Details about some Solutions Projects


  · Adopt A Canyon · Operation Cooperation/Common Thread · Wednesday Morning Recycling Club ·
· Recycling Directory · Glass Project · Group Clean Ups · Just say NO to plastic ·
· Friends of the Parkway · Parkway Partners · Ball Field Recycling · Recycling Set Ups ·
· FreeCycling · Large Scale Clean Ups · Jump Out Squad · Adopt a Highway ·
· Messages from Children · Spanish Valley Partners · Volunteer Vacation ·
  · The Dudley Project · No Waste High School · Underground Railroad ·

	The natural beauty of the area inspires us.
Adopt a Canyon
We do daily recycle/clean ups in the streams, on the trails, and along the highways and byways of this glorious region. We often see our fellow community members cleaning up too!
Operation Cooperation / Common Thread
Operation Cooperation is a cooperative effort between the Sheriff’s office, The Solid Waste District, BLM, Trail Mix, SITLA, Rocky Mountain Extreme, and Solutions to maximize recycling and minimize waste and damage during Jeep week. Before events begin, Trail Mix and Solutions will work with Solid Waste to place rocks in strategic areas along the mile long road to Potato Salad Hill. Signage will be installed near the entrance explaining the fines for littering and off-trail use. During the event we will have friendly volunteers with buckets offering to collect trash and recycling from participants. Solutions will install recycling bins at Potato Salad Hill and the Hell's Revenge Command Center. Rocky Mountain Extreme is raising money to pay for porta-potties and a large dumpster. Solutions will work with Rocky Mountain Extreme to perform daily clean ups and will make sure all the recycling gets to Canyonlands Community Recycling. We'd love to have signs placed to educate about the diversity of life that relies on this land - from the blackbrush plant communities and multitude of insect life to the deer, coyotes, lizards, rabbits, birds and other wildlife who call this land home. If you'd like to volunteer, we could use your help with this project. For more information, contact Sara at 435.259.0910.	John, a dedicated off-roader, along with his nephew Ryan, helped Solutions enormously during the 2007 and 2008 Easter Jeep Safaris. Members of Rocky Mountain Extreme pictured here on Easter morning 2007 after cleaning up Potato Salad Hill with Solutions volunteers. See their website at www.rockymountainextreme.com.
Smiling Solutions stand in front of the 399 pounds of recycling they sorted on Easter morning, 2008.	The goal of Common Thread, a project we started in 2005, is to get a variety of groups working together to help prevent damage to the land during large off-road events. More than a million people a year visit this area – they are attracted to the stunning natural beauty and want to experience it for themselves. The problem is that too much damage is occurring, which ends up harming the land along with all the plants and animals that rely on it. Our hope, each year, is to get friendly groups of volunteers to remove recycling and litter from a number of areas, distribute information about the special cryptobiotic crust found in this region, explain the value of the “Leave no Trace” philosophy and provide other helpful information.
The Trash Goddess lives up to her name on Easter morning in a dumpster on Potato Salad Hill.	Early each morning during the 2008 Easter Jeep Safari, we removed all the trash and recycling from the Potato Salad Hill area, a popular party spot (but not one of the official Easter Jeep Safari Sites). The recycling alone from one day’s activities weighed more than 399 pounds! We believe that many users across the board don’t want to see illegal off-road use, littering and other bad behaviors. Together we can work at ending that. In 2008, we worked side by side with off-road enthusiasts and local volunteers who share our goals. We are excited about plans for expansion in 2009. For details about Common Thread recycling efforts during Moab's Jeep Safari, read an article that appeared in Four Wheeler Magazine (it's at the bottom of the page) and this Times Independent newspaper article.
Wednesday Morning Recycling Club
Carol Hoggard is pictured here at the beginning of the biggest sort she’s ever attempted in her life! After 55 hours of work by 6 Solutions members, all of these bags were emptied of recycling and trash, the contents sorted, then processed and sold at market.	The Wednesday Morning Recycle Club started in September of 2007. That’s when a few of us got together to help the recycle center staff with a backlog of mixed recycling that had to be sorted so that it could be processed. We spent about 55 hours getting the items sorted over the course of a couple of weeks. Once we finished that, we realized that we wanted to meet regularly and help out in any way possible. Since then we’ve been meeting at 10:30 a.m. each Wednesday. We return wind-blown cardboard to the cardboard pile, sort recycling, remove weeds, or undertake any task the center staff needs done. It is so rewarding to see the difference we’ve made to the center grounds, and the boost all the extra help gives the staff. We’ve been averaging 6 to 10 people per week. There’s always room for one more! (Or two more, or three more … ) Please note: During extreme heat or cold, we will meet at varying hours.
For more information, call Rani Derasary at 435.259.7691, Carol Hoggard at 435.259.9168 or Sara Melnicoff at 435.259.0910.
	Solutions team members David and Sara donate hours of their free time each week to keep Moab clean.
Freecycle
Three of the founding members of Solutions, Carol, David, and Sara, added up the places they pick up recycling for free and found out it's over 21 sites. They service a variety of non-profits, city and county sites, and some private businesses. Some sites are picked up 3 times a week, some fill the Solutions truck twice a week. One day we hope to see recycling made as easy as wasting. We encourage you to help your friends and neighbors recycle.
Recycling Directory
We invite you to download a copy of the fact-filled recycling directory we created for the Moab area. It contains information about Solutions, lists places where you can recycle everything from film canisters to car batteries, and lists all the items Canyonlands Community Recycling accepts. We’ve included some interesting facts about recycling and we update the directory as needed and distribute it around town as funds permit. Click to open the Recycling Directory (the PDF file opens in a new window).	The Solutions recycling directory is full of recycling tips.
The Glass Project	Students from Glenwood Springs Middle School picking up glass.
The Glass Project predates the formation of the Solutions by half a year. We are in the process of removing thousands of bits of broken glass from along the trails and rock ledges on both sides of Mill Creek in the Powerdam area. We work both with volunteer groups and alone. Since November of 2003, we have removed thousands of bits of glass - but we still have thousands more to go.
Outward Bound group lends a hand. They removed a bucket load of glass from a rock ledge above Mill Creek.	University of Utah students survey the glass strewn areas around Mill Creek. They helped us pick up hundreds of pieces of glass in Autumn of 2008.
Group Clean Ups	Results of a clean up on the Loop Road.
It’s amazing to see how much four or five people can accomplish when working together to remove recycling and trash from the land. It makes an incredible difference to the local environment. We have so much fun removing and redirecting the recycling and trash found along the roads, in the streams and on trails all around this area. It is enormously rewarding to see the immediate results of our efforts. During clean ups, we are treated to close up views of plant and insect life, can focus on the bird’s song and enjoy fresh air, great views and gentle winds. We do group clean ups whenever two or more of us get the urge. Some of us do small daily clean ups while we are out and about.
Just say NO to plastic
	The “Just say NO to plastic” Tote Bag Exchange was started a few years ago in partnership with Moonflower Market, our local health food store. We placed a bucket in the hallway entrance of the store. We stock it with tote bags donated by WabiSabi, and invite the public to donate bags. The idea is to "Just say no to plastic" and encourage people to use reusable bags instead of deadly one-use bags. We invite you to bring your extra bags to the bucket next time you shop at Moonflower.
Friends of the Parkway	One of the many entrances to the parkway found throughout the city. Students from the Moab Charter School gather around the kiosk on the parkway to see their name on the Friends of the Parkway sign. Students from the Moab Charter School show off some of the items they have collected during their monthly clean up on the parkway.
Working in partnership with the City of Moab, the Solutions started Friends of the Parkway in August of 2004. The goal of this project is to get all 5+ miles of this beautiful in-town trail system and its spur trails adopted by groups that will agree to remove the recycling and trash from small sections when they are able. We’d like to have overlapping coverage to make things easier for everybody and keep the parkway clean more often. We hope to expand the program to include a free lecture series, using the Parkway for inspiration. Other plans include instructing volunteers about how to be tree tenders and holding a yearly no waste potluck. We currently have 16 groups and/or individuals working to keep the parkway’s natural beauty shining through. The current Friends are: Litter Losers, Moab Quaker Meeting, The Solutions, Blue Moon Designs, Stuart Kent of Moab Chevron, WasteNOT Wendy, Dean and Breezy Nebergall of Sacred Heart Organic Farm, the Trash Goddess (Caron), Sharon Brussell, Pete Gross, The Litter Bugs (Julia and Theo), Red Rock Forests, WabiSabi, Team Walling, the Delicate Arch Chapter of the National Honor Society of Grand County High School and the Moab Charter School. After a September clean up, the Moab Quaker Meeting group was inspired to write this poem: We are the Friends We’re on the scene To pick up trash And keep it clean. Quakers Erin, Austin and Jessie We keep it clean and not so messy. We walked the path that was bicycleable To pick up litter both non- and re-cyclable. Now the path is clean and pristine. The water is clear and the trees are green. Moab Friends (Quakers) Youth Group September 2007 We love to see people inspired to write poetry from doing clean ups! It’s one of the great benefits of doing this sort of work. Click www.moabcity.org to read about Friends of the Parkway.
Parkway Partners
Big Ed helps keep the Parkway clean.	In August of 2008 we started working with the homeless or marginally housed folks that hang out on the parkway. We received a thousand dollar grant from a private foundation in December to maintain and expand this project. We pay the "partners" for collecting littered recycling and trash from the parkway. This project has calmed a bad situation, put a few people to work, and is getting hundreds of containers a week to the recycle center. Plus, we are developing relationships with the parkway community and beyond.
Ball field Recycling
Working in partnership with the Recreation Department of the City of Moab, we implemented recycling at the very active City ball fields. We placed a recycle bin next to each trashcan throughout the site and maintain them as needed by removing the trash from the recycle bins and the recycling from the trash bins. Over time we have noticed increased correct usage of the recycle bins. The kids get it!
We counted the containers we recycled over the course of one full season to get an idea of how much we were keeping from the landfill. We recycled over 8,000 containers, mostly #1 plastic and aluminum! To date, we have recycled approximately 18,000 containers from the City ballpark. We hope to get kids and parents involved in this project and take field trips to Canyonlands Community Recycling so participants can watch aluminum cans or #1 plastic being processed into bales. Hundreds of pounds of material, once thrown away, are now being directed to the recycle center from the city ball fields!	Susan and Carol show off approximately 130 gallons of recycling they sorted at the ball fields.
In March of 2008 the City of Moab took over recycling at the ball field. We applaud the City for their forward thinking actions.
	Solutions clowning around at the 2006 Moab Folk Festival.
Recycle System Set Ups
Getting a recycling system going in your home or office can be a challenge. We have lots of experience creating unique recycling systems. We would be more than happy to help you set up a system at your home or office. Just give us a call!
Large Scale Clean Up Assistance
When SITLA (State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration) came to us in May of 2004 and asked for help doing a clean up of a large illegal dumping ground south of town, we jumped at the chance. This was our first request from an agency and was one of the reasons Solutions was founded! In November of that year, on a beautiful snowy day, we performed a major clean up. We were enormously surprised when in June of 2005 SITLA honored us during a board meeting in Moab. They presented us with a beautiful plaque, a thoughtful letter from the Governor, and a $1,000 grant!
We used that money to create this website, place ads, perform multiple clean ups, and more. We also tackled an area right in town that had been neglected for a long time. Eight or nine people were living along Pack Creek for several years. Solutions participants, working alone and in groups, spent over 30 hours removing truckloads of trash and a couple of hundred pounds of recycling. Before we started the clean up, the entire area smelled of beer. Now it is fresh and clean, a place where deer and birds relax. We check the area periodically and work on keeping it clean.	Trash and recycling from an in-town site.
Jump Out Squad
A five gallon bucket put to good use.	Two five gallon buckets and a pair of gloves can change the world. At least a small part of it! We're hoping to get more folks involved in carrying these items in the trunk of their car and pulling over to do mini clean ups (5 minutes can yield full buckets and a more beautiful landscape) whenever the mood strikes. One bucket can be used for trash, one for recycling. You can decorate your bucket too!
Adopt a Highway	Recycling from the Hospice’s Adopt a Highway section.
The Solutions offer a variety of alternatives for “Adopt a Highway” groups who are not currently recycling items retrieved during clean ups. We will go to your stretch of highway before your group goes and remove the recycling only, leaving the litter for your group to pick up. Or, if you want to collect the recycling yourself, we will sort it and take it to the center for you. We are also happy to demonstrate a variety of techniques for collecting recycling during these clean ups for those interested in doing that. We have learned quite a bit from our multiple years of clean ups and are more than happy to share what we have learned! In this project, we have worked with KZMU, Grand County Hospice, Lions Club, and Canyon Cruisers.
Messages from the Children	Healing the earth at a young age.
Through a grant from the Canyonlands Arts Council, the Solutions worked with the children of Grand County on art pieces that expressed the value of living the “reduce, reuse and recycle” lifestyle. The inspiration for this project was the children themselves! Whenever we’ve run into children while doing our clean ups, they teach us something interesting and impress us with their instant understanding of the benefits of recycling. The art that the children create was put on display in various locations around town in what we call 'art attacks'. We hope we delighted and surprised the grown ups of Grand County with our unique placements of this artwork. We used “found” materials and photos of clean ups for the most part. We were so happy with the results of this project that we intend to make it an ongoing thing! So keep your eyes open when you are out and about in Moab. You never know where a little “Message” will be.
Spanish Valley Partners
Spanish Valley Partners was created to encourage residents along the Spanish Valley Drive area to work together to remove trash and recycling from along their property lines. The goal is to keep the roadway clean on a regular basis while searching for real solutions to the ongoing litter problem. Spanish Valley Drive is home to several hundred pounds of trash and recycling at any time. Solutions will provide buckets to participants for storing the recycling and will help people take the recycling to the recycling center, if needed. To date, three homeowners are involved in this project.
Volunteer Vacation
Volunteer Vacation aims to provide area visitors with casual volunteer opportunities while they are here on vacation. We offer a variety of options to visitors wishing to help improve the local environment through clean ups or other earth friendly projects. If you’d like more information, give us a call at 435.259.0910 or send us an email at moab_solutions@hotmail.com.	Ward Members from the Union Park LDS church of Sandy, Utah created cheerful painted collection barrels at the recycle center on a Saturday morning in August.
Young Women of the Oak Hills First Ward, Provo, UT assisted Solutions volunteers with a clean up along the Loop Road near Pack Creek Ranch. The group's hard work resulted in a clean roadway. Most of the items retrieved were recyclable.
	This Vermont family spent one morning of their vacation cleaning the parkway.
The Dudley Project	Because all life matters.
The Dudley Project aims to improve the life of dogs, cats, horses, and wildlife in our region through a variety of methods. We provide shelters and blankets to dogs and cats that need them. We want to match people who would like to walk dogs with dogs that need walks. We want to work with, and place in the proper home, any dog that cannot be placed by the Humane Society. Solutions will accept old doghouses and other items that can be made into shelters for this project.
No Waste High School	The 2009 edition of the recycle club is going strong with more than 35 students involved this year. These kids are “spelling it out!” Recycle Club members Zephyr, Hayley, Cori, Alyssa, Liz, Dailey, Ari, along with club sponsor, Mr. Defrancia, relax after the club finished getting the school’s recycling ready for delivery to the recycle center.
Solutions started working with the high school recycle club in the winter of 2006 to expand their existing program. The concept of a No Waste High School has quickly spread throughout the school. Each week, hundreds of containers are collected in bins located inside the school and on the athletic fields and tennis courts. Club members meet weekly to sort the bin contents into outside bins, and break down any cardboard boxes used at the school. They also collect paper from all the classrooms and offices. Green Solutions, the commercial recycling hauler, picks up the recycling and takes it to the recycle center. The club hopes to engage the entire school in this project by promoting participation in clean ups on the parkway land bordering the high school, encouraging students to walk, carpool or bike to school, making artistic posters promoting recycling, and educating themselves about the effects of wasting in the USA. The project hopes to foster healthy debate and research about human-caused impacts to the planet and how to reverse the damaging ones while promoting the beneficial ones. Let’s support their efforts by recycling at our homes and businesses.
Underground Recycling Railroad	Recycling, waiting at the station for the “train”. Click here to open a map to the Grand Junction recycle center (page opens in a new window). Click here to open a PDF file containing information about places around the State of Utah where you can recycle phonebooks, catalogs, and a wide assortment of paper products.
We are extremely fortunate to have a recycle center here in Moab. It is the envy of many western towns. The recycle center here in Moab currently does not accept phone books, cereal box type cardboard, or catalogs. Because we dislike adding these things to the landfill, we started an informal underground railroad that takes these items to Grand Junction, Colorado, or Salt Lake City, Utah, where there are places that accept these items. If you travel to either of these places and want to take catalogs, phone books, or cereal box type cardboard, please let us know. Canyonlands Community Recycling may add these items in the future, so keep checking back. Until such time, the Underground Railroad will keep rolling!
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