Detroit Earth Day sequoia project fills vacant lots near I-94, I-75

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Detroit community initiatives and businesses worked together to observe Earth Day on Tuesday.

Why you should care:

"We’re planting about 100 giant sequoias in the neighborhood," said Andrew "Birch" Kemp of Arboretum Detroit Co. "These trees are clones of 3,000-year-old trees."

On Earth Day vacant lots that were full of blight, are taking on a new look to become an urban forest. The new tree planting project will help provide cleaner air.

"Particularly in this neighborhood have a pollution problem," Kemp said. "We live at the intersection of I-94 and I-75. Giant sequoias are a great solution because they grow fast and are evergreen and they catch a lot of the particulate, that we otherwise would be breathing."

School children were brought in to help plant and make their future brighter with the use of clones.

A few miles away still in Detroit, Levy is working to turn yesterday’s waste into tomorrow’s highways with the Edward C. Levy Co.

"We take products from the road at Thebes of its useful life," said Jeff Kramm. "At the end of their useful life, we take those products, re-crush them and turn them into products that go into the new road.

"Like I-75 we did the base for that project last year and the year before."

The Edward C. Levy Company’s recycling efforts have been ongoing for decades.

"It started with Mr. Levy Sr. and Henry Ford," Kramm said. "Henry Ford needed a place for his slag levy, took the slag, recycled it and made it into pavement products."