Ban the Bag! Green Schools Alliance Conference at Hewitt

Green Team at Hewitt

This Saturday March 2nd, the Green Gremlins Team attended the Green Schools Alliance “Ban the Bag” conference at the Hewitt School.  We had the opportunity to listen to a student-moderated panel about how New York City might implement a plastic bag ban similar to those in place in cities like San Francisco, Delhi, Mexico City, and Portland.  At the main panel, we heard some of surprising facts about trash, and even more surprising solutions being worked on, from Jennie Romer, founder of Plastic Bag Laws, Ron Gonen, Mayor Bloomberg’s Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability, Stiv Wilson, from the 5 Gyres Institute, Eric Goldstein from the NRDC, Matie Quinn of SIMs Recycling, and city Councilmember Brad Lander. Did you know?: Each month, 2 million pounds of trash that could be recycled ends up in our landfills, shipped to OH, NC, and DE.  Much of this if food related, and plastic bags are a big part of the problem.   While taking hundreds of years to decompose, they bioaccumulate in ocean food chains, ultimately harming humans. During our Green Team meeting this week, our group will discuss how GCS kids can get involved in the upcoming campaign to ban plastic bags in NYC, and we will discuss how our current collaboration with the Al Hekma International School in Bahrain, through the NAIS Global 20/20 Challenge, focusing on deforestation, will incorporate a discussion of forest resources and paper bags.

Green Cup Challenge

Look our for new recycling and waste information in April!

 

Reuse and Relief – The Green Gremlin’s favorite kind of action!

From today’s Treehugger headline story by Alex Davies

“When Go Play! announced a competition to design an innovative playground for 1,000 refugee children along the border of Thailand and Burma, Dutch designer AnneMarie van Splunter thought of old car tires. To be specific, she thought of a playground made entirely out of reused tires on a bamboo frame, made in the shape of a tree with expanding roots.

Though in my opinion it looks more like a squid, and has some practical problems, the design won the contest’s Honorable Mention for Innovation.

Although van Splunter and her advising artist Peter Verhaar wanted to avoid the use of metal (thus the bamboo frame), their environmental leanings were trumped by physics — it turns out that a steel frame would be preferable for safety and durability reasons.

The second issue is the durability of the tires themselves — after a lifetime of supporting cars the tropical heat is cause for concern that they would have to be replaced at some point.

But those concerns aside, the RubberTree is commendable for its creative upcycling of old tires, and for the eye-catching originality of the playground. While it may not be built in Thailand, the team is looking for a commission in its native (and cooler) Netherlands, where various parties have expressed interest in seeing it realized.”

Check the Neck!

NYC has some great new PSAs that will help you comply with recycling rules.  Here is one devoted to plastics.  Enjoy!

Treecycle Mulchfest 2011

You may be eyeing your tree and starting to think about how much longer it will last this year.  Maybe you’ve fallen in love with it, and wish it could last a little longer.  Don’t despair! There are many ways to extend the life of your tree for months to come.  A great article in the NY Times shared ways to make tea and Spruce Butter.  When you’ve used your tree as much as you can, don’t forget to take it to Mulchfest 2011, held all around the city on Jan.8.

Do you have other items that need to be recycled after an exciting holiday? There is an extremely useful program available via the Treehugger Mobile App.  If you have a GPS-able smartphone, add the free Treehugger app.  You’ll see a symbol for recycling.  Once you choose the items you want to recycle (including many things not recyclable by the city) you’ll see the closest location to take your items.  For example, if you have #6 plastics (polystyrene) that tend to pile up over the holidays, you can take them to some participating Mailboxes, Etc.!

International Family Night – Eco Heroes of India

Enjoy International Family Night at GCS tonight!  The families putting the event together have an incredible list of foods, crafts, and activities to share with everyone.  Events begin at 6pm.  Performances are in Tuttle Hall.  Namaste!

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mohandas Gandhi

The Green Team created a flag of India out of recycled materials from all over the school, including many food containers and bottle caps.  Featured on the flag are some Eco-Heroes from India; Gandhi, Vandana Shiva, Divya Raghunandan from Greenpeace India, Nitin Desai from the Council on Climate Change, and Jairam Ramesh, Minister of the Environment of India.  Photos of everyday recycling in villages and cities were included.

It’s America Recycles Day!

Check out this website where you can learn about national recycling initiatives.   Wondering how to recycle something at GCS?  Check out our right hand banner for information about programs we are carrying out this year.  If you have ideas about how we can add to our recycling program, please contact us at kchaloner@gcschool.org.

Green Halloween!

Are you looking for more ways to make this Halloween a Green one?  A great site from the UK offers tips on that and more.  Check out How Can I Recycle This?  You can also search for tips on Earth 911 or the NYC Reuse Site; NYC Stuff Exchange.

Also, if you are finding your pumpkin has “had its day,” don’t forget to head to the Union Square Greenmarket’s Compost tent.  Pumpkins are being collected from around the city.  And since November 1st 12:00 am marks the beginning of the Winter Holiday season, plan to bring any Christmas Trees to the Mulchfest in January!  Save those old costumes for next year’s Costume Swap.  Many Green Gremlins wore swapped costumes this year, and one particularly great Red Riding Hood was constructed from several vampires and one Superman!

Tekserve and LESEC Collecting eWaste

Our friends at the Lower East Side Ecology Center, and the Apple Specialists at Tekserve, are working on another eWaste collection.  See this video and their websites for more information!

NYC recycles clothing and materials – from Earth 911

Earth 911 maintains a comprehensive list of recycling centers, as well as instructions about how to make your home, office, and school a greener place.  A recent article on the site highlights NYC’s new clothing recycling program.

“If you had to identify a city in the U.S. that has its finger on the pulse of what’s fashionable, New York City wouldn’t be a bad choice.

Be it the city’s semi-annual Fashion Week or the numerous fashion publications based there, New Yorkers are very much up on what’s hip when it comes to clothing.

But this then begs the question – what should the city’s denizens do when their duds are so last year? Well, if the city’s government has anything to say about it, people will be recycling those old clothes.

As AP reported (via Yahoo), the city will launch a program in September that will place 50 collection bins across the city in areas with a lot of foot traffic, to entice people to recycle their clothing instead of tossing them.

As the article notes, Americans chuck nearly 10 pounds of “socks, jeans, shirts and sheets per year, per person,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, per a survey of 600 adults byGoodwill Industries, “more than half of the people who donate clothing say they wouldn’t go more than 10 minutes out of their way to make a donation,” so clearly convenience is important.

It’s uncertain as of now who’ll be responsible for the bins, with the city taking bids from nonprofit companies interested in taking on a 10- to 15-year contract, and Goodwill Industries is one such nonprofit.

As Goodwill spokesman Alfred Vanderbilt noted, “There has not been another program like this that we know of. We think they are being very creative and we hope this sets a new standard.” Don’t be surprised if that’s the case and you see more clothing collection bins popping up in other cities in the next few years.

Story by Marc Hertz, originally published July 6, 2010 on Tonic“