Local environmentalists recommend people do more

Kimberli Maloy is too young to remember the first Earth Day, but the Cedar Rapids woman has made the environmental movement part of her life.

As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day is celebrated today, more Americans like Maloy are embracing the “Earth Day, everyday” mantra.

Jim Baker, 59, of Iowa City, has been an environmentalist since attending one of the first Earth Day rallies as a student at the University of Michigan.

DyAnn Andybur, 61, of Cedar Rapids, is a more recent convert, having experienced an epiphany, of sorts, during a renewable energy workshop five years ago at Prairiewoods in Hiawatha.

Grass-roots efforts in the past four decades have changed the air we breathe, the water we drink and the land on which we live, but these activists say more remains to be done.

“All you need is to look around and realize we need to change,” said Maloy, 48, who volunteers with Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Freecycle groups.

Freecycle is a global network that keeps more than 600 tons of debris out of landfills daily by offering usable items, like furniture and books, for free via the Internet.

“I'm one of those people who tries to reuse and recycle everything,” said Maloy, a performing artist who works as drama director at Wilson Middle School in Cedar Rapids.

Besides recycling, Maloy and her husband, Matt, practice organic gardening, compost food waste so it doesn't go in the trash and grow a chemical-free lawn.

“We're not as green as we could be, but everyone can always do more,” she said.

Andybur was shocked to hear a speaker discuss the world's finite oil resources during a 2005 workshop.

“It totally transformed me,” she said.

Andybur, finance director at Maquoketa Valley Electrical Cooperative, went on to conduct a household hazardous materials waste collection in her northeast Cedar Rapids neighborhood.

She and friend Michele O'Connor collected leftover oil, paint, cleaners, fertilizers and batteries from about 35 neighbors to dispose of at the Solid Waste Agency's Pollution Prevention Center.

Andybur spends hours disassembling medical alert phones, so batteries and other parts don't end up in the landfill. She has given a presentation to sixth-graders on electronic waste. Andybur also brings her own bags to stores instead of getting plastic bags and reads up on environmental issues.

“It can't be simply for one day,” she said of her environmental initiatives.

Baker remembers watching news reports of the burning oil slick on Ohio's Cuyahoga River in 1969 that helped spark environmental awareness.

He joined the first Earth Day rally on his college campus in 1970, but it was later, on a hike in North Carolina, where he felt transformed.

“At the time, I didn't really know what wilderness was, but I was pretty sure we needed more of it,” he said.

Baker, who earned a teaching degree, went on to become an environmental lobbyist for the Sierra Club.

He moved to Iowa City in 2000 for wife Nancy's job as director of University of Iowa Libraries.

Baker will be a speaker at tonight's Earth Day event in Iowa City.

“We haven't solved (environmental issues) completely,” he said, citing climate change as the top global issue. “Our work is not done by any means.”

The three said Earth Day events can be used as a starting point for environmental awareness.

“They're really great reminders to people of what we should be doing all year long,” Maloy said.