Going Green EXPO Carbon Offset Tree Planting Was A Success

• What: Carbon Off-Set Tree Planting
• When: Thursday – April 10, 11:00pm to 12:30pm
• Where: City of Tampa Sulpher Springs/Tower Park

Over 50 volunteers, many from USF, came to the Tower Park and planted 54 trees as a carbon-offset to the Going Green Tampa Bay Expo. City of Tampa Parks Department were a huge help, moving trees and coordinating the planting. They will also maintain the trees in the park, watering them with reclaimed water. Trees were donated by Sunrise Landscape, TreeMart, Staggs Tree Service and Nursery, US Lawn, and the USF Botanical Gardens. The Tower Park was chosen to continue the memorial to Alan Wright who was a river planner with Hillsborough County’s City-County Planning Commission and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the park.

Chipotle provided free food for the volunteers.  It was a fun way to spend a few hours in the great Florida sun!

In addition to the trees planted here in Tampa, the Rome Foundation is also planting an additional 100 trees in Haiti as a sister project.

Carbon Offset Theory

The basic idea behind the offsetting of carbon is to somehow make-up or mitigate the carbon released by doing something, in this case, holding the EXPO in the Sun Dome.  The Sun Dome event for one day will use about 5000 Kilowatt-hours of electricity, which translates to about 3.9 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide. This is one of the "green house gases" that causes climate change or global warming.  To absorb this amount, the volunteers planted 54 trees at the park. These 50+ trees growing for 20 years should absorb the carbon into their tissue.  The park is an idea location, as many trees there are over 100 years old, and hopefully many of our trees will live a long life under the big white tower.

The trees were of the following types:

oak: 15

magnolia: 14

holly: 10

pine: 2

redbud: 4

dogwood: 1

cypress: 6

maple: 2

For more information visit www.GoingGreenTampaBay.com

The Expo is at the SunDome on Saturday April 12th from 10am to 4pm and features

workshops, discussions, films, displays and vendors, as well as special exhibits and

activities for children. Nationally recognized speaker Samuel Nutter from the Massachusetts

Technology Collaborative will present “Communities for High Performance Schools”;

workshops range from making Bio-Fuels with Mike Lokey, to Compost Happens and Making

Rain Barrels with IFAS. Several vehicles will be on display including Lokey’s bio-fuel race

car, HartLines hybrid bus and perhaps even a Hi-Performance Electric Vehicle which has

just been announced by a top EV expert. Green Building Techniques will be presented;

exhibitors include eco-friendly vendors, the Clean Energy Research Center, CUTR and

other USF departments featuring information on Green Jobs, Engineering Without Borders

along with Hillsborough County departments who will have conservation ideas for your

home & yard.