Farmers Markets Are Essential! Please support Virginia’s farmers by sending this letter to the governor asking them to reclassify farmers markets.

During a pandemic, or other disaster, state and local governments often make determinations for classifications of various services and can create specific rules that apply to industries like food service. For the purposes of the current COVID-19 response, Governor Northam has classified Farmers markets as restaurants. This classification limits the public’s access to a critical service. Farmers markets in Virginia provide access to food and should instead be classified as grocery stores, thus allowing operations to continue during emergencies.

Farmers markets provide low-income families with nutritious food and offer fresh produce in food deserts. In 2018, $172,225 in SNAP benefits were spent at 70 Virginia farmers markets, and 60% of farmers market shoppers in low-income neighborhoods say that their market has better prices than grocery stores. According to the USDA, farmers who sell at farmers markets are more likely to stay in business than those that don’t. We need farmers!

Open-air markets are important and necessary food outlets for community members from all economic backgrounds across the DC metro area to purchase healthy, fresh, nutritious food. Farmers markets are essential to the livelihood of farmers and food producers. Shopping at farmers markets means you are supporting your local economy, which is especially critical in this time of uncertainty.

In addition to all of the information in this blog post, Our friends at the Virginia Farmers Market Association have prepared an expansive list of what customers and vendors can do to protect themselves during the Covid-19 pandemic, you can find that link here.

Thank you for your help and stay safe!

– Jen and Zach

Are you looking for a way serve your community and get outside? This Saturday we’ll be on Upper Long Branch in Bailey’s Crossroads hosting our final sponsored community clean up of the calendar year. This is a great opportunity for kids that need community service hours for school or anyone who wants to improve the health of our watershed!

Upper Long Branch flows into Four Mile Run which is a tributary of the Potomac. If the plastic and other litter is left there it will make its way to the Chesapeake Bay and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.

The clean up will go from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and we’ll meet at the end of Magnolia Ave. in Falls Church. The easiest way to find it is to put the intersection of Glen Carlyn Rd. and Magnolia Ave. into your GPS and then follow Magnolia down until the end and park on the side of the street. (There are some screenshots of the map at the bottom of this post.)

Upper Long Branch is a rocky, shallow creek so hard rubber boots that can get wet and muddy are highly recommended! We’ll provide all the clean up supplies- bags, gloves, and some trash grabbers. Please bring your own reusable water bottle, we will have a water jug on hand for refills!

If you have question about the clean up please email cfc@cleanfairfax.org. We are looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday morning!

We want to call attention to a number of exciting opportunities and requests related to litter clean up throughout the greater Fairfax community:

• Are you looking to join an organized clean up? Clean Fairfax is hosting a community stream clean up in Bailey’s Crossroads on November 9^th. If you’re interested in volunteering for the day please let us know! We’ll release the exact location when we get closer to the date. I grew up in Bailey’s and this clean up is particularly important to me. This creek is where my friends and I would explore and where our appreciation of the natural world was fostered as kids. The wildlife has largely disappeared and has been replaced by litter. Come out and help us bring wildlife back to Bailey’s Crossroads creeks! This is the last Clean Fairfax sponsored clean up of the calendar year so get your community service hours in for school now!

• Have you noticed a recurring litter hotspot in your neighborhood? We want to help your community find permanent solutions. We will help you find the sources of the litter and develop strategies your community can implement to solve the problem.

• Do you want to host your own community clean up? Supporting county-wide cleanups by individuals, groups, schools, churches, and businesses is one of the most important aspects of our work. Go to https://cleanfairfax.orgprograms-events/community-clean-up-program/ and fill out the form and we’ll give you all the supplies you’ll need for free! All you need to do to schedule your own clean up is find your own clean up location, pick a day, gather a few volunteers, and let us know of your plans. In selecting the site for your clean up we recommend going about a mile each direction from your home, work, school, or church. The supplies include 30-gallon trash bags, gloves, clear bags for recyclables (upon request), safety vests (upon request), safety tips, and any other supplies that we might have to support the cleanup. Please try to give us 10 business days to get your supplies to you.

And finally, if you want to document litter you find when out and about around Fairfax County or across Virginia, share your pictures on social media using #litterfreeva. Sharing pictures with this hashtag helps us track litter throughout the county and across the Commonwealth.

As the weather begins to cool and you’re looking for some late season paddling, camping, or hiking to see the leaves changing colors, a little upfront planning can make your trip both zero waste and lots of fun. I spend a lot of time looking for adventure while paddling on the Potomac or walking Shenandoah with my dog and know how quickly a day can be ruined by coming across a stash of plastic bags or food wrappers. Natural spaces are a shared resource and we should all look to protect them, utilizing Leave no Trace principles. In that spirit, I’m going to share a few tips, tricks, and products I’ve used over the years to minimize my impact when I venture into the outdoors.

Planning Ahead
Planning ahead is critical to a zero waste adventure. When I’m getting ready for a day outside, my planning doesn’t just include figuring out where I’m going and getting my gear ready. The process includes being methodical about how I’m going to pack my food and water for the day. My goal when I leave my apartment is to not stop until I reach my destination so that means no stops for snacks or coffee at a gas station or roadside market that often rely on non-compostable material. Preparing all of my food the night before leaves more time for fun on the day of, and it also enables me to not bring any single use items out into the woods.

Food Storage
I start the day by making my coffee and putting it in my reusable mug which keeps the coffee hot longer and helps avoid a mid-drive pit stop. After the coffee is ready, I pull all of the food I prepared the night before out of the fridge and put it in my pack. My adventure lunch always contains at least one peanut butter and jelly sandwich, trail mix, and some fruit. To avoid single use plastic, I use a silicone option instead. There are a lot of brands out there and I use Stasher Bags to carry everything! Stasher bags are great for every day use – not just for weekend warriors! One Silicone Stasher Bag can eliminate hundreds of Ziploc bags from a waste stream.

Water
Anytime I go into the woods I have to bring enough water for myself and my dog, and we both have way more fun when we’re hydrated. My adventure days, just like my work days, start by filling up my 64 ounce Hydroflask water bottle. When we’re out on a hike, the big bottle stays in the car and then we have nice cold water for our trip home. I carry two 32 ounce Hydroflasks in my day pack so Buddy and I are always well hydrated. If I’m in my kayak, the 64 ounce bottle comes along for the ride and stays cold even in the sun.

We may leave many of the conveniences of home behind when we head out looking for adventure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be conscious of the impact single use plastic can have on the outdoors. A little bit of planning can keep you and your four legged companions well fed and hydrated without leaving behind litter for other outdoor enthusiasts to find.

We recently met the outreach coordinator of a local foodbank and she wanted to know how she could help her foodbank lower their environmental footprint. She invited us out to see the foodbank and the first thing we noticed was the incredible work they are doing for their community. They provide food and household products which can’t be purchased with food stamps to food insecure families every month. Their foodbank is set up like a grocery store allowing customers to shop as they would in a grocery store. During the previous month alone, the foodbank distributed 3,047 plastic bags to hold the products they make available to community members. We immediately realized the significant opportunity this provided us to make a lasting difference in the community and set out to find an alternative.

To provide families with a strong, viable alternative that allowed them to participate in the broader waste reduction movement, we bought the foodbank 3,000 reusable shopping bags, with a simple message on the bags, “Fill Me Up, Bring Me Back, I’m Reusable!”. The foodbank is going to keep track of how many bags are brought back every month, and our hope is to see at least half of the bags make repeat appearances at the facility. If 1,500 of these bags come back every month, that would equate to a total of 18,000 single use plastic bags that do not go into circulation over the course of a twelve-month period. Our goal is to minimize single use plastic and we are excited to have enthusiastic partners embark with us on this pilot program.

Clean Fairfax strives to support clean water in Fairfax County through various programs such as our Clean Streams Initiative and our Farmers Market sustainability initiative. People often ask us, “what can we do to help?” This holiday season, we’re recommending two ways in which you can give back to the community and support clean water too!

1. Sign this petition, which calls for residents to let the EPA know that we support the Clean Water Act in all its glory! This petition is coordinated by the Choose Clean Water Coalition, a group of conservation non-profits that have banded together to make our voices heard!
2. Check out Litter Free Virginia, which is a coalition of organizations and people that are interested in litter legislation in that state of Virginia. Click on this blog post to learn more!

You’ll see plenty of buying guides in the next month. We encourage you to shop thoughtfully, considering where things come from and how they get to you. We do not get any benefit from you shopping from this list. These are simply ideas we have and products we use and like. If you’re a local business with sustainable gifts, email us and we might add you to this list!

Above all, we hope your holidays (however you define them) are full of all the things you value—friends, family, food, and fun.

The Gift of Time
One of the best gifts you can give—yourself. If you have an elderly parent, relative, neighbor or friend, they don’t want more STUFF. They would love it if you came over more often to play a board game or to chat over tea. Or perhaps to help clean out their garage, to rake and compost their leaves, or to plant their garden for them in the springtime. Or maybe there’s a young family on the block with kids who would love to learn to bake, or make a bird house or grow tomatoes. When you give the gift of yourself, it is two gifts—one for them, and one for you!

Secondhand Books
Used books have a kind of mystique to them that people love! If it’s secondhand, it’s intriguing to wonder where the book has traveled, who originally bought it and with what purpose. If it’s from your own collection, add a note about what it means to you. We especially encourage circular economies like this — buy from a local used bookstore, or if this isn’t possible, Amazon sells used versions of all books. We should also note that most used bookstores have gift cards as well!

Soap Nuts & Dryer Balls
Interesting names…. great products! Soap nuts are natural and reusable laundry soap. They really do work. Dryer balls, made from 100% wool, replace dryer sheets (which are coated with chemicals and are typically made from plastic microfibers.) A few drops of essential oil (all-natural, high quality) will allow the dryer balls to act as a fabric refresher too, if that’s important to you!

Support Local Farms
Want to support local food production? Whitehall Farms, in Clifton, sells CSA shares and local products at its on-site market. We also highly suggest you visit!

Reusable Produce Bags
Reusable produce bags are a good way to decrease plastic bag usage from your weekly shopping trips. As you well know, we aren’t big fans of plastic.

The Gift of Good Health
Fairfax County Rec Centers have many locations near you and they would love for you to give a gift certificate for a membership or classes.

Meal Subscriptions
Although we’re highly skeptical of meal subscriptions, Sunbasket rises above the rest. Sunbasket has many food options, their meals are certified organic and they pack all items in 100% sustainable packaging that is recyclable and/or compostable. If you have a friend or a sibling who just works/commutes TOO MUCH and you worry that they aren’t eating well, consider a Sunbasket membership.

Mighty Nest
For $12 a month, you can get a new sustainable, environmentally conscientious product to try. Items in the past have included beeswax wrap to replace plastic wrap, silicone toppers (again to replace plastic wrap), reusable sandwich bags, all-natural laundry soap, stainless steel bento boxes, refillable dental floss in a glass tube and more. All items come with minimal paper packaging and no plastic. They also have a good selection of healthy home products to help get you to zero waste.

Seabags
Seabags is a company out of Maine that makes bags and totes that are made from old sailboat sails. They have a shop in Annapolis if you want to go see them in person. The bucket bags are a favorite and are perfect project bags for knitting, or lunch, or shower caddy!

Adapted from Sustainable DC’s wonderful newsletter

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, meal planning and preparation is in full swing. You’ve spent the entire year cutting down on plastic, eating less meat, and conserving water — and now Thanksgiving presents a great opportunity to put another feather in your sustainability cap. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans discarded an equivalent of over 6 million turkeys last year. That figure doesn’t include all the stuffing and mashed potatoes that might end up going bad in the back of your refrigerator days after the feast.

While Thanksgiving is a time to indulge (or to run a local turkey trot), it’s also important to be thoughtful about the amount of food needed for the meal and leftovers. Being mindful of how much food you’re making doesn’t have to cut into your holiday traditions. With a little advance planning and a few Turkey Day tactics under your apron, here’s how you can have your turkey and eat it too, all while still avoiding food waste.

Determine how much of each ingredient you really need

Before heading to the grocery store, make a list of the items you need and do your best to stick to it. Along with cutting down on food waste, you’ll also save money. A typical four-person family in the U.S. wastes $1,500 each year on food they end up throwing away.  A nifty new tool from nonprofit Save the Food, called the “Guest-imator,” can help you save time and money on groceries.

No turkey, no problem!

We know it might be a tradition, but if not all of your guests are into turkey this year, that’s ok. You might choose to bypass the turkey and still have a main dish everyone will eat! Vegetarian lasagna and sustainably-sourced fish are excellent alternatives.

The dish no one eats…let’s skip it

Let’s be honest with ourselves and take an inventory of what family members actually want to eat, not what has become tradition. If you tend to make a dish solely because it’s an annual tradition, consider making a smaller portion or cutting it out entirely this year.

Send guests home with (reusable) care packages

No matter how carefully you plan your feast, avoiding the faux-pas of serving too little food means you’re going to have at least a few leftovers. Don’t let them sit in the fridge too long. Make sure you’ve got a game plan and consider sending leftovers home in reusable containers with your guests.

Compost!

Remember to compost meatless leftovers (or leftovers with meat if you have access to industrial composting facilities… not exactly FFX’s strength).

Clean Fairfax is proud to introduce Litter Free Virginia, an initiative to fight for litter prevention legislation across the state of Virginia! At its core, Litter Free Virginia is a coalition of people and organizations (non-profits, businesses and more) that are frustrated with litter and waste management issues, and want to develop and support policies that help solve these problems. Clean Fairfax has long dreamed of coordinating a coalition that attacks litter at its source, and that day has finally come!

In its inaugural year, #LitterFreeVA will focus on legislation that decreases the use of single-use bags, especially plastic bags. This will likely take the form of a local-option bag fee of $0.05. In future years, this initiative will focus on other aspects of the litter issue. Don’t worry — we haven’t forgotten about bottles, cigarette butts, fast food containers, etc. But for 2019, it’s single-use bags.

While we’re hard at work developing good policy, you have a BIG part to play in #LitterFreeVA. Here are ways that you can contribute (full details found here):

• Document litter in your community – Do you regularly snag selfies? Do you take your avocado toast on a photoshoot before you dig in? If so, this may be the perfect task for you. We’ve spoken to legislators, and they need photographic proof of the litter issues we’re having. Consequently, a main focus this year is to document Virginia’s litter problems using the hashtag #LitterFreeVA. This is super easy. If you walk upon a littered area, take a photo, upload it to Twitter or Instagram, and tag us using #LitterFreeVA. We then collect these photos using a hashtag aggregator! Bonus points if you add location (including zip code if possible) as well as a bit of colorful (but positive) commentary. Want to see the photos we’ve collected thus far? Go to our front page and scroll down!
• Contact your representatives – Your local state senators and representatives have a lot to do. They can’t keep track of every issue, so it’s on you to let them know that this is an issue you care about! Click here to find your local rep’s contact information. Please note that representatives will only listen to their own constituents. Do not waste time contacting a rep that’s not your own. If you really want to put pressure on a representative outside your locality, convince citizens within that locality to contact their rep! For talking points and sample emails, please click here.

The website should help guide you every step of the way, but please contact us if you have any questions or if you are looking to become more involved in this initiative! A really easy way to keep up with what we’re doing is to sign up for email alerts. We promise never to spam you.

It can be difficult to see the good in this rough and tumble world of conservation. There are so many things that need improving, so many people that need help. But sometimes we need to stop and smell the roses. What roses, you say? Today’s rose is Fairfax County Public Works and Environmental Services, and especially Fairfax County Stormwater!

This fall, Fairfax County is being awarded a “Gold Level in Program Management” and “Silver Level in Innovation” by the Water Environment Federation. Managing stormwater is incredibly difficult for any municipality, and it is a thankless job. The only time anyone thinks about stormwater is when it’s in their yards or streets. We have been working with Stormwater for the past two years on outreach and education efforts and thoroughly enjoy our partnership. There’s always improving to do, but it’s important to recognize that Fairfax County has put together a dedicated and talented team to tackle these issues. Congratulations to the stormwater team and all the partners that help implement the county’s MS4 program!