Locals Celebrate ‘Earth Day’ Every Day
The spherical object in the middle of Kerry Hendrix’s backyard is quite the looker. It measures over 100 inches around, weighs 36 pounds and has the capacity to hold 71 gallons.
“I was kind of skeptical [of it],” said Hendrix. “I actually researched it a couple of times.”
It is an eco-compost machine. Hendrix says he bought the apparatus two months ago as a way to keep the amount of trash to be collected every week to a minimum.
“Gas has to be used to pick that up, drive it out and take it to the dump,” he said.
Every day, he takes leftovers — such as coffee grounds, herbs, and vegetable ends — and dumps them inside the plastic machine. Hendrix explains that he rolls the sphere once in awhile so that it shifts everything around inside. Everything that is green eventually turns to brown. It takes about 6-8 weeks for the entire composting process.
Hendrix takes that homemade mulch and spreads it around his garden as fertilizer.
In Indians Wells, attorney Brian Harnik is doing his part to embrace nature, too. When he rebuilt his office located on Manitou Drive, he insisted in leaving five olive trees untouched.
“The gentleman who designed it said, “If we’re touching these olive trees, I’m not your man,'” Harnik said.
He says the century-old trees bring character to his firm: experience and maturity. They planted four more olive trees.
“People have a little skip in their steps now,” he says with a smile.
The first Earth Day celebration began 40 years ago. Clearly, the next generations are continuing that effort in many innovative and inspirational ways.
