Fort Worth salons, breweries and naval base earn awards for environmental excellence
Recycling hair from the salon to clean up oil spills. Starting a community garden to supply food banks with fresh produce. Replacing old toilets with newer models to save water.
These were some of the initiatives recognized at Fort Worth’s Environmental Excellence Awards, a city program that began in 1999 and held its first-ever virtual ceremony on Wednesday. A total of 79 companies were honored for complying with wastewater regulations, and six more were given innovation awards for improving environmental awareness through their business practices.
The Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth took the top prize for Industry of the Year, an award given to an institution that has at least five years of compliance with the Clean Water Act and significant pollution prevention programs. The base has 18 years of compliance under its belt and has diverted some 3,314 tons of landfill waste to recycling in recent years, said Stacy Walters, the city’s top environmental regulatory administrator.
“[The awards] challenge us to move from “what if” to what is, and they give us an opportunity to celebrate our collective efforts for a safe, beautiful and healthy environment,” Brandon Bennett, Fort Worth’s code compliance director, said during the ceremony, which was live-streamed on Facebook.
Novak Hair Studios, a salon on Lancaster Avenue in downtown Fort Worth, received three innovation awards for its efforts to become a zero waste facility, which includes sending 100 percent of hair waste to a company that recycles it and creates hair mats that can help soak up oils after environmental disasters. Recent studies have shown that human hair and animal fur can be effective in absorbing oil, allowing cleanup crews to reduce their use of synthetic materials.
The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth was also honored for its HSC Community Garden, which turned a mostly unused grassy lawn into at least 35 individual gardens that are tended to by students, employees or community members. Gardeners are required to give at least 25 percent of their yield to food banks, and 1,524 pounds of food have been donated so far, according to Walters.
“To date, 9,960 pounds of food waste and 515 gallons of coffee grounds have been diverted from the landfill through the garden’s composting system,” Walters said.
Rent Historic Fort Worth, which redevelops apartments and homes in three historic neighborhoods, received an honorable mention for taking advantage of the city’s SmartFlush program and installing 35 newer toilets that use less water. The Molson Coors brewery also took home an award for changing its manufacturing process to greatly reduce water use at its facility.
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 12:29 PM.
