By Jessica Harden
The Farmers Market at Maryland, open every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Tawes Plaza Gardens during the spring and fall, reopened for the season on April 6.
The market hosts vendors from as far as 250 miles from College Park and gives students the opportunity to buy fresh produce.
“I basically came here every week last semester,” said sophomore communications major Vienne Urban. “I think it’s just a really good opportunity to entice students to come outside and walk around and support local businesses.”
At the market, SustainableUMD used the UMD Department of Transportation Service’s bike-powered blender to shred newspapers for seed paper. Anyone interested could ride the bike to blend the paper, spread the blended pulp across a screen, sprinkle on seeds, blot up any excess moisture, and lay the resulting paper out to dry.
“[The seeds] are wildflower seeds and they attract different pollinators like bees and such to help the biodiversity in the area,” said Maria Mastrogianis, junior environmental science and policy major who interns at the Office of Sustainability.
“Hopefully with this demonstration [people] see it can be really neat and there’s a lot of ways to be environmentally friendly,” Mastrogianis said.
The bike was previously used at the Farmers Market to blend fruit smoothies but switched to seed paper this year because of food safety concerns. Freshman secondary education and government and politics double major, Nicholas Marks said he preferred this idea because it allowed the Department of Transportation Services to partner with SustainableUMD.
“This week is bike week,” Marks said. “What we decided to do is try to advocate for better cycling infrastructure on campus, and also find a way to move the University of Maryland, which is actually the largest producer of carbon in Maryland, onto a zero-carbon goal by 2035.”
Marks works with the Student Government Association, Terps for Bike Lanes and the Resident Hall Association in different capacities, and he said that even though the university has a gold certification, given to the university by the League of American Bicyclists for its cycling resources, there are no bike lanes on campus.
“Hopefully with this demonstration [people] see it can be really neat and there’s a lot of ways to be environmentally friendly,” Mastrogianis said.