Bexley: 10 Years as an Arboretum & Green Pioneer
Happy Earth and Arbor Month, Bexley! As we celebrate ten years of certified arboretum status and a series of landmark sustainability efforts, I reflect on the community spirit and philosophy that serves as the bedrock for environmental stewardship in Bexley.
Bexley’s emphasis on sustainability is intentional and consistent with our approach to everything from tree lawn policies to major roadworks. The guiding principle is simple - let’s expand greenspace, create infrastructure, and reimagine our community in dynamic ways that our children’s children will cherish and remix as their own gift to the future. This viewpoint guides our sustainable decisions, reflects our values, and serves as the thread that weaves together our daily actions and long-term strategic plans.
With our community’s trust, we’ve crafted innovative approaches to environmental issues… solutions that ripple out well beyond our modest footprint to be learned, adopted, and expanded by other communities. Bexley’s growing reputation as a sustainability leader is the outcome of our community’s commitment to ensuring a secure and healthy future.
Many of our sustainability wins have been directly inspired or supported by our residents, such as:
The establishment of the Bexley Arboretum was a vision of Tree and Public Gardens Commission members, brought to life by Ginny Salamy, Larry Helman, Mollie O’Donnell, Susan Quintenz, and others. “While the 14,000 street trees in our Arboretum add beauty to our community, those trees also significantly contribute to sustainability,” notes Larry Helman, “In a year, a single mature oak can remove over 40,000 gallons of stormwater from the ground.”
Our Zero Waste Plan, crafted in 2017, was a direct outcome of the advocacy of residents Steve and JoAnne Grossman, who persistently pushed the City to formalize waste reduction goals.
Love Your Alley, initially an effort toward positive code enforcement, has evolved into an elevation of native plantings and public art under the advocacy of Rebecca Ness.
Curbside Food Waste Recycling Program, the first program of its kind in Ohio, was inspired by my own travels abroad, where mandatory composting is the norm, and throwing away food waste is as unnatural as failing to recycle an aluminum can.
Our Single Use Plastics ban came about through a variety of factors, but we initially drafted it after a mock council meeting where third graders “voted” for a ban, emphasizing the need to reduce single-use plastic waste. My message to students coming through City Hall every year - your ideas make a difference!
Bexley’s Wind-Based Electrical Aggregation program launched last fall with renewable wind-generated energy credits, carefully timed to coincide with an AEP rate increase, and has resulted in serious savings to Bexley households. “Our most recent data reports that 24% of calculable greenhouse gas emissions within Bexley come from household electricity use,” points out Sustainability Programs Coordinator Elizabeth Ellman, “and our aggregation program is a first step in reducing these emissions and utility bill payments – participating homes have saved an average of $40 per month, and the overall community savings is over $680,000.”
Universal Recycling ensures that all businesses, institutions, and multi-family residential properties have access to weekly single-stream recycling service. Early ideas for this program received a boost from the advocacy efforts of Councilman Troy Markham, who experienced recycling frustrations while renting an apartment between selling a home and buying a new one. “Universal recycling fills a need in our community and empowers all residents to reduce the waste sent into landfills no matter where they live,” notes Troy. The innovative, thoughtful, and affordable solution that resulted provides recycling at every address in Bexley.
The beauty of the Green Bexley movement is that everyone can take part. Perhaps there is no better time to engage than Earth and Arbor Month this April. We’ll have community litter pickup events (April 6 & 20), Earth and Arbor Days Celebration (April 20), the Sustainability Action Plan Public Workshop (April 24) and survey (April 26), and the Green Bexley Cleanup Day (April 27). For a full rundown of Earth and Arbor activities, visit bexley.org/earthandarbor. Even as we celebrate, we look forward. So, what’s next? Formalizing our Sustainability Action Plan; enhancing building codes for clean stormwater and energy efficiency provisions; expanding Bexley’s tree canopy; leveraging incentives for solar and energy efficiency improvements; continuing the greening of the City’s fleet; incentivising cleaner and quieter landscape equipment, and more. But our most vital goal will be education and empowerment, as these tools are indispensable in moving the needle on climate change.
“The world’s most renowned climate scientists tell us that scaled individual and household actions can produce about a quarter of the total emissions reductions needed,” says Ellman. “These are simple actions people can take at home, and likely save money in the process.” Elizabeth works with Bexley City Schools’ fourth and seventh graders to understand the power of household solutions. Her takeaway? “Students are hungry for a better world and ready to take matters into their own hands. It’s quite a privilege to watch them grow from wide-eyed eager beavers to creative, critical thinkers who prioritize the most pressing issues and evaluate challenges with a holistic view of taking care of all who live on our planet.”
The future is safe in their hands - our job today is to do all we can to set them up for success tomorrow. Give us a hand - ideas for living more sustainably are available at greenbexley.org/gogreen and greenbexley.org/kids.
