The Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center: A Great Idea for Central OK!

Located in Ada, Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center, wholly owned by the Chickasaw Nation, is operated by the tribe’s Department of Environmental Services. Start-up funds for the center were provided by a grant from the Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA). The partnership of funding between the Chickasaw Nation and the EPA’s grant has managed to fully support the operation of the center. As a result, there is no charge for any of the services pro-vided by the ReUse Center; it’s free and open to anyone to drop off or pick up any item that the center accepts for reuse. Since opening, business has been brisk – up to 75 customers visit each day the center is open. And while the Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center has had a measurable impact on the environment – the center’s staff has accepted more than 32,500 lbs. of reusable material and redistrib-uted more than 29,000 lbs. since opening–the impact the center has made as a much-needed community resource was unexpected.

The ReUse Center now regularly sees families in need who have been referred to the center by various local social service programs and churches. The demand for items, especially for children’s clothes, furniture and basic kitchen/household goods, often exceeds the supply of items available. The Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center has also initiated a number of community outreach efforts during its first year of operation. They hosted an appliance and television recycling drive to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

The Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and every other Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The center accepts reusable furniture, appliances, electronics, clothing, household and kitchen items, paint, cleaning products and building materials. For more information, call (580) 272-5451 or visit the Chickasaw Nation ReUse Center at 2205 N. Broadway in Ada.

Target Offers Recycling Stations At Stores Nationwide!

Target® has launched permanent community recycling stations in all 1,740 stores to kick-off a month-long cele-bration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Located at the front of each store, the recycling stations offer guests a convenient way to recycle aluminum, glass and plastic beverage containers, plastic bags, MP3 players, cell phones and ink cartridges. A full description of recyclables that are accepted is available at Target.com/eco-friendly. Target strives to be an environmental steward, taking a holistic approach to sustainability throughout its stores and operations. This includes building and maintaining energy efficient stores, improving transportation opera-tions and carrying a variety of eco-friendly products at Target and online at Target.com.

Comment Today! EPA Rules on Coal Fly Ash

Coal Fly Ash is affecting the health of Oklahomans, wildlife and water quality in our state. Please view this website, http://www.intheairwebreathe.com/. Take a look at the video produced by the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club for more information about conditions in Bokoshe, Oklahoma. The video was first screened at the OSN Annual Conference in June.

The EPA is setting new rules for the containment of fly ash and are asking the public for comments. There is no better time than NOW to make your feeling on this subject known. Oklahoma's lakes, rivers and streams already continue high levels of heavy metals and strict warnings on fish consumption have been issued throughout our state.

Comment Today and please thank Sustainable Shawnee member, Rosemary Crawford, for her tireless work on this issue.

New Hours of Operation at the Newly Staffed Homeland Recycling Center!

A Message from our President, Cody Deem:

There are many questions about recycling, now that Central Disposal is Shawnee’s waste hauler. While many details remain to be clarified, I had the opportunity to speak with Chris, who will be staffing the drop site on the Homeland parking lot on Independence (same site we are all used to). His job is to answer questions and assist us all by placing our recyclables in the proper bins. This is a tremendous step forward in Shawnee’s recycling efforts! The site’s operating hours are Mon-Thurs, 8 AM to 12 Noon and 1 PM to 5 PM; Fri and Sat, 8 AM to Noon. The gate will be locked during other hours. This restriction will take a bit of getting used to, but by having the staffed site will discourage the dumping of trash and prevent the contamination of recyclable materials. The attendant can also assist senior citizens and others who may need extra help.

More information will be forthcoming and thank you for persistently recycling!

Have feedback? Contact Us will your thoughts on the new recycling plans and we'll pass the information on to the City of Shawnee

Shawnee's Native Plants Park is Looking Good!

Sustainable Shawnee's own Tom Terry and Shawna Turner have been working hard to promote the use of low-water use plants and drip irrigation in Shawnee. Direct Colors Inc., a local decorative concrete company, acid stained the concrete pathway in the park and later Tom Terry with the Garden Clubs of Shawnee followed with additional plantings.


The park was created by the City of Shawnee and the Garden Clubs of Shawnee in 2009. Sustainable Shawnee with the assistance of the Oklahoma Water Conservation Grant program purchased the drip irrigation equipment in 2010.

The Native Plants Park is located on the corner of Main and Broadway. Come on by!

Top 10 U.S. Air Polluters: Do They Live Near You?

The Toxic 100 Air Polluters index identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world's largest corporations. The index relies on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI), which assesses the chronic human health risk from industrial toxic releases. The underlying data for RSEI is the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), in which facilities across the U.S. report their releases of toxic chemicals. In addition to the amount of toxic chemicals released, RSEI also includes the degree of toxicity and population exposure. For the complete Top 100 air pollution emitters, visit http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic100/

Top 10 U.S. Air Polluters:

Bayer Group
ExxonMobil
Sunoco
E.I. du Pont de Nemours
ArcelorMittal
Steel Dynamics Inc.
Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM)
Ford Motor Co.
Eastman Kodak Co.
Koch Industries

It's Local Food Week in Oklahoma!

June 13-20th

Local food is a valuable economic asset for the state of Oklahoma.

Any Oklahoman can celebrate Local Food Week in some simple way – by shopping at a farmers’ market or including locally grown food in the family’s meals during the week. A menu of many other ideas forcelebrating local foods is also available at http://www.buyfreshbuylocalok.com/.

A full schedule of Local Food Week events. is available at http://www.localfoodweek.org/.

Lasagna Gardening

Pesticides linked to ADHD in Children

What you bringing into your house?

Pesticides in foods are only part of the story. Soaps, dishwashing and laundry detergent, shampoos, toothpaste and many other household items also have chemicals in them that your family shouldn't be exposed to either. Consult the Whole Green Catalog for tested chemical-free alternatives for every imaginable product. Please consider making these changes. You'll be glad you did!

Study: A Link Between ADHD and Pesticides

Studies linking environmental substances to disease are coming fast and furious. Chemicals in plastics and common household goods have been associated with serious developmental problems, while a long inventory of other hazards are contributing to rising rates of modern ills: heart disease, obesity, diabetes, autism.

Add attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to the list. A new study in the journal Pediatrics associates exposure to pesticides with cases of ADHD in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 4.5 million children ages 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates of diagnosis have risen 3% a year between 1997 and 2006. Increasingly, research suggests that chemical influences, perhaps in combination with other environmental factors — like video games, hyperkinetically edited TV shows and flashing images in educational DVDs aimed at infants — may be contributing to the increase in attention problems.

"I am very confident in the correlation in this study, because we controlled for quite a few things that we thought could play a role," says Bouchard. "Adjusting for those things did not change the results very much. Which indicates that there is very little potential for confounding in this association between pesticides and ADHD."

Read more at http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1989564,00.html

Whole Foods is Coming to OKC!

I always enjoy shopping at the Whole Foods Grocery in Tulsa and finally after much waiting, Whole Foods has announced a new location in the OKC area. A location has not yet been disclosed but read more about this exciting development in the Daily Oklahoman and stay tuned for more details!