Nature Conservancy where Watland works – and outdoor recreation programs also have Abingdon offices for that reason.

“We thought that rather than have separate events throughout the festival [for each group], we’d just do it in one place,” she said, explaining why they held the fair this year. Watland said she’d love to have the event at future festivals because it drew quite a crowd of both vendors and visitors.
All told, Saturday’s Eco-Fair featured 40 booths set up by farmers, outdoor groups, government agencies and others. A few offered ideas on simple steps people can take to protect the area in which they live and save a few dollars.

Save the rain

Carol Doss with the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable showed people how they can reduce water consumption by about 1,300 gallons a summer using an empty 55-gallon plastic drum and a quick trip to the hardware store. Eco-Fair visitors who stopped by Doss’ booth had a chance to buy rain barrels they could stick under a gutter’s drain pipe to store water that would normally run off their roofs and into the ground.

The stored rainwater can be used to water plants, wash cars and do just about everything else outside. Doss said people who use tap water to do such tasks could “save quite a bit of money” if they switched to using rain water.

The Upper Tennessee Roundtable sells complete rain barrel kits for about $60 each. But those who are feeling adventurous and might already have an empty 55-gallon plastic drum on hand can get a special faucet overflow drain kit for it, at a cost of $15. For more information about the Upper Tennessee Roundtable, visit www.uppertnriver.org or call (276) 623-1353.

Check the heat pump

Faulty heat pumps are the region’s most common energy waster in homes, Appalachian Power spokesman Todd Burns said as he worked his booth at the Eco-Fair. Burns said one of the most common problems his inspectors find while doing home energy audits is the use of old filters on heating and cooling systems.

Clogged filters can create a solid barrier of dust and other particles that inhibits air flow, he said. If you’re using a dirty filter on your heat pump, he said, “you’re just making your system work that much harder.”

Another common problem with heat pumps is they can be set to the “emergency” or radiant heat setting rather than the normal or forced-air setting. Most people switch their heat pumps to that setting, which uses way more electricity than the forced-air setting, when they accidently hit a switch on their thermostats.

Speaking of thermostats, Burns said, homeowners can cut heating and cooling bills by 8 percent for every 2 degrees they turn their temperatures down in the winter or up in the summer.

The more electricity a person wastes, the more resources are consumed and the higher an electricity bill they’ll end up paying at the end of the month. For more power-saving tips, visit Appalachian Power’s Web site at www.appalachianpower.com.

Feed a newspaper to worms

If you’re reading a newspaper and eating a meal at the same time, you’ve already got half the stuff you’ll need to start a vermicomposting operation.

When given a nice, moist bed of newspapers and the proper environment, the red wiggler worms used in vermicomposting can consume their own weight in food scraps each day.

The end result is “an incredible fertilizer that has no smell when done correctly” said Deni Peterson, manager of Appalachian Sustainable Development’s learning landscapes program.

Peterson said one tablespoon of this fertilizer is enough to get a single house plant up and running. It can be used on outdoor plants the same way normal compost is applied, or by putting a one-inch thick layer evenly on top of the area to be planted. That should be enough to keep your subscription current.

Peterson said she’s already got vermicomposting operations set up at four schools in the area. For more information on the process, visit http://www.asdevelop.org/learninglandscapes.htm.

gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518