BWB is partnering with Trash to Treasure, Fort Lauderdale to expand their conservation demonstration garden.  $500 is being used to purchase water spigots.  These spigots are the ONLY item not donated or reused in this amazing example of the 4Rs of waste management.

Trash to Treasure

www.trash2treasurefl.org

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Trash to Treasure Creative Reuse Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing waste by collecting clean "scrap" from the community and redistributing these materials for art and education purposes.  Our mission at Trash to Treasure is to encourage reduce, reuse, recycle, and repurpose.  Our new civic project, a demonstration garden, will allow us to extend our 4-R's education to showcase ways to reduce waste and conserve resources in the garden with rain barrels, rain gardens, compost bins, worm bins, solar ovens, container gardens, drip irrigation, and trellises all made of reused and repurposed materials.  We will hold workshops to teach our community how to make these things with donated materials from our center.  We love the concept of capturing materials headed for the landfill and then using those materials to build things that will conserve more of our precious resources.  With our new garden space we will be able to encourage our community to:

Harvest Rainwater - Rain barrels can divert one of our most valuable resources, water, from going down storm drains.  Once the rain barrel is full, excess water can be diverted to a rain garden to replenish the aquifer.  We are running out of fresh water because we are using it carelessly and directing it into storm drains that send it into our salty oceans.  We want to encourage every yard to install rain barrels and rain gardens to conserve water.

Compost Kitchen & Yard Waste - Compost bins keep organic waste out of landfills and eliminate the need for petroleum-based fertilizers which also protects our ground water from these chemicals.  There is an appropriate compost bin for every household whether they have a large yard or live in a small apartment. 

Mulch Large Yard Waste - Yard waste is a resource that should never be wasted.  Mulch is an essential part of water conservation in the garden and an essential part of plant health, especially in our South Florida heat.  Mulch helps regulate the temperature of plant roots, retains moisture, and eventually breaks down into valuable nutrients for the plants to use.

Grow Food -  In the United States our food travels on average 1500 miles to get to our kitchen table.  This is a huge waste of fossil fuels and contributor to CO2 emissions.  Growing food at home helps people avoid participating in this crazy system.  Once people start growing food they tend to start eating healthier and also realize the dangers of herbicides and pesticides that are abused in this country.  Growing food encourages stewardship of the earth and is a wonderful teaching tool.

Cook Food with Solar Ovens - Solar ovens use the power of the sun instead of electricity from dirty coal and nuclear power plants.  A typical meal cooked in a kitchen uses, on average, 7 Kilowatts hours which releases 2.095 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.  Cooking with a solar oven is a great habit to get into and perfect for camping, natural disasters such as hurricanes, and Burning Man!