A green day for Bethesda

New initiatives being announced today, including recycling bins near trash cans, aim to make downtown more eco-friendly

Officials plan to announce the creation of the Bethesda Green initiative today at a ceremony held at the Bethesda Theatre. The project will be a collaboration between public and private entities, sponsored by Montgomery County Council members and business owners alike.

The committee has already outlined some green goals for the initiative, including recycling bins throughout downtown Bethesda and converting recycled cooking oil into biodiesel fuel.

‘‘No one needs to be told that the current way we do business isn’t going to work,” said County Councilman and co-chair of the Bethesda Green Steering Committee George Leventhal (D-At Large) of Takoma Park. ‘‘We’ve got to make some changes.”

To help make the changes, the Sustainable Business Network of Washington (SBNOW) and the Livability Project, two environmentally-concerned nonprofit groups, were brought in by Leventhal. The two groups will work together to implement some of the plans set forth by the steering committee.

‘‘You’ve got businesses, government, nonprofits all coming together to make Bethesda a greener place to live and work,” said Michael Mielke, executive director of SBNOW.

The kick-off today is the steering committee’s attempt to educate area businesses about the initiative, in hopes that some will become a part of it. Mielke said he hopes businesses and individuals will attend the kick-off, then dedicate funds to putting the initiative into motion.

In addition to the nonprofits, Honest Tea and County Council members Leventhal and Roger Berliner (D-Dist. 1) of Potomac, the steering committee also includes representatives from Chevy Chase Bank, Federal Realty, Calvert investment group and other county offices.

But none of the projects can happen without some green from the community.

An initial contract for $25,000, from Leventhal’s office, was given to the partnership of SBNOW and the Livability Project to implement the project, but more funding is needed to start up all the proposed projects and keep them running.

Dave Feldman, president of the Livability Project, said the fundraising goal is upwards of $250,000.

‘‘We don’t want the burden of this project to fall on the taxpayer,” Feldman said, ‘‘so we need to find ways to fund the project through partnerships and sponsorships.”

Feldman said he and Mielke are looking into grants from Coca Cola and the National Recycling Coalition to help offset the costs of recycling bins.

The goal is to locate bins next to trashcans throughout the downtown area.

Each recycling bin costs about $1,000, Mielke said. There are 200 trashcans in the Central Business District, according to Dave Dabney, executive director of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, a nonprofit group that maintains and markets downtown Bethesda, and is currently entrusted with garbage collection in the area.

While supportive of the plan, Dabney said there are some speed bumps ahead.

‘‘The right thing to do is to put [recycling bins] out there,” he said. ‘‘But we need to find a way to get some funding for them, and then figure out how they are going to be emptied. We’re going to be as flexible as we can, but these are still questions.”

While Mielke and Feldman said an official launch date for specific projects hasn’t been set, both hope to have some projects running this year.

The initiative, Mielke said, has few predecessors, especially on the East Coast.

‘‘This is going to be different from other green zones, because it will be community owned and operated,” he said.

Leventhal said a secondary goal of the project is to see if the initiative works in Bethesda, and then try an implement it in other parts of the county.