Some Baltimore County residents said the county?s plant-a-tree campaign isn?t worth the paper it was printed on.
At least, that is, if you?re trying to conserve trees.
County officials had 10,000 paper brochures and 1,000 promotional posters printed to advertise their Growing Home tree campaign, which aims to bring 10,000 new trees to lawns this year. Containing county-sponsored $10 coupons redeemable at local nurseries, the brochures are running low and organizers are preparing to print more at an in-house copy shop.
But critics wonder if the campaign is an ironic goof.
“If the information being printed is not on recycled paper, it seems to be adding insult to injury,” said Donna Spicer, president of the Loch Raven Community Council. “If Baltimore County used half the same resources and effort to hold the line on destruction of trees due to poorly planned development as they have on this promotion for a citizen to plant a tree in their backyard, we might actually see effective aesthetic and environmental results.”
County officials said they asked printing company Ink On Paper to use “paper with recycled content,” but calls to the company were not returned by press time to confirm what percent of the paper was reprocessed. County spokeswoman Ellen Kobler said the county?s in-house print shops uses recycled paper as often as possible.
Campaign coordinator Diana Cohen said a downloadable coupon on the county government?s Web site also has reduced paper waste.
Spicer is among a group of residents who say the county needs to do more to inform residents of development applications and requests for waivers from county code.
They received an e-mail advertising the Growing Home campaign, and said the same system should be used for such requests.
“If they have a list of people who they want to solicit to buy trees, they can hit the same button and for the same low cost, they can notify community activists on applications and results,” said Pikesville activist Alan Zukerberg.
