GREEN WORK
Capital Region celebrates Earth Day
All across the Capital Region on Saturday, people celebrated Earth Day by doing their part to help the environment.
Earth Day, celebrated every April 22, marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. For some, like Margot Olson, Earth Day serves as an op- portunity.
“I think that, obviously, here as an environmental organization it’s sort of the cliche; it’s Earth Day every day, so the work that we’re doing and the education programs that we are doing [are] teaching people about the environment, the importance of protecting the environment,” said Olson. “The food chains and webs and all the inter- connected-
ness is all part of our daily work. So it’s great to have a day where everyone sort of stops together, collectively and thinks about what that means and helps everyone kind of focus on the importance of this precious place that we live.”
Olson led a group of volunteers at Camp Saratoga in Gansevoort. Every year the organization does a conservation project, and most of the time it relates to why the preserve was founded: endangered Karner Blue Butterflies.
“It’s kind of a joke [ because] on Earth Day other people are planting trees,” said Olson. “But here we are pulling out trees.”
In the meadow habitat, the plant that caterpillars need to eat only grows in the sun. But natural progression causes seeds to blow from trees, allowing little trees to shade out the plant that caterpillars need.
Dozens of volunteers removed little trees to help the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly.
As part of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce’s focus on the outdoors, the day at Camp Saratoga featured a fit- ness run, a family walk, a wellness walk and a nature scavenger hunt. Children also made a nature craft and used dip nets to see what sort of animals live in the pond.
The town of Clifton Park was also set to celebrate Earth Day with a river, parks and trails cleansweep event.
Across Rensselaer County, many volunteers cleaned parks, alleyways, residential areas and more.
Rennselaer County held its annual electronics recycling event, providing an opportunity for residents to appropriately recycle the materials.
“It’s a great opportunity for the residents of Rennselaer County to dispose of properly electronics that they’ve collected over at least one year,” said Legislature Todd Tesman.
Stan Brownell, chairman of Rensselaer County Legislature, said the turnout was great.
“It’s spring cleaning time and they want to get rid of all these electronics, air conditioners — we actually had a riding lawn mower here — so it’s a great opportunity for folks to clean up and they are processing these things correctly,” said Brownell.
ProTek Recycling provided service Saturday.