Westland • Michigan
Compassionate City
COMPASSION MOTHER
For
EARTH
THE MAYOR’ S MONARCH PLEDGE At the 2016 Earth Day Celebration, Mayor William R. Wild announced the city of Westland’ s involvement in a new program, the Mayor’ s Monarch Pledge, which was created to encourage local municipalities to take a leadership role in the creation of monarch butterfly habitats.
The monarch butterfly is an American icon that has captured the imagination of millions of Americans. Due to loss of habitat, their numbers are dwindling. Mayor Wild joined the Pledge, and has worked with local agencies and community gardens to create additional monarch habitats.
This is part of the city’ s ongoing Westland: Mission Green initiative, a wide-ranging program, launched in 2008 by Mayor Wild, designed to create a sustainable Westland for future generations.
“ The Pledge encourages the creation of butterfly gardens on city-owned properties such as parks and right-aways,” said Wild.“ In response, two new butterfly gardens have been created, one at the Jefferson Barns Community Vitality Center( JBCVC), the City of Westland Monarch Butterfly Refuge, within the city’ s oldest neighborhood, and the other at the Westland Senior Center.”
LANDMARKS ALONG THE MISSION TO BE GREEN
Westland Mission: Green, through a special grant, was fortunate to procure several of the coveted milkweeds plants( a favorite of the monarch) from the Monarch Watch – University of Kansas, which were then distributed to the city’ s existing community gardens and the newly created butterfly gardens.
EARTH DAY ALL YEAR LONG Mayor William R. Wild and the city of Westland held another successful event for Earth Day 2016 at the newly renovated JBCVC. The event began with the presentation of a new baseball complex with several other amenities at the JBCVC. Wild outlined the plans for the new improvements and introduced State Rep. Robert Kosowski, who secured a $ 175,000 state grant to fund the recreational improvements. The ball field presentation was followed up with a groundbreaking for these wonderful improvements designed to provide open space and recreation amenities for the youth in the Historic Norwayne Community, as well as all of Westland.
The mayor also used the event to tout the city’ s recycling efforts that are highlighted by a single stream curbside recycling effort that boasts an incredible 80 percent participation rate from the city’ s 25,000 households.
A pack of Westland Boy Scouts after learning about Mission Green at the Westland Recycling Center.
Westland residents annually recycle more than one million pounds of trash, which saves the city hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on landfill costs. Wild also highlighted a new recycling program, Simple Recycling, which provides bags for curbside collection of clothing, shoes and small household items.“ Clothing unfortunately remains one of the major items that fill the country’ s landfills and this unique program will allow Westland to lower our city’ s environmental impact and through a special arraignment with Simple Recycling LLC, the program will also generate much needed revenue to help keep our recycling programs free, explained Wild. He also presented the Mission: Green Eco-Award to Simple Recycling for this innovative private / public partnership with the city of Westland.
Mayor Wild also announced a new citywide greening effort that the city would embark on in 2017. As part of an initiative geared at sprucing up Westland neighborhoods, the mayor announced that his administration would be rolling out a tree replacement plan to begin to offset the devastating loss of right away trees, due to Michigan’ s Emerald Ash- Borer plague.
SPRING CLEANING When the spring rolls around, the city of Westland is ready to help with the cleanup.“ As many families clean out the garage and basement, they stumble upon household hazards,” said Mayor Wild.“ They find old chemicals or fluids, batteries or other items that are deemed hazardous waste. We don’ t want anyone to throw them out in the trash. That contaminates the landfill.”
Instead, Westland collaborates with the Wayne County Department of Public Service on Hazardous Waste Collection and Electronics Recycling events. This past year, they were held at the Westland Shopping Center behind JC Penney.
Items that were collected included: floor wax, floor care products, carpet cleaner, furniture polish, bathroom cleaners, stain removers, household paints, stains and dyes, glues, auto batteries, mercury thermometers, fluorescent bulbs, fertilizers and pesticides, anti-freeze, motor oil, gasoline, cell phones, TVs, computer monitors and printers.
“ In Westland, every day is Earth Day and, as current residents of our proud city, it is our responsibility to be good stewards of the environment and do our part to pass on a sustainable community to future generations,” said Mayor Wild.
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Innovative Health- Winter 2017