News Flash

LAST Groovin’ by the Bay Litter- Free Event Cleanup, September 1, Sunday, 5pm – 8pm, Mill Point Park, 100 Eaton St, Hampton. REALLY need more volunteers for this last Sunday evening for the rest of the summer. Contact cfharris@hampton.gov for more information. Sign up to help us go out clean and green!

International Coast Cleanups, September 1 – October 31, various locations in Hampton. Need volunteers to be site captains and cleanup crew members for each site. Most cleanups will last no more than two hours. Land and water sites available. Boating cleanup volunteers must provide their own boat and have their own life jackets. Contact causink@hampton.gov for more information.

Clean City Award Nominations: Do you know someone (individual or group) who works tirelessly to make our city clean and green? Nominate your environmental heroes at http://bit.ly/CleanCityAwardNomination. Nominees will be invited to the annual volunteer recognition dinner on October 24, and they might win an award! For more information cfharris@hampton.gov or 757-727-1130. Deadline for nominations is September 6, so get those nominations in!

Arts in the Park Volunteers Needed! We need volunteers to help staff the HCCC display from 10am – 6pm (in shifts, of course). Contact causink@hampton.gov to sign up!

Interstate Interchange Cleanup Volunteers Needed! We need adult volunteers who HATE the litter on our interstate ramps to help Public Works clean it up about twice a month on Saturdays starting in October. Public Works will provide safety measures, HCCC will provide equipment and transportation to the ramps along with all the appreciation we can give you. Contact hccc@hampton.gov for more information. Sign up for one ramp or all of them! We just want to get those nasty things cleaned up!

Community Cleanup, Little Back River Road, September 20, 9am – 10:30am. We need volunteers to help clean up this corner of Hampton. Contact cfharris@hampton.gov to sign up and for more information.

Community Appearance & Litter Index, October 9, 8am – 5pm, lunch provided. We need adult volunteers to evaluate 100 areas of Hampton for litter, abandoned vehicles, graffiti, illegal signs, and outdoor storage. Volunteers will be trained in the use of the index before embarking on the day-long event, transportation provided from HCCC. This activity is required for HCCC to retain its good standing with Keep America Beautiful. Contact cfharris@hampton.gov for information.

Seize The Bay Trash-to-Art Show Call for Artists: The third biennial Seize the Bay trash to art show is about to launch! Sponsored by Hampton Waterways Restoration Project [HWRP] and Hampton University Museum, and supporting the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Hampton University's oyster restoration program to clean our waterways. Artists are asked to create artwork that celebrates the Bay, and if possible, to use "found objects", aka trash, in the pieces. Artwork would be donated and auctioned off at the show November 2-9, 2019 at the Hampton University Museum on HU's campus. Open to all! Pieces created for the previous two shows were incredible and everyone is looking forward to what you've got this year! Here’s a link to the Facebook Album showing the 2017 show: http://bit.ly/SeizeTheBayArtShowAlbum.

Contact causink@hampton.gov with any questions. Thank you all for your help in the past and in advance for this year!

Check Out & Clean Up! Did you know you could check out cleanup equipment from our libraries? You can clean up your street, your neighborhood, or a nearby park! Yes, you CAN! Try it out! Ask at your favorite library branch! Have you tried it yet?

YARDS Contest Nominations: Do you know of a beautiful yard you think should be Yard of the Month? Nominate your favorite yards at http://bit.ly/YARDSNomination. YARDS yards are beautiful, good for the environment, and good for their neighborhood and the city. For more information, hccc@hampton.gov. For more information and for online resources, go to https://hampton.gov/929/YARDS. LAST YARDS Judging of the season is September 9, so get those nominations in!

Recycle Right Tip of the Day! Did you know you know… glass is made from sand? We’re not talking about the kind of sand we have at Buckroe Beach – it’s a very pure silica sand that is mined from the ground. Glass bottles and jars are about four percent of what you throw away (by weight). Here are some glass recycling guidelines.

• Please include only empty, dry glass bottles and jars in your recycling container. They don’t have to be squeaky clean, but if they drip or leak on paper, they mess that up for recycling. They can be clear, green, or brown. The occasional blue glass bottle is fine, as well.
• Recycle Wrongs include: light bulbs, drinking glasses, mirrors, tempered glass cookware or tableware, bottles and jars with contents inside (in other words, only EMPTY glass bottles and jars). 
• Recycle Rights: adult beverage bottles, soft drink bottles, pickle jars, mayonnaise jars, olive jars, jam and jelly jars, and salsa jars – really any food or beverage bottle or jar!

If you have questions, ask 311 or HCCC (hccc@hampton.gov).

Plastic Bag Recycling: You CAN recycle plastic bags and wrap, but ONLY at store or civic organization drop-offs. As a matter of fact, you can drop them off at Hampton’s community gardens or HCCC to help earn plastic benches for the community gardens. The locations are: North Phoebus Community Center, 249 W. Chamberlin Avenue; Phoebus, 124 S. Hope St.; Buckroe, 710 Buckroe Avenue; or HCCC, 1296 Thomas Street. Also, the Hampton Master Gardeners and Peninsula Master Naturalists accept bags for recycling. Once school starts, some schools will be collecting them.

Pet Waste Blues: If you have a pet, you have pet waste. What you do with that waste determines how clean Hampton’s waterways will be!

1. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the typical dog excretes three quarters of a pound of waste per day—or 274 pounds per year!
2. Did you know pet waste could be composted? Here’s a resource from the USDA that explains how to do it: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_035763.pdf. Here’s a caution – you have to do it right or some of the pathogens that live in your pets’ insides could inhabit your yard around the compost bin.
3. What are some of those bugs in your pets’ insides? According to the National Institutes for Health: Bacteria like Campylobacter, Salmonella, Yersinia, and E. coli; protozoa such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium; and roundworms such as Toxocara canis. Cats can carry the Toxoplasma gondii parasite. You don’t want any of these things moving inside you!
4. For sure, even if you don’t compost your pets’ waste, you need to pick it up and put it in the trash! Whether in your back yard or while walking, it’s the right thing to do. Have you ever stepped in pet waste? Not pleasant, is it, no matter whose pet did it?! Take along some plastic bags and pick it up, please!
5. Then there’s the law: “Sec. 5-8.1. - Removal of dog excrement required; exceptions. It shall be unlawful for any person owning, keeping or having custody or control of a dog to fail to remove immediately the dog's excrement from any public or private property other than property owned or occupied by the person owning, keeping or having custody or control of said dog. For purposes of this section, the phrase "property owned or occupied by the person owning, keeping or having custody or control of said dog" shall not include the common and limited common elements of condominiums or cooperatives nor property owned or maintained by a homeowner's association or by a property owner's association. Any person who shall violate this section shall be guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor. The provisions of this section shall not apply to a service dog or to dogs used by police officers for law enforcement or tracking purposes.
6. While it’s not legally required that you remove your pets’ waste from your yard, it’s still a really good idea! When it rains, the pest waste is washed into our storm drains and into the Chesapeake Bay. Who wants our seafood slurping up our pets’ waste?
7. For a limited time, askHRgreen.org is offering free pet waste stations through a new grant. If your Hampton Roads neighborhood / HOA / community association is ready to make scooping the poop a priority, then you’re invited to apply. Pet waste stations encourage residents to pick up after their pets by making it easy and convenient to do so. Here’s a link for information: https://askhrgreen.org/grants/pet-waste-station/.