This year the Portsmouth Sustainability Fair is offering a “Sustainability at Home” Tour on Saturday May 16 from 10 am to 2 pm. The tour highlights homes and organizations in our area that are currently utilizing sustainable practices in building materials, energy use and conservation, and stormwater management practices. Home and business owners are showing increasing interest in sustainable practices for both the positive environmental benefits and because they know that these practices can save money. Making the switch to a sustainable practice is best done when you are well informed about the practice and what better way to find out than by talking to your neighbors and friends who are utilizing these systems. The Home Tour Committee hopes you find the tour informative as well as fun and that it helps you move to a more sustainable life style. We also hope that you will consider show casing your sustainable practices in the tour next year.

Sustainability at Home information and the brochure for the self-guided tour will be available at the Home Tour booth during the Sustainability Fair on May 9. The brochure will also be available at the Sustainability Fair web site as a PDF that you can print out at home. There is a suggestion donation of $10 for the brochure and tour.

Portsmouth Sustainability Fair Home Tour Committee
Steve Miller, Carol Renselaer, Bob Brisebois, and Judy Sabin

The Speaker Series is open to the public and intended to generate ideas and enthusiasm regarding Sustainability. The Sustainable Speakers Series will be prior to the Sustainability

Fair to allow people to create a better understanding of the issues and possible solutions,when they talk with vendors and others at about specifics at the Fair.

The Portsmouth Sustainability Fair Speakers Series is set to begin a Monday evening series. Each evening will feature multiple speakers and a panel discussion. Please join us and make this a great networking event.

Topics and detailed schedule to be announced.

All speakers will comment on the ways their topics address The Natural Step:

Four System Conditions, http://www.naturalstep.org/en/category/topic/4-system-conditions

The Sustainability Fair will be held Saturday on May 8th, from 10 am to 3pm.

The fair, organized by a committee of volunteers, will again be sponsored by Portsmouth Listens, The Piscataqua Sustainability Initiative and the City of Portsmouth, as well as the support from many local businesses.

• Using locally grown foods
• Using organic products
• Employing fair business practices and paying a living wage
• Composting, recycling, using compostable products, or employing any other practices which help to sustain the well-being of our local community.

Please go here if you are interested in participating (hyperlink here) Food vendors are also required to complete and fax back to City Health Dept by 4/16/10. Thank you!

http://www.cityofportsmouth.com/health/permits/summertempfoodpermit.pdf

In conjunction with the
Portsmouth Sustainability Fair – Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Local artists were asked to submit work created from recycled materials. Their individual responses are shown throughout the library and are meant to challenge us to think about what we throw away every day and to encourage us to see beauty and possibility in everyday objects.

Working in a variety of formats, styles and with materials at hand, artists have taken the ordinary, the overlooked, the “junk” that we produce each and every day and asked us to consider the extra-ordinary that can be created from them.

Some of the artists are using found objects from the natural world and using these shapes and forms in a way that enhances our awareness and understanding of their native beauty.

We hope that you enjoy and are inspired by the show!

The goal is to have zero waste to the landfill.

Recycling everything from the fair and everyday use means a cleaner and safer Earth. Typical items like plastics, glass, aluminum and paper products currently have mainstream recycling efforts, but composting is another way to recapture the embodied energy and value of house hold food scraps and use them without going to the landfill.

The 2008 Fair produced about one and a half bags of trash to the landfill. In 2009 we are anticipating no bags to the landfill.

Please come and see how we do this and how you can do this at your home or business. It is easier than you think.

Zero Waste or Bust!