Grayslake honors green programs

Prairie Crossing Charter School, Light the Lamp Brewery and three other Grayslake businesses were honored by the village board for their green initiatives.

Prairie Crossing and Light the Lamp were both named gold-level sustainable businesses by Mayor Rhett Taylor Tuesday night. Local coffee shop Something's Brewing, downtown restaurant GRIL and Old School Montressori were named silver-level sustainable businesses.

Taylor said each business has gone above and beyond in sustainability efforts.

Prairie Crossing was praised for its use of solar, wind and geothermal energy at its campus at 1531 Jones Point Road. When school officials installed the wind turbine, Taylor noted, they were the first to bring the technology to Grayslake. The 33-foot, $17,000 turbine was installed in 2011 as a result of a seventh- and eighth-grade class project and was donated by Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff, Ariz.

Light the Lamp was honored for engaging in commercial recycling and commercial food scrap composting, using motion sensor lighting and LEDs, and installing high-efficiency heating and cooling systems. The brewery also donates spent grains, a byproduct of the brewing process, to local farmers for use as feed.

"They also took and renovated a building that is over a century old, maintaining a nice old structure in our town," Taylor said, referring to the brewery's location at 2 S Lake St. "And that's really a form of recycling."

Something's Brewing, with locations at 82 Center St. and 1126 E Washington St.; GRIL, at 15 Commerce Drive; and Old School Montressori, at 144 Commerce Drive, were all praised for their use of commercial recycling and the village's food scraps program.

Taylor noted that the village was one of the first in the area to offer commercial recycling. The compost program was created more recently.

"I do appreciate all the restaurants taking advantage of the food scrap composting, I know staff worked really hard on that. We're somewhat of a pioneer town," Taylor said. "That is making a huge impact for the environment."