The Asheville Urban Forestry Commission (AUFC), Asheville GreenWorks, and the Tree Protection Task Force have stirred up a lot of community interest in recent months about the need for the City to hire a professional urban forester and develop an urban forest master plan. Why is there such interest in urban forestry management in Asheville? Don't we already have a city arborist who takes care of tree-related matters?

A group of volunteers formed the Tree Protection Task Force in 2017, under the auspices of Asheville GreenWorks, to advocate for protecting the trees that make up the urban forest of Asheville. Since that time, the Tree Protection Task Force has supported the City of Asheville's efforts to conduct a gap analysis, review the City's tree ordinances and conduct a study of the change in urban forest canopy cover over a ten-year period.

Sunday is laundry day in my house. With a four person household, I probably average about five loads of laundry per week. That adds up to be a lot of laundry detergent each year. Over 30 billion loads of laundry are done each year in North America, leading to about 900 million laundry jugs discarded annually in the United States.

Have you ever thought about plastic reduction in your laundry room? How about those fresh-smelling dryer sheets that reduce static electricity, leaving your clothes feeling soft? Dryer sheets are made from synthetic polyester, and the toxic chemicals contained in dryer sheet fabric softeners are what target the electrostatic charges.

If you lived in Asheville NC since 2011 and you're a rabid recycler then you're familiar with the Hard 2 Recycle Collections. Founded in 2011 by Rainbow Recycling, Hard 2 Recycle events are free to the public collections geared toward bringing awareness to other modes of recycling to our area.