New On-Street Recycling Containers in Northside

Assumed to have been installed to coincide with the Great American Cleanup on April 16th, the Cincinnati neighborhood of Northside has recently added on-street recycling containers along the Hamilton Avenue Business District.

The new receptacles are sleek, attractive, and easy to differentiate from the uniform trash containers, which can be found throughout the city. The containers were obtained through a grant, assisted by the Office of Environmental Quality. Recycling pickup has been contracted through Rumpke Recycling. Hopefully the design choice for the new recycling containers will encourage proper use, not as another place for passersby to throw their trash.

Located near Shake-It Records on the north side of Hamilton Avenue, near Lingo Street.

This measure capitalizes on Northside's growing reputation as one of Cincinnati's greenest neighborhoods. Already in the neighborhood are a variety of services and outlets for reuse, environmental awareness, and alternative transport methods.

• Eateries Melt and The Grove feature a variety of locally-source, vegan and sustainable fare.
• Fueled by the Easter Seals Work Resource Center, Building Value is the place to reclaim salvaged building materials and furnishings. They give a second life to quality, architectural components. Building Value also enables donors and buyers alike to obtain tax credits and LEED credits for their projects.
• MOBO Bicycle Cooperative is the lone bike co-op in Cincinnati, boasting a membership of 600, as of 2011. Their central location enables reasonable access from all stretches of the city. A membership gives you access to tools, a slew of donated bikes for parts, and technical assistance from the friendly staff.
• MOBO is part of the Village Green Foundation, which is a non-profit garden co-op that aims to grant "access to healthy foods for all the residents of the community.
• Even reuse and consignment shops like Chicken Lays an Egg, Casablanca Vintage, and Shop Therapy offer a cornucopia of pre-loved clothing (the former), carefully selected clothing from the 40's to the 70's (second), and items for the home (the latter).
• Fabricate is a gallery and retail store featuring locally homemade and handmade. Celebrating reuse and creativity!
• Many Northside businesses recycle. Northside Tavern, for years, has diverted nearly all its glass bottle and aluminum can waste.
• Let us not forget Northside Farmers Market, open year-round at Jacob Hoffner Park and North Presbyterian Church. Local organic produce, naturally raised meats, raw cheeses, and more.

Active Northside residents and businesses celebrate environmental activism, careful reuse of materials, and a sustainable urban neighborhood. Let's hope that Northside's hop to be the first neighborhood with on-street recycling will encourage others to follow suit.

Details on the Great American Cleanup in Clifton (Cincinnati) - Saturday, APRIL 16th (8:30am-1:00pm)

**IF YOU FEEL ANYONE YOU KNOW WOULD BE INTERESTED IN JOINING US FOR THE CLEANUP, PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH A FRIEND.**

We are rapidly approaching the Great American Cleanup for 2011. As the founder of the CTM Green Clifton Committee, I really wanted to get Clifton on track with annual cleanup events, after what I understood as a long dormancy. My goal is to make this second annual effort bigger than the last. Before I get into the details of this year's event, I want to thank everyone who has expressed any level of interest.

The basics...

Date and time: Saturday, April 16th at 8:30am

Meetup place (or home base): Clifton Plaza (333 Ludlow Ave)

Morning kickoff: Please arrive by 8:30am, so that we can coordinate the efforts with team leaders, assign teams for our volunteers, get liability forms signed, and get acquainted over coffee and eats.

Duration: We're looking at a 9:00am start time, expecting teams to return to Clifton Plaza by noon.

What's next?: I am working on a couple local partnerships within our business district that would provide food for our volunteers after great hard work. No one has any need to worry about not seeing food in front themselves after the cleanup. Lunch will be served from 12pm to 1pm.

The cleanup and supplies...

What's being picked up? We will be picking up trash and recyclables separately. Keep Cincinnati Beautiful will be supplying all teams in Cincinnati with different colored bags, white for one and clear for the other. Weeding out recyclables from our pickup materials is taken very seriously.

Electronics? Yes, electronics are being collected, as a part of the Great American Cleanup. However, they will not be a part of the regular cleanup activities. Instead, KCB has arranged for two drop off locations during the event--one is Blue Ash and another at a still unreported location central to all of Greater Cincinnati's neighborhoods. I will keep you up to date on that piece.

Supplies: Based on supplies from Keep Cincinnati Beautiful from last year, volunteers will receive bright KCB volunteer t-shirts. As stated earlier, KCB will also supply separate bags for recyclables and trash, latex gloves, a pocket first aid kit for home base, and posters for the event. You may see some posters around Clifton in the days leading up to the event. Until the Supply Day--Tuesday, April 12^th--I will not know exactly what we will receive but I planned for supplies for 30 volunteers. Do not fret--KCB overcompensates with supplies for team volunteer estimates, and I will make sure we are not running low.

Routes...

You will find a draft map of team routes attached to this email. The highlighted routes are suggested based on main vehicular or pedestrian routes, common cut-throughs, and known problem areas. I would encourage team leaders to cover other neighborhood streets within their zones if time permits. But I think these routes will take up a significant portion of our time. I will provide individual route maps on cleanup day.

Team leaders...

I have already received interest from individuals becoming team leaders. Due to the large expanse of our neighborhood, we may need two or more team leaders per route. It depends on the turnout by 8:30am or so on April 16th. Feel free to email me, if you are interested in becoming a team leader.

Please let me know if you feel that I am leaving anything out here. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to email me.

Very much thanks,

Christian Huelsman

Clifton Town Meeting, board member

CTM Green Clifton Committee, chair

GAC Clifton site leader

christianhuelsman@cliftoncommunity.org

Win 2,011 RecycleBank Points! What's your green resolution?

To those of your with RecycleBank accounts, and to those who have yet to register for an account: this is for you. It is no mystery that I am one of two members of the Cincinnati RecycleBank team. A common goal of ours and yours: to increase recycling rates in our city.

Pledge to make 2011 your greenest year ever on Facebook.com/RecycleBank and be one of 20 weekly winners.

We want everyone to make this their greenest year ever. Each week in January, we're asking our Facebook fans to share their green resolutions. Every Monday at 11 AM EST we'll post a new topic to start the conversation. From that post, we'll pick 20 lucky fans to receive 2,011 RecycleBank Points! The giveaways started this week, so make sure you "Like" us on Facebook and join the conversation to enter!

RecycleBank in Cincinnati

Cincinnati is enhancing their recycling service by partnering with RecycleBank - a rewards program that motivates people to take greener actions, like household recycling, by rewarding them with points that are redeemable online for rewards from local and national retailers, restaurants, pharmacies, grocers and more. Similar to frequent flier programs, the more a community recycles, the more RecycleBank Points participating households earn. Single or multi-family residences with Cincinnati curbside trash service are eligible to participate in the program free of charge.

• You must register to redeem rewards. To sign up for RecycleBank: visit www.RecycleBank.com or call 1-888-727-2978

• All eligible households have received their new recycling carts - to find out which phase you are in and which week you will be picked up, check out the City’s enhanced recycling program overview at: www.cincinnatirecycles.org or call 513-591-6000.

Recycling: Blow-molded vs. injection-molded plastics

This excerpt is from the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA) website, which does a particularly good job at delineating blow-molded and injection-molded plastics. A waste hauler's ability to recycle and find markets for these materials differs. I have substituted Rumpke Recycling below, as they hold the same guidelines as DSWA. Perhaps Rumpke or the City of Cincinnati can post something similar on their respective websites. As a RecycleBank outreach intern, I get a number of questions regarding "bottles vs. butter tubs." I invite you to visit the DSWA, for additional insight on the similarities and differences of recycling programs abroad.

[Rumpke Recycling] only collects narrow-neck plastic bottles in both its Curbside Recycling Program and Recycling Drop-Off Centers. Narrow-neck plastic bottles such as water or soda bottles, shampoo bottles, and detergent bottles are accepted regardless of the recycling number found on the bottle and usually contains liquid contents. A narrow-neck plastic bottle is one that has a neck smaller than the body of the bottle. [Rumpke Recycling] does not accept wide-mouth plastic containers such as butter or yogurt containers because the manufacturing process differs from narrow-neck bottles. Narrow-neck bottles are what are referred to as blow-molded plastic while the butter tubs and yogurt containers are injection-molded plastics or a "punched" plastic. While the types of plastics for both blow-molded and injection-molded plastics is still the same, the manufacturing process is different. This results in each plastic having a different melt index, which means that they melt at different temperatures. There are not many markets for other types of plastics, which do not have a narrow-neck in the regions around [Cincinnati]. Without a market to accept the items, [Rumpke Recycling] does not have a resource that will accept and process this type of plastic.

"Don't let it be anymore"

As many as my friends are well aware, my efforts toward greater sustainability, community-oriented responsibility, and recycling has intensified greatly over the past year. After taking the first course installment, this past summer--called "People and the Environment I"--I began to ask myself many questions about why we do the things we do, and what comes next. Individual responsibility should and does come first when creating a social movement. My mission toward reuse, recycling, and "recollecting" refuse is a fire inside my core anymore. Look forward to reading about the internal conflicts I put myself through. I never denied that I wasn't a little crazy.

Anyway, I started reading about a small neighborhood called City Airport, outside Detroit, which has really bitten the dust since the 1960s and 1970s. It is where many auto workers once lived. But when plants began to close, whites moved out, blacks later moved out--now it's a hodgepodge of drug dealers and the dreadfully poor. Everyone is afraid to leave their hiding places; the neighborhood park and former school are abandoned and decrepit.

The following article is from a man who began writing for the Detroit News about the misfortunes and small victories in this struggling neighborhood, where only four to five homes remain on each street. There was an man who found an abandoned tire after returning from a barbecue in the park. He decided to take individual responsibility and roll it to the nearest dumpster.

http://community.detnews.com/blogs/index.php/neighborhood/2008/09/13/p449#more449

Somebody hit a ball over the backstop and across French Road during a batting-practice session at Fletcher Field last Sunday.

A little pooped from the previous day’s festivities – our second annual barbecue at the park – I was just watching from the bleachers along first base. So I got up, crossed the road, found the ball in the high grass along the City Airport fence line and then tossed it back into the park.

On my way back to the bleachers, I spotted a discarded tire near the Fletcher Field fence line and decided I didn’t want to leave it there. I put the tire back on its treads and started to roll it toward a dumpster on the Gilbo side of the park, which was put there the day before for cleaning up after the barbecue.

[More:]

It took me about 5 minutes to get to the dumpster, with the tire wobbling most of the way and falling altogether occasionally. I then picked up the tire and heaved it upward to get it over the dumpster’s 8-foot wall. Before I did this, I should have checked the interior of the tire.

It was full of dirty water, which splashed all over me – hair, face, shirt, pants. I was a mess.

As I headed back toward the baseball diamond, somebody along the route took one look at me and asked me what happened. I told him of my stupidity, that I should have known the tire was full of water.

He then offered this: “Why didn’t you just leave it (the tire) where it was?”

For some reason, what he said struck a sour note with me, really fired me up.

“That’s the problem,” I shot back. “Everybody leaves it.”

We just can’t leave it anymore.

Michael Happy is his name. He bares no resemblance to the animated character Mr. Happy, but I like this guy.

[Extended reading: http://www.utne.com/2008-11-01/Media/Bloggers-vs-Blight.aspx, UTNE Reader, "Bloggers vs. Blight: An online community beats back urban decay in Detroit"]

Now I would have rather that tire made it to a recycling facility, but in a place like City Airport, you do what you can. Anywhere else though, where resources are more plentiful, there's this:



http://www.rubbersidewalks.com/

Many cities in the United States have already started using rubber sidewalks in select areas, improving visual aesthetic in neighborhoods, prevented the razing of curbside trees in sidewalk buffers, improved walkability of the sidewalks--in terms of pedestrian health and route viability--and greatest augmented tree root health and drainage. Regional city Hamilton, OH seemed to be working towards implementing rubber sidewalks in its historic Rossville neighborhood, but I'm not sure what happened with the effort. The next time I'm in Chicago (12/31!), I'll be looking for their own rubber sidewalks, located near the Chicago Center.

No diggity, I got to bag it up.

I bought this very pricey bag from Freitag tonight, which completely eliminates any possible claims from me that I'm biking to save money. So much for that. Really though, I needed a completely waterproof backpack for my bike commutes. My work clothes and important work-related materials need to be kept dry, so this was the wisest purchase I could make. Unfortunately, this eliminates the likelihood that I will be able to afford a decent front bike light for several weeks.

Both were expensive items, but I figured that a sensible bag outweighed the need for a front light. The purchase has me both gritting my teeth from the price and flapping my wings in giddy anticipation.

Facts:
- Made from recycled truck tarpulins. While trailers in North America are solid-walled, European trailers are made from heavy-duty plastic tarps. Although this is no good for the environment, it is especially advantageous to keep them from landfills, and to make use of these materials.
- The materials were meant to be durable, so they continue hold up well in the form of a backpack.
- Since each bag is made of a cut from a truck tarp, each design is unique. Yes, this is a luxury, not a necessity, but a perk.
- The bag is also made from recycled car safety belts, airbags, and bicycle inner-tubes. I wear what I ride and rode, eh?

Blame the exorbant price on all of the above. It'll surely last a lifetime though (or more).

I don't care if it has your name on it Emilie--it's mine!