By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
”Sustainability” was a new word for Corie Feiner, who had never heard of the term until she married Uri Feiner a decade ago.
But now, Mr. and Ms. Feiner and their young family have been exploring the concept of sustainable living and that’s what drew them to the Living Local expo Saturday afternoon at Lawrence High School. It was sponsored by Sustainable Lawrence and the “green teams” of Ewing and Hopewell townships.
The Yardley, Pa., family, which includes 6-year-old Michael and 6-week-old Matan, crossed the Delaware River to find out about “sustainable stuff” in the area, Mr. Feiner said. There is no central place where one can learn about sustainable offerings in this area, he said.
”We do our best to live as healthily and sustainably as we can. We try to ride our bicycles where we can, for social impact and personal health reasons. We try to support organic farming. Our son, Michael, is a veteran of farmers markets,” Mr. Feiner said with a laugh.
There were plenty of organic farms on display at the expo, along with exhibits from companies that promised to help homeowners replace their windows or install photo-voltaic solar panels, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems and other home improvements designed to save energy and money.
The Northeast Organic Farming Association set up a booth with information on organic farming, including a “farm and food guide” that provides a list of farmers markets statewide.
Many of the food vendors offered samples, such as artisanal Jams by Kim, the Great American Cheesecake, Terra Momo Bread Company and Rocky Brook Farm, which offered organic cookies and brownies. Terhune Orchards set up a booth, as well as Jeff Burd Honey, Fulper Farms, High View Farm and ZFood Farm.
Taking a cue from the food vendors, cooking demonstrations were offered throughout the afternoon. Many of the 700 or so visitors to the Living Local expo watched closely as the chefs created meals out of locally grown ingredients.
The Living Local expo also offered a chance for community groups to get out their message the Eggerts Crossing Civic League; WomanSpace, which helps victims of domestic violence; the MidJersey Chamber of Commerce; 4H Mercer County; and the Greater Mercer TMA and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, both of which focus on transportation issues.
The Lawrence Township public school district weighed in, too, as students form Lawrence High School, the Lawrenceville Elementary School and the Ben Franklin Elementary School shared what they had learned about sustainability and what they were doing to enhance it.
Outside in the parking lot, several car dealerships brought along examples of their gasoline-electric hybrid cars. There were cars from Volkswagen and Lexus, as well as fully electric cars owned by some of the exhibitors, including a Nissan Leaf.
Greg Olsen, who lives in Montgomery Township, brought his electric-powered Tesla roadster for display. The two-seat convertible is no longer available in the United States, but there are new models of Tesla automobiles, such as a sedan. Depending on the type of electrical outlet, it could take from 3 hours to 30 hours to recharged his roadster’s battery, he said.
But it was Albe Zakes, the keynote speaker for the Living Local expo, who set the tone. Mr. Zakes is the global vice president of media relations for TerraCycle. The company, which was formed by a Princeton University undergraduate in 2001, is located a few miles away on New York Avenue in Trenton.
Founder Tom Szaky wanted to turn garbage into something useful, Mr. Zakes said, pointing out that in nature, “garbage does not exist.” What people consider to be garbage is turned into fuel or other uses. Garbage is a man-made problem, he said.
Eying the food that was thrown out at the dining halls at Princeton University, Mr. Szaky took the food waste, composted it and turned it into fertilizer with the help of worms. Since he could not afford to package the fertilizer in new containers, he collected soda bottles from recycling containers and put the fertilizer in them.
TerraCycle has expanded into “upcycling,” which is re-using discarded consumer packaging juice pouches, yogurt containers and chip bags. They can be recycled into other consumer products, such as synthetic flooring for porches and decks, backpacks and lunchboxes, he said.
The Living Local expo which is in its 6th year would not be complete without a visit from Solar Man, also known as Lyle Rawlings. He is the president and chief executive officer of the Flemington-based Advance Solar Products.
Clad in a sunny yellow costume including a cape Solar Man demonstrated a photo-voltaic solar energy panel to about a half-dozen children who had gathered in the sunny and breezy area outside the high school. He helped them calculate the amount of energy the panel could produce, in full sun and in partial shadow.
Turning his face toward the sun, Mr. Rawlings told the children that one watt of energy is enough to power an iPod. But the amount of sun on his face at that moment was 1,000 watts enough to power 1,000 iPods.
The children got it.

