By Sakshi Udavant for Next City.
Broadcast version by Edwin J. Viera for New York News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Urban areas in US cities are estimated to lose an average of 36 million trees every year. This results in economic losses of up to $786 million and risks having an adverse impact on already worsening climate change.

The worse part? Many of these trees are considered "waste" and sent off to landfills. "More wood from cities goes into landfills than is harvested from US National Forests," says J. Morgan Grove, a research forester at Baltimore Field Station, USDA Forest Service. "40% of this wood can be reused for furniture, flooring, outdoor play areas, mulch, compost, soil improvements, bioenergy and even carbon sources for growing mushrooms."

That's what "reforestation hubs" are doing: Saving urban trees from heading to landfills by finding new ways to repurpose the wood. These wooden products can be sold to fund further tree plantations. This cycle reduces urban wood waste, saves money, helps increase forest cover, and most importantly, keeps carbon out of the environment.

"If we recycled all the trees that came down in US cities each year, roughly 20 million tons of carbon could be kept out of the atmosphere, equivalent to taking over four million gas-powered cars off the road for a year," says Ben Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Cambium Carbon, a New York-based startup working on reforesting America by creating the aforementioned wood repurposing-reforesting cycle.

Reforestation Hub, an initiative by The Nature Conservancy (a global environmental organization) and American Forests (a US-based forest conservation nonprofit), estimates up to 133 million acres of formerly forested lands in the United States could be reforested, absorbing 333 million metric tons of carbon per year, which is equivalent to keeping 72 million cars off the road. That's why the organization calls it "a low-tech, scalable and proven solution to climate change."

Creating a Circular Economy

Organizations like Cambium Carbon play a huge role in making this circular economy possible. For instance, Cambium Carbon works at three critical points: 1) saving the trees from ending up in landfills when they're first cut down or have fallen, 2) collaborating with millers and sawyers who can use the "wasted" wood, and 3) working with architects, builders and furniture brands who provide the market to incentivize salvage. This way, fallen urban trees go from being a "landfill filler" to a valuable commodity that creates resources for increasing the declining forest cover in US cities.

The organization claims to have diverted more than 45 tons of wood from landfills, moving about 291,000 board feet of wood or roughly 489 tons of finished product. They're now starting a new furniture line with Sabai Design, a sustainable furniture brand in Philadelphia, and planting new trees with the Sacramento Tree Foundation and the Baltimore Tree Trust. Their goal is to plant one billion new trees across the U.S. by 2030, the team mentioned in an interview with Next Pittsburgh.

Cambium Carbon is not alone. Other organizations like Cities4Forests and the Arbor Day Foundation are working with local officials to create the nation's first reforestation hubs by 2022 through a TNC Natural Climate Change Solutions Accelerator Grant.

Is the Solution Worth the Costs?

While collecting fallen trees from urban spaces and using them to make locally-sold wooden products sounds like the perfect idea to reduce wastage and make supply chains more sustainable, all of this is easier said than done.

One drawback is that the barriers and costs of these alternative wood waste programs may outweigh the benefits, says Melissa McHale, associate professor of Urban Ecology and Sustainability, UBC Faculty of Forestry. "Many cities lack the space to store, sort and process the wood waste, and the cost of creating a space like this, in terms of dollars and time, is prohibitive," says McHale, who also served on the leadership team for the United States Forest Service's Denver Urban Field Station (USFS DUFS). "Many cities do not have the ability to maintain and remove all of their problem or dead trees and depend on private companies to do so. Private companies, especially the smaller businesses, often do not have the time and equipment needed to remove a tree whole and transport it wherever it needs to go."

Fortunately, several organizations are stepping up with resources and ideas to make the wood repurposing process more efficient. For instance, Reforestation Hub maps out "relatively low-cost and feasible options to restore forests." The web-based tool highlights several key areas for affordable reforestation like large open patches within forests, croplands with challenging soils and post-burn landscapes. It also offers handy access to reforestation resources like links to find a professional forester, find your state's urban and community tree coordinator and access published articles on cost-effective tree planting.

Beyond helping the planet for years to come, initiatives like these also support local communities. Cambium Carbon has created a national network of local producers and national buyers to purchase locally salvaged, locally milled wood, which further funds local tree planting. For example, the communal tables in the entrepreneurship hubs on Towson University's campus are made of wood that would have otherwise gone to waste. Similarly, the trellis in the Visit Baltimore HQ office was made using "waste" now repurposed into what the team calls "Carbon Smart Wood."

"It's a big opportunity to put people first and to have projects that are not just good for the planet but are really good for communities," CEO Ben Christensen said in an interview with the Arbor Day Foundation. "[We're] creating systems that are helping to address problems like lack of employment and helping to support economic recovery coming out of COVID."

Cambium Carbon has employed 25 workers while also creating additional employment and partnership opportunities for several local carpenters and woodworkers through their sales and inventory management platform, Traece. Since the wood is sourced, repurposed and sold locally, workers in the region find more projects (like working on the Towson University tables) and resources (companies buying the new wooden products) to generate revenue that they wouldn't have access to if the fallen trees just went to a landfill.

School buses are getting cleaner in Washington state after this year's legislative session.

Lawmakers in Olympia passed House Bill 1368, which will fund the purchase of zero emission school buses.

Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, said the program is getting off the ground quickly.

"As we work towards that long-term goal of all new school buses being zero emission, we're kick-starting this year with $40 million in grants to school districts in overburdened communities," Senn explained.

Going forward, Senn noted school districts will have to purchase zero-emission vehicles once the total cost of ownership is equal to or lower than the cost of diesel vehicles. The state is leveraging the state's Climate Commitment Act resources to fund the transition of its 10,000 school buses.

Devin Denney, director of transportation for Highline Public Schools in King County, which already has electric school buses in its fleet, said he has driven the electric buses and talked about some of their benefits from a driver's perspective.

"You're not competing against that engine noise, the kids aren't competing against the engine noise," Denney observed. "It's a much quieter bus all the way around. The major advantage, of course, is that there's no tailpipe emissions with an electric bus, so our kids' health is better protected."

Senn emphasized health studies have shown there are negative health effects from diesel vehicles for kids, and it is easy to understand why.

"If you think about kids waiting to get on their bus in front of an elementary school and you have this line of buses idling, letting out diesel fumes right at the height of a little child, it becomes obvious that this is probably not the most healthy thing for our children," Senn added.


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Today, in honor of Earth Day, climate advocates are asking California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to rally around a plan to put a $15 billion bond measure on the November ballot.

If passed, the bond measure would fund a range of climate resiliency measures.

Sam Hodder, president and CEO of the Save the Redwoods League, said March was the tenth month in a row to break monthly heat records.

"I think Earth Day is a terrific opportunity for the broader public to recognize how nature is critical for resilience, for our quality of life, for our mental and physical health, and for our communities more broadly," Hodder outlined.

Two similar bills to put a bond measure on the ballot are under consideration in Sacramento, Assembly Bill 1567 and Senate Bill 867, but they have been stalled since last summer. The bond would finance many programs, including some to restore wetlands that guard against sea-level rise, and to remove dead wood in forests to guard against mega-fires, which Hodder noted have killed 20% of the giant sequoias in recent years.

Opponents pointed out the state already faces a budget deficit and cannot afford to take on more debt. But only 5% of California's old-growth coastal redwoods remain, mostly due to aggressive logging many decades ago.

Hodder argued the giant trees can be critical ingredients in the fight against climate change because they trap so much carbon.

"Redwood forests sequester more carbon per acre than any other forest system in the world," Hodder emphasized. "We have the opportunity to transition the redwood forest from something that is vulnerable to climate change to something that is helping to solve and address the climate crisis."

Experts blame climate change for California's wild weather over the past few years, which has been marked by extreme drought, devastating fires and flooding rain.

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation warns that the effects of climate change in the Quad Cities, along the Iowa-Illinois border, will be severe.

But researchers got the public involved in studying to find ways to head off some of the most pressing concerns.

The report says climate change means a warmer, wetter future for the Quad Cities, which straddle the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois.

But rather than repeat what experts have already been saying about drastic flooding along the Big Muddy, Prairie Rivers Network River Health and Resiliency Organizer Nina Struss said researchers and Quad Cities residents brainstormed solutions to tackle the effects of climate change.

"Flooding and flash flooding were the top concerns," said Struss. "Extreme heat was also a big concern, as well as drought and other extreme weather events."

Researchers combined that information with hard science at the University of Illinois to create 3D models depicting what climate-induced flooding along the Mississippi could look like in the future.

The survey also asked people to identify which geographical areas and populations are most at risk from the effects of climate change, and worked with the community on solutions to mitigate some of them.

Struss said this research proposes what are known as nature-based solutions to combat the effects of climate change - restoring, preserving and even expanding existing ecosystems, like wetlands and tree canopies. But creating more eco-friendly infrastructure, too.

"Can we work to maybe have our pavements that we're putting in be more permeable, so that they can absorb that water and have that higher water-holding capacity?" said Struss. "Can we focus on areas to plant more native plants that have stronger root systems, versus ones that have shorter root systems, to help with that water-holding capacity?"

Struss said this research isn't a one-off. It will continue to change, she said, as the climate changes, the needs become more clear, and the effects more drastic.

She said progress in addressing climate change relies on more research, education and funding.




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