The Sustainability Festival is timed to coincide with Friday's Earth Day Observance and the first Amherst Farmer's Market day of the season, said Stephanie C. Ciccarello, energy task force coordinator for the town of Amherst and an organizer of the event.
AMHERST – Joan M. Freele picked the perfect day to sell rain barrels.
Freele, owner and founder of New England Rain Barrel in Peabody, was one of the hardy vendors who stuck it out through the rain Saturday at the second-annual Amherst Sustainability Festival on the Town Common.
“Eventually, people will have to water their gardens,” she said. “And it’s better to do that with collected rainwater.”
Freeley also sells solar- powered pumps for use with the recycled plastic rain barrels and plastic composting containers.
The Sustainability Festival is timed to coincide with Friday’s Earth Day Observance and the first Amherst Farmer’s Market day of the season, said Stephanie C. Ciccarello, energy task force coordinator for the town of Amherst and an organizer of the event.
The goal is to educate people about environmental matters and teach them how they can take action in their own lives, Ciccarello said. Farmer’s market vendors were on hand with plants and food. There were also booths selling energy-efficient windows and crafts made from natural or recycled materials. Visitors could learn about area bicycling trails.
The festival also had a scavenger hunt where people were encouraged to go to local businesses and learn what those businesses do to recycle or reduce waste, like providing used cooking oil to someone who burns it in a car or buying solar energy credits, said Susan M. Waite, the town recycling coordinator.
“The businesses do these things at no small expense,” Waite said. This gives them a chance to showcase those efforts.”
Despite the thick blanket of clouds, some people at the festival arranged for Greenfield Solar Store owner John R. Ward come out to their homes and see if they can start harvesting their own energy from the sun. The store at 2 Fiske Ave. in Greenfield, sells everything from flashlights that recharge themselves off a solar panel and wooden clothes-drying racks to a $10,000 solar-hot water setup that can cost as little as $4,900 through the use of state and federal tax breaks.
Electricity-generating home solar setups that cost from $7,839 for a 2-kilowatts system to $14,307 for a 5.3-kilowatt system after the tax credits are applied.
Ward said business is good.
“People are becoming more aware that there has to be a change in energy policy for this country,” he said. “The people who are talking to me have come around from just being angry at the high fuel prices and now they want to do something about it.”