November events highlight recycling, tree-plantings

A Friday “sustainability fair” in uptown Charlotte will mark the city’s participation in America Recycles Day. The event will be 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at The Square (Trade and Tryon streets).

Hosts are the City of Charlotte Solid Waste Services, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities, CharMeck 311, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Services, Keep Charlotte Beautiful, ReCommunity, radio station V105.3 radio station and Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless will collect used mobile phones for recycling.

To learn what can be recycled in Mecklenburg County, click here.

On Saturday, as part of America Recycles Day events, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Services will offer free paper shredding 8 a.m.-noon at all four county full-service recycling centers:

• North Mecklenburg Recycling Center and Yard Waste, 12300 N. Statesville Road
• West Mecklenburg Recycling Center, 8440 Byrum Drive
• Hickory Grove Recycling Center and Yard Waste, 8007 Pence Road
• Foxhole Recycling Center and Yard Waste, 17131 Lancaster Highway

The Saturday event is for personal household paper documents only. To ensure everyone is served, the limit per vehicle is the equivalent of three banker boxes or three 13-gallon plastic bags worth of paper to be shredded.

Creek ReLeaf for 2014 to host hundreds of volunteers

Over the next two weekends, hundreds of volunteers will plant 2,000 trees along some of Mecklenburg County’s most endangered creeks. The Creek ReLeaf project, in its seventh year, will visit the Rocky River nature preserve in Davidson on Saturday, Nov. 15, and McDowell Creek near the Henderson Park neighborhood in Huntersville on Nov. 22.

The goal is to plant trees along the banks of each stream to help improve water quality, air quality and natural habitat.

“Generally what we’re trying to do is create an indigenous forest right along the stream,” said Rick Roti, director of the Charlotte Public Tree Fund, which is sponsoring the Creek ReLeaf events along with Mecklenburg County and the Center for Sustainability at Central Piedmont Community College.

Each year since 2008, volunteers from throughout the region have planted trees along stressed creeks in the Charlotte area. Last year, the program planted 1,800 trees along Irwin Creek in Charlotte. McDowell Creek in northern Mecklenburg is one of the area’s most stressed creeks, Roti said. Because of rapid growth in the Huntersville area, impervious surfaces – like parking lots and rooftops – have increased runoff of sediment and pollution into the stream.

This year will be the third time the Creek ReLeaf program has focused on the McDowell Creek, Roti said.

Volunteers have already booked this year’s event. Roti expects 70 volunteers at the Davidson planting and between 500 and 600 at the much larger McDowell Creek planting on Nov. 22. But registration is available for next year’s event, though the location is to be announced.