Ideas abound for a 'greener' Greencastle

Over the past few months, a group of Greencastle residents has been seeking solutions as the city tries to move toward a "greener" future.

The Greencastle Sustainability Committee is a citizen coalition connecting people and ideas for local environmental solutions to strengthen our community, economy, culture and quality of life.

The committee grew out of last year's Community Forward summit.

Tuesday marked the fourth sustainability meeting since early December, with the focus being on trying to bring together a wide variety of ideas into a more cohesive whole.

Since last month, the committee has been broken into five groups -- communication and education, energy, recycling and waste, local food and transportation and transit.

With such a wide variety of interests, the group shared a plethora of ideas.

"We have ideas of all sizes. We have ideas that can be implemented right away, and we have bigger, dreamy kind of ideas," said sustainability chairman Steve Setchell. "Tonight we want to bring those ideas back and see what we have as a whole."

"Our main task is to make a report to Mayor (Sue) Murray and the community on March 9," he added.

The communications group focused mainly on how to get ideas out to the community and make the cause known. Possible logos and slogans were discussed in order to make the environmental efforts more recognizable to all.

The energy group discussed ways to reduce the city's consumption of energy including weatherization, ordinances supporting green initiatives and ways to encourage local businesses and builders to be environmentally friendly.

For the recycling group, the solutions centered on making recycling more accessible in the community. The idea is that recycling isn't always convenient in Putnam County, so people don't do it.

The local food group focused on making people and businesses aware of local food producers and how to use their products. The conversation centered largely on ways to maintain and improve the Greencastle Farmer's Market.

The transportation group discussed everything from simple solutions like carpooling and enhancement of People Pathways, to long term solutions like expansion of Rural Transit and the possibility of light rail service.

While none of the ideas are set in stone, the committee continues to plan as it moves toward its presentation to the mayor.

Sustainability will meet at 5 p.m. Monday at city hall to review a draft of the report and discuss future steps.