sustainableflatbush.org

Just a reminder:
Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting is TONIGHT!!

Please join us:

WHAT: Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: Monday, November 12th at 7pm
WHERE: 462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)

Tonight’s meeting will focus primarily on the formation of committees to carry out service projects and set long-term sustainability goals for our neighborhood. Proposed committees include:

• R3 (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)
• Sustainable Gardening
• Energy: Efficiency, Alternatives
• Transportation/Livable Streets
• Local Business Outreach
• Schools Outreach

We will also discuss upcoming actions (including our participation in Flatbush Development Corporation’s holiday event at Newkirk Plaza on December 8th) and formation of partnerships with like-minded local and citywide organizations, and hear a report on the highly-anticipated Flatbush Community Garden.

Hope to see you there!

Sustainable Flatbush is about to enter an exciting new phase of our activities in the neighborhood, and we’d love for YOU to be involved! Please join us:

WHAT: Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: Monday, November 12th at 7pm
WHERE: 462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)

Longtime Flatbush resident Mark Levy has come onboard, bringing his history of commitment to the neighborhood and experience as a community organizer and environmental educator. He has also kindly offered to host this meeting at his home. Thanks Mark!

We will form committees geared toward specific activities and service projects, establish leadership roles, and set some new goals for 2008. To give you an idea of what’s in store, here are some of the proposed committees:

• RECYCLING/WASTE REDUCTION
Focusing on recycling education and promotion, as well as other methods of reducing waste in our homes and businesses, from composting to blocking unwanted fliers.

• SUSTAINABLE GARDENING
Sharing knowledge and resources on sustainable approaches to all forms of urban gardening, from yard landscaping to street tree pits to organic farming. We will also be actively involved in the new neighborhood community garden.

• TRANSPORTATION/LIVABLE STREETS
Working with Transportation Alternatives and other Livable Streets advocates, we will bring a local perspective to the citywide discussion of such issues as traffic calming, congestion pricing, public transportation improvements, and infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

• ENERGY EFFICIENCY/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND FUELS
Let’s talk about how to save money by using less energy in our homes and businesses, and how to incorporate alternative energy sources such as biofuels and solar power into the landscape.

• LOCAL BUSINESS OUTREACH
Helping neighborhood businesses to adopt sustainability practices that improve their “Triple Bottom Line”: People, Planet, and Profit.

• LOCAL SCHOOLS OUTREACH
Implementing environmental education and practices in our local schools.

Hope to see you there!

Science Barge - Powered By Nature!, originally uploaded by Sustainable Flatbush.

Finally visited the Science Barge during GreenHome NYC’s Green Buildings Open House.

The Science Barge is a sustainable urban farm. It demonstrates renewable energy supporting sustainable food production in New York City. The Science Barge grows tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce with zero net carbon emissions, zero chemical pesticides, and zero runoff. Operating from May to October in 2007 and 2008, the Barge tours waterfront parks in Manhattan, hosting thousands of visitors and public school students.

For more photos of this event, check out the Sustainable Flatbush Flickr gallery.

One big source of trash for those of us who shop online and mail order is excessive packing materials. Some companies are worse offenders than others, and hopefully this instance cited on Organic Picks is not the norm:

photo: Organic Picks

Yes, the small Pyrex bowl on the left is the purchased item!

As the post points out, we concerned consumers can have an impact on the companies we shop with by praising those with eco-conscious packaging and objecting to practices like the above. This in turn raises the issue of excessive packaging, period. How many times have you been tempted to use a hacksaw to open one of those ridiculous plastic clamshell bubbles in order to free the small item (usually electronics) contained within? Ever wondered why so many food products are packaged in both a plastic bag AND a box (most cereal, for example)? Even those who conscientiously harvest and recycle all the cardboard from these conveyances will be faced with a pile of plastic that can only go in the trash — where it will remain for generations.

Though you wouldn’t know it from a typical shopping experience today, sustainable packaging design is being explored and embraced by many companies. It is currently a work-in-progress with much “greenwashing” in evidence (a “compostable” plastic container that gets thrown in the trash is arguably no different from any other plastic container, as it will not break down in a landfill… only if it is actually composted). But many companies have already voluntarily reduced their packaging and seen dramatic reductions in their shipping and storage costs. Fast Company’s recent article, 50 Ways to Green Your Business cites some dramatic examples:

1 At $100 a ton, feeding a landfill is pricey. But in the past two years, General Mills (NYSE:GIS) has turned its solid waste into profits. Take its oat hulls, a Cheerios by-product. The company used to pay to have them hauled off, but realized they could be burned as fuel. Now customers compete to buy the stuff. In 2006, General Mills recycled 86% of its solid waste, earning more from that than it spent on disposal.

8 Hamburger Helper helps your hamburger … save the planet? This year, General Mills redesigned the packaging of Mom’s old standby, shaving off 20% of the paperboard box without shrinking its tasty contents. The astounding result: 500 fewer distribution trucks on the road each year.

10 Taking the packaging revolution a step further, the liquid-laundry-detergent industry, goaded by Wal-Mart, has cut the size of its bottles by 50% or more by concentrating the liquid to two and sometimes three degrees of magnitude. Unilever’s triple-concentrated All Small & Mighty detergent has saved 1.3 million gallons of diesel fuel, 10 million pounds of plastic resin, and 80 million square feet of cardboard since 2005. This fall, Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) is converting its entire collection of liquids to double concentration.

(The rest of their list is pretty interesting too.)

As consumers, the more we educate ourselves about the consequences of excessive packaging and use our wallets to vote for alternatives, the more manufacturers will be compelled to respond with real solutions. And if the solutions also benefit those companies, well, isn’t that how things should be?

“How I Spent My Summer Vacation” continues, with more photos and anecdotes from the sustainability bicycle tour I went on in August…

Maitreya Eco-village, Eugene, OR

The trip began in Eugene, where we camped for the first few nights at a place called Dharmalaya. This is a privately owned home with land that hosts a yoga and meditation studio and acts as a community center for concerts and educational events. It is also an experiment in sustainable living, with an organic garden, composting toilets, and greywater reuse system. (More on Dharmalaya, including their ups and downs with the Eugene zoning board, here.) We visited a community called Maitreya Eco-Village, where we received some lessons in green building techniques (specifically straw bale and cob construction) from founder and architect Rob Bolman. We dropped by the factory and showroom of Bike Friday, manufacturer of world-famous sublime folding bikes, and got to take a few for a spin around the parking lot. We also checked out Eugene’s Center for Appropriate Transport, which hosts a community bike workshop and educational programs that teach kids how to build and design bikes and bike accessories.

Center for Appropriate Transport, Eugene, OR

Once this show actually got on the road, the distances each day were pretty significant for my wimpy self. (One point of pride was that I did actually RIDE up the hilliest portion of the trip, albeit at approximately 1.5 miles per hour.) I discovered that I like traveling by bike very much, and am looking forward to doing more in the future. It’s a great way to see the countryside, silently self-propelled, while still actually covering some distance in the course of a day. The weather was fantastic and Oregon’s Willamette Valley is a beautiful place.

Willamette River Valley, Oregon

We camped at organic farms and spent some time with the farmers who shared the reality of their work and lives with our group, including some delicious produce! We got our hands a little dirty on these farms too (though I personally can’t claim to have been very useful). Seeing both the beauty and the difficulty of this life made me more determined than ever to support the people whose labor and dedication brings beautiful healthy food to the rest of us.

Cyndi gives her chickens lots of love!

Next: “How What I Did On My Summer Vacation Changed My Life”... for real!

Okay, I can actually say it: by popular demand, the “How-I-Spent-My-Summer-Vacation” thread must go on! A lovely woman named Lisa sent me an email asking about the Oregon bike trip I went on in August, referenced in an earlier post. Thus, I will attempt to describe that experience, from the perspectives of sustainability, bicycling, and travel, in somewhat haphazard order.

I had seen ads for a sustainability-themed bike tour last year, but was unable to go at the time. The idea of travelling by bicycle was intriguing to me in and of itself, and the trip seemed pretty affordable by comparison with other supported bike tours (meaning, you camp but your luggage is transported in a van). The itinerary — visits to organic farms, green buildings and permaculture sites — was very attractive. To top it off, the support vehicle runs on biodiesel! What’s not to like? The tour company promotes their trips as

“Holistic - Vegan - Alcohol-free - Intrinsically Political - Community-Building Experience(s)”

… Um, okay… but I must confess I had a few fears about what I was getting into. Prominent among them was that I would be not only the oldest person there, but also the only person who was (a) not a vegan in “real” life, (b) not super-buff in that quasi-anorexic hipster way, (c) not covered with tattoos and/or piercings, (d) politically slightly to the right of anarchist, (e) blessed/cursed with the sarcastic sense of humor that can be a rarity on the West Coast. It’s not that I feel incapable of hanging with a crowd that fits this description (though perhaps not for an entire week), it’s just that growing up in Berkeley has made me somewhat weary of uber-political-correctness. Ironically, this breeding has also made me completely unfit for any other environment. I took a deep breath and sent in my deposit.

Fortunately all of the fears cited above were unfounded. The age range of our tour group was 12 years old to 70! In fact the folks older than me were among the strongest cyclists, usually found sipping cappuccinos at the 30-mile rest stop by the time I straggled in (great role models!). All the participants were really friendly and nice, with interesting lives and stories, some hailing from as far away as Canada and New Zealand. There were even a few fellow New Yorkers, one of whom provided a daily opportunity to make fun of the vegan fare by referring fondly to pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s Deli.

Lunch stop (biodiesel support van in the background)

GreenHome NYC’s annual tour of green buildings has several options this year, offering bus, bike and walking tours in three boroughs, plus an afterparty beginning at 2 pm at Habana Outpost in Brooklyn. (See the list of tours here.)

The Brooklyn bike tour features the Nassau Brewery Icehouse Apartments in Crown Heights, 93 Nevins — “the first buildings in New York City to be certified by the American Lung Association’s (ALA) Health House program”, an eco-friendly rehabbed brownstone in Bed Stuy, and Habana Outpost in Fort Greene.

I will be checking out the East Village walking tour, which begins with a project designed by energy-efficient building guru Chris Benedict and ends at the Science Barge, “a sustainable urban farm powered by solar, wind, and biofuels, and irrigated by rainwater and purified river water”.

Proceeds from the tour support GreenHome NYC’s programs which include great monthly seminars and Ask An Expert, an online resource for all your questions related to green building.

The Great Change: The World Beyond Petroleum
An evening with Albert Bates

Where:
Friends Meeting House
15 Rutherford Place, Manhattan
(15th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)

Sponsors:
Sierra Club NYC Group
Beyond Oil NYC
Neighborhood Energy Network
Tri-State Food Not Lawns
Friends in Unity with Nature

Cost:
free, but donations to support Albert’s travel costs welcome

With a style both humorous and deadly serious, Albert Bates walks us through the challenges that lie ahead for the United States and the world: climate change, peak oil, and global economic meltdown creating conditions for civil unrest, recession and hardship. Picking his way through the minefield of unrealistic expectations, Bates pulls together a picture of a very different future, consciously created and far better than anything we might have imagined before. (more…)

Greening Your Home: Living Sustainably in Brooklyn

Four free seminars conducted by Ellen Honigstock, a Registered Architect and LEED Accredited Professional.

A green home uses less energy, water and natural resources; creates less waste; and is healthier and more comfortable for the occupants.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 7pm
Lonelyville Cafe
154 Prospect Park Southwest, Windsor Terrace

Friday, July 27, 2007 7pm
Vox Pop
1022 Cortelyou Road, Ditmas Park (around here we call it Flatbush!)

Monday, August 6th, 2007 7pm
Perch Cafe
365 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope

Thursday, August 16th,, 2007 7pm
West Elm
45 Main Street, DUMBO

As promised, a report from Solar Summit 2007, by guest blogger Mike Adams of NY Wind. About Mike:

• Mike Adams considers himself a citizen of the earth. He currently splits his time between working with Community Energy to spread the word about wind power and electric choice, working on an two organic farms, Sun One Solar Farm in Bethlehem, CT and Regeneration CSA in High Falls, NY, and teaching math. He feels the true beginnings of sustainability will come when it becomes discussed that large decreases in consumption are essential. He has lived in NYC since the blackout of 2003.

Mike can also answer questions about renewable energy options for NYC residents, including how to change your home electricity bill to “green power”. Feel free to post questions or comments at the end of this report, and be sure to visit NY Wind’s website.

Solar Panels on roof of MTA Stillwell Ave Station (photo by tigre)

NYC Solar Summit, June 21, 2007 at the Museum of Natural History.

About two weeks ago a group of solar installers, policy makers, academics and others interested in the solar industry and how NYC will develop its own solar resource congregated on the day with the most sun to discuss NYC’s solar situation. Many thanks to Bronx Community College and the Center for Sustainable Energy for bringing together this event.
(more…)