Go Green!

At first glance, the house at 116 First Street in Bethany Beach might look like any other construction project in the beach town. Where once there was an outdated beach cottage, now sits a newly constructed, modern house in its place.

The Community Service Group at Sussex Technical High School in Georgetown recently won the Delaware State Gold Medal for its schoolwide recycling program, with the award presented at the SkillsUSA award ceremony. The group is now eligible to go on to national competition, to be held in Kansas City this June.

Most people have heard about the countless contributions they can make to help improve the environment, although many people are still hesitant to jump aboard. Perhaps they feel that their changes will not have a significant impact. Others may not be willing, as they perceive they are picking up the slack of others out there.

On Tuesday, April 29, students, teachers and community volunteers were set to come together to create a new schoolyard habitat at Indian River High School in Dagsboro.

Many U.S. taxpayers will start receiving their 2008 stimulus payments in increments of $300 this week through direct deposit, with $300 or more for many single taxpayers, $600 or more for many couples and $300 additional for each eligible child.

The Bethany Beach Town Council voted 6-1 on Friday, April 18, to adopt the smoking ban the town has spent the last seven months debating and turning into legislation. With the vote, the town became the first in the state of Delaware to ban smoking on a public beach.

The Bethany Beach Town Council voted 6-1 on Friday, April 18, to adopt the smoking ban the town has spent the last seven months debating and turning into legislation. With the vote, the town became the first in the state of Delaware to ban smoking on a public beach. Such bans already exist in many California beach towns, as well as on the Great Lakes and in New England.

As was evident with last year’s wildly popular inaugural farmers’ market in Bethany Beach, people want to connect with the growers of their food. For them, Delaware just got even smaller.

This May, the nearly new, modern Millville town hall, with its earthy monochromatic color scheme and plush green grass will soon look a little different. A little more… natural.

There’s a growing awareness throughout the food market today, and it’s quickly making its way into restaurants, as well. Restaurant owners, patrons and farmers alike are all learning and sharing the benefits of organic products in our diets.

While the back-to-basics, low-electricity push of the green movement may seem incompatible on some level with computers and computer monitors, there’s no question that the Internet has been a major mover in the efforts to protect the planet and human health, and plan for a greener future. These are just a few of the thousands of Web sites that are doing their part in the name of green.

The Fenwick Island Environmental Committee recently got itself organized — complete with proposed goals and objectives and a mission statement, but they got their start years ago according to Buzz Henifin, co-chairman of the group.

“Town council always had one member as an ‘environmental’ person,” explained Henifin.

The Fenwick Island Environmental Committee met on Wednesday, March 12, at town hall to discuss a number of environmental issues, including their “tree triage” program, ways to save on energy, how to get to the town’s population of renters to participate in the new townwide curbside recycling program, and whether the town should look at increasing limits on smoking on the beach and town prope

Clean days are ahead for Millville residents.

Delaware’s Great Green Expo will be held Saturday, March 29, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington. The expo is sponsored and hosted by Clear Channel Communications.

An approximately 1-year-old harp seal was spotted numerous times on the south end of Bethany Beach’s shoreline on Monday, March 10, prompting Suzanne Thurman, the executive director of the Lewes-based Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation (MERR) Institute, to come investigate the animal’s condition and whether the group should take action to assist it.

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) officials responded this week to a letter sent recently by Lt. Col. Gwen Baker, Philadelphia district commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to the Town of Bethany Beach.

Sussex County is going green this March, but it’s not on account of St. Patty’s Day. County Administrator David B. Baker announced Tuesday, March 11, that all County operations this month will begin recycling office waste, from copier paper and cardboard boxes to bottles and bags, through a partnership with the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA).

With the introduction of single-stream recycling — meaning those recycling in Delaware can dump their cans, bottles, plastic and newspapers in one container — recycling just got a whole lot easier. But anyone who has ever asked themselves what happens to the stuff after they drop it off or have it picked up curbside is not alone.

As the word “green” gains in popularity and usage as a synonym for “environmentally friendly,” it might be easy to lose sight of exactly which environment is being referenced. For the Waehlers of Ocean View, “environment” not only meant the environment in which people live on Earth but the environment inside which they live most of the time — as in peoples’ homes.

As part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed into law on Dec. 19, 2007, the traditional incandescent light bulb will essentially be phased out of the U.S. market beginning in 2012.

For home owners who want to live off the grid by using solar panels, that’s great. If they want to have a tankless hot water heater and geothermal heating and cooling, that’s great too. But, if home owners want to have an overall holistic design that functions, allows them to live well and provides a healthy home, they might want to start at the beginning.

1: a branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments
2: the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment
Human ecology
1: a branch of sociology dealing especially with the spatial and temporal interrelationships between humans and their economic, social, and political organization

Each year, the fourth-grade students in Tanya Mock’s class at East Millsboro Elementary School study a unit about preserving and protecting the environment.

Standing in the cleaning aisle of the grocery store can make you feel a little like you should have paid more attention in chemistry class.

In the current real estate market, there’s a lot of competition, so it’s a given that every home for sale has to stand out. The same goes for the new-home building industry.

Two new homes nestled back in Ocean Way Estates, built by custom builder E.S.B. Inc., are turning the heads of passers-by. The solar panels atop the roof may be one of the most noticeable features of the houses, though for these eco-friendly dwellings, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s one of the most popular destinations for “green”-minded residents and visitors to the area, but as of March 2008, the recycling drop-off center in Millville will itself be headed for the recycling bin.

The presents have all been unwrapped and put away, the tree is getting ready to go back up in the attic and all we are left with is empty boxes, torn wrapping paper and lots of cardboard.

Sound familiar? This is the time of year that I really feel for those guys on the trash truck. During the holidays we have more trash in a week than some small nations, it seems.

“It’s not a trend to me,” said Clif Diver of C.P. Diver in Lewes. He is talking about the recent surge in “green” activity — green living, green dying, green cars, green jobs — Americans are being saturated with eco-friendly ways to do almost anything.