Demonstrations 2014

“Take the Dive into the Dumpster: Home Sustainable Living Lab” (2:45 pm, demo tent)

Professor Dumpster and his students will be at Earth Day Austin with the Dumpster and hands-on demonstrations on how the Professor is living in 1% the size of the typical American home! Come on in and make yourself comfortable in our fully furnished 33 square foot house.
At the Dumpster Project, based at the Huston-Tillotson University campus in east Austin, Professor Dumpster, along with student environmental group, Green is the New Black, is transforming a used garbage container into a sustainable house and interactive teaching lab over the next year. With a zany professor, a dumpster, and cutting edge math and science collaboration, we’ve got it in the can.

“Austin Gardening Tips from Starting Out to Food Independence” (3:30 pm, demo tent)

Randy Jewart’s own life changed when he built his first 4×4 garden eight years ago at his apartment complex. Since then he founded Resolution Gardens, a company whose motto is “Grow food. We’ll Help.” and built over a thousand gardens in Austin and Pittsburgh, PA. For four years he ran what became a 2-acre urban farm located in twelve home-owners’ yards and sold produce to Tacodeli, Wheatsville Food Co-op and Casa de Luz. Come ask questions and practical answers about growing food in any environment!!

Let’s Get Plastered! Design~Build~Live Earthen Wall Build Demonstration (3:30 pm, drum circle area)

Austin’s volunteer-based, nonprofit, Design~Build~Live is an educational organization providing Texans with valuable experience & information on Natural Building and Sustainable Living for more than two decades. DBL will demonstrate how custom plasters can be mixed & applied to natural walls OR conventional wallboard for an attractive organic surface. They will feature several timeless styles, like Strawbale, Cob, Cordwood, Earthbag, and Rammed Earth. Visit our interactive “Wall Build” and our exhibitor booth display nearby!

Microbes and Worms and Compost, OH MY! The State of Composting in Austin, From Coffee Grounds to Healthy Grounds
Compost Coalition will help you connect to the people and resources you need to divert organic materials from our landfills and back into nutrient-rich earth soils. We don’t have to fill up our landfills with kitchen scraps, leaves, paper, coffee grounds, grass clippings, spoiled food or other organic materials when there are chickens that would love to scratch through the food, plants that can use the nitrogen and microbes and worms that will happily digest any organic material and give us a compost that will increase plant productivity and soil water-retention. Reduce your waste and improve soils with composting. Get your hands dirty in a display of different stages of compost, learn how you can start home composting, what local companies will compost for you and what the City is doing to promote composting at home and work.

Austin Green Business Leaders Program – What it Takes to Top the Competition in Sustainability (1:00 pm, demo tent)

The Austin Green Business Leaders (AGBL) Program recognizes businesses for taking tangible and measurable steps to greening their operations. AGBL will present an Earth Day panel comprised of Gold and Platinum level business leaders who have successfully navigated the program and earned recognition for great strides in operating sustainably. The AGBL panelists will reveal their experiences and what steps they took to become a member. You’ll learn about the program, what’s in the Scorecard, and how the program can help businesses thrive. Our panel will be introduced by Marc Coudert, an Environmental Programs Coordinator with the City of Austin Office of Sustainability and manager of the AGBL program. Panelists include Sheila Flores, founder of Green Gorilla Movers, Paola Guerrero, owner and chef at Buenos Aires Cafe, Myles Whitten, Director of Commercial Solutions for Circular Energy and August Martin, Project Manager at HNTB. We hope you’ll join us to hear about these company sucesses in sustainability!

Cooking Demo with Chef Inge (12:30 pm, demo tent)
The Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts embraces a holistic view of health that takes physical, energetic, mental, emotional, societal and environmental influences into consideration. The program is a comprehensive professional chef training school that focuses on plant-based diets in the fields of Macrobiotic, Vegetarian, Vegan, Ayurvedic and Raw & Living Foods. Join Academy instructor, Chef Inge Bothma, in a whirl of fantastic smells and flavors as she brings the heat and offers bites for the audience.

Keeping Austin Fed: Launching a Food Rescue Social Media Campaign (5:00 pm, demo tent)
Keep Austin Fed, a food rescue and recovery nonprofit, has operated since 2004, but a social media blitz that started in 2012 turned a handful of people doing a few pickups each week into more than 100 volunteers doing more than 40 food runs weekly. KAF Operations Director, Joseph De Leon, discusses how it happened, goals for the future, and the successes and pitfalls of organizing a social media volunteer effort.

“Austin’s Zero Waste Future” (2:15 pm, demo tent)

AZWA Co-Chair, Andrew Dobbs, will demonstrate what the group is planning in order to address issues around recycling policy enforcement, laws against mobile food truck recycling and composting and what to do about Styrofoam.The Austin Zero Waste Alliance (AZWA) assists our local government in keeping with the Zero Waste Master Plan, which mandates 90% of discards will be diverted from landfills and incinerators by 2040. Through volunteer power, public education, advocacy efforts and media outreach, AZWA has established itself as an organization with many levels of expertise on this subject and a go-to community group for helping shape Austin’s future Zero Waste policies.

Kids and Green Tech: Building An Imaginative, Innovative & Savvy Workforce for the 21st Century
with Skillpoint Alliance & EcoRise Youth Innovations (4:15 pm, demo tent)

Skillpoint Alliance and EcoRise Youth Innovations will give a joint presentation at this year’s Earth Day. Both programs play a major role in the lives of our youth, working with teachers driving student interest in green industries. Using Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) classes, Skillpoint Alliance is helping drive the Central Texas economy by offering opportunities for the underserved population to fill much-needed jobs, preparing the workforce for today’s technology-focused world and using project-based learning to ensure the high-tech workforce exists for the growing technology sector. EcoRise partners with Texas public school teachers placing nearly 2,000 students at the center of the sustainability movement each year. EcoRise Youth Innovations believes that developing eco-literacy and environmental awareness among youth is essential to ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come.

Check out our demonstrations from 2013 HERE.