Awards highlight environmentally friendly efforts

“The Choose Environmental Excellence awards give us an opportunity to recognize some of the people among a lot of people who are doing some really honorable activities and who have some very significant accomplishments,” said Barbara Lucks, project coordinator for Choose Environmental Excellence.

Five awards were presented at an April 22 luncheon.

Green space preservation

Towe Construction was presented with the Choose Environmental Excellence Award sponsored by Ozark Greenways Inc. for the company’s efforts to preserve green space.

“We sponsor an award recognizing a community corporate business partner that we feel is worthy of it every year,” said Terry Whaley, executive director of Ozark Greenways.

“We’re always looking for a company that is environmentally sensitive, environmentally aware, that we work with,” he added.

He said it’s not an easy decision to choose the award’s recipient, but the group looks at who it’s worked with in the past year and what has been accomplished.

Environmental challenges Towe worked with included removing a minimal number of trees and working around the existing natural landscape, Whaley said.

Towe also goes the extra mile, Whaley said, noting the area near the City Utilities substation along South Creek on Sunset between Campbell and Jefferson avenues, where there is a footbridge made from recycled tires.

Green building

On behalf of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, Executive Director Loring Bullard presented the Discovery Center of Springfield with a Choose Environmental Excellence Award in recognition of the green building practices being used in the renovations and additions at Discovery Center.

“The facility will be water- and energy-efficient and will provide healthy working conditions for their employees, all the while teaching our youth about environmentally responsible building practices,” Bullard said in a news release.

Waste reduction

The Ozarks Correctional Center in

Fordland was recognized with a Choose Environmental Excellence Environmental Service Award by the advisory board of Solid Waste Management District O, which serves Christian, Dallas, Greene, Polk and Webster counties.

“Their recycling center has grown from a single trailer into a permanent building where supervised inmates now process numerous materials,” said Robert Hamilton, executive planner for the District O Advisory Board, in the release.

Environmental education

Lucks presented the Choose Environmental Excellence Environmental Educator Award to Joe Pitts, environmental education specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and state coordinator for Project WET – Water Education for Teachers.

Lucks said educating people about environmentally friendly alternatives and raising awareness about practices harmful to the environment is at the heart of the Choose Environmental Excellence program.

“The education side of it is very important because it’s giving options and alternatives, and other practices and ways to lessen the impact,” Lucks said.

Business efforts

Nestle Purina PetCare received Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s Choose Environmental Excellence Business Award, presented at the luncheon by Dave Fraley, chair of the chamber’s Environmental Issues Business Forum and manager of environmental compliance at City Utilities.

Nestle Purina PetCare, which recycles paper products into pet litter, was recognized for its efforts toward environmental stewardship. Fraley said the Nestle plant serves as a local enduser, meaning it closes the loop by providing a product from recycled materials that people will buy.

“Everyone wants to recycle and thinks a great thing to do to recycle, but really it doesn’t do any good to recycle unless there is an end use for that product,” Fraley said.

Lucks said by being a local end user, the plant plays a significant role in sustaining the Springfield’s recycling program.

“They play both a significant role in the long-term viability of our recycling program because as long as they’re here, we have a place for our paper to go. And in the process (the company) fills those local jobs and the local expenditures,” Lucks said.

Nearly 25,000 tons of newsprint and mixed paper have been recycled in the six years that the Nestle plant has been in operation.

Runners up for the award were 3M and American Pasturage, Fraley said.