Green group, county recognize Naperville Park District's efforts

The Naperville Park District is garnering attention for its green efforts, even outside of its parks.

DuPage County and School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education on Thursday awarded the district with an Earth Flag in recognition of its environmental initiatives. It is the first park district to receive the honor.

"Their green initiatives are expected to reduce their operating costs and significantly lower their overall environmental impact," said John Zediker, a member of the DuPage County Board. "The county of DuPage is better because of these environmentally responsible citizens' leadership of this board."

In 2007, the park district opened its new south maintenance facility, Naperville's first building to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

For the past several years, the park district's Green Team has been finding a variety of ways to be more environmentally friendly in each department. The district has reduced the amount of paper it uses by making documents electronic and has started buying more recycled paper, according to Community Development Manager Sue Omanson. It reduced its paper costs by $44,000 from 2008 to 2009.

The district also started putting a decal on recycling containers to help show what is and isn't recyclable, monitors its use of electricity, installed more energy-efficient park lighting systems and purchased three hybrid vehicles last year. Recently volunteers helped plant trees near the Riverwalk and the district is also using more organically based fertilizers.

In addition, the park district now collects used sports equipment and donates it to Rebound Sports, which then sends it to needy children in other countries.

To help Naperville area youngsters become more conscientious about the environment, the park district started a new Toadstools and Pollywogs Preschool.

"The goals of the preschool are to get kids involved with nature and also using good environmental habits like recycling and reusing materials," Omanson said.

Kay McKeen, executive director of SCARCE, praised the park district's efforts.

"Park districts are, I think, the prime example of who should be leading the way in taking care of nature and the environment and people's enjoyment of those things," she said.