Sunset Park, Brooklyn (photo by Barry Yanowitz)

The name “Solid Waste Advisory Board” might evoke images of a room full of important-looking people, conversing in abstract and political language that would be lost on, or irrelevant to, the average New Yorker. At least, that’s what I was half-expecting. What greeted me instead was a room full of interesting and diverse people ranging from a retired science teacher to a graduate student to members of various community groups, talking candidly about issues that affect all Brooklynites. I quickly learned that, although it was a small meeting, the Brooklyn SWAB is a group of and for the people of Brooklyn, open to any and all interested residents. They make recommendations directly to the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, chaired by councilwoman Letitia James, so I really encourage anyone interested in the fate of solid waste in Brooklyn to come to next month’s meeting. I learned a lot and every attendee has the opportunity to voice their opinion and ask questions.

Last Monday, the main subject was the plan to build a new glass/metal/plastic recycling facility at Brooklyn Pier in Sunset Park, a site which is currently an empty paved lot. Tom Outerbridge, the General Manager of Sims municipal recycling entity, came to the meeting to give an informal presentation on the plans of the company, as well as answer the many questions and concerns posed by members of the Board. Sims is working with the Economic Development Corporation, and has a long-term contract with New York City, which also includes existing facilities in Long Island City, the Bronx and Jersey City. He really enlightened me on many aspects of recycling in New York that I had never thought about (and some that I had).  Focusing on efficiency, he stressed that building this facility would reduce the number of miles that recycling trucks would drive by 240,000 per year because currently, most of Brooklyn’s recycling is being driven to Queens for processing.

He also highlighted some unique aspects of the project which include easy pedestrian access to the site, a recycling education center to be used by elementary school classes, and the attempts to hire employees locally within Sunset Park. He also stressed a more general problem, which is contamination and sorting; even deciding what is “recyclable” is tricky, Outerbridge explained to us, because certain types of plastic,  in small enough quantities, have no market and the facility has no place to ship those materials to. He said that if they could collect and sort more substantial amounts of those plastics, then they would be able to sell them to companies who re-process them into usable material. If you’re confused, take comfort in knowing that I am too, and I think it’s fair to say that many of us at the meeting were slightly unsure about what the bottom line is. This highlights one of the most important aspects about recycling, which is the need for more outreach and education on the community level, so that every New Yorker has a clear idea of how to sort their trash and recyclables. And, the more that we all know about the ins and outs of recycling, the more we can make informed opinions and put pressure on the city to improve our recycling infrastructure.

This brings me to the other part of the meeting, which was to discuss a set of eleven new bills which will amend LL 19, the city’s comprehensive residential recycling law. These bills span from expanding the types of plastic to be recycled, to increasing the responsibility of the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, to changing the enforcement and fines associated with improper recycling. Members of SWAB will be attending and testifying at upcoming hearings on the legislation, and the bills are expected to pass at some point this summer. These are meant to make recycling easier for residents, but more action may be necessary. For example, one attendee at the meeting pointed out that the Department of Sanitation has exactly one employee in charge of managing recycling in apartment buildings throughout the city, a tremendous job. Many people at the meeting seemed in agreement that there should be many more people with the same job, since apartment buildings may represent one of the biggest challenges in recycling outreach and education. Apparently, more money will be directed towards outreach in the near future.

Going to this meeting heartened me because it showed me that there are people in all corners of Brooklyn who are interested in informing themselves about solid waste in their city and in doing what they can to advance the cause of reducing our waste stream. It’s up to organizations like ours to educate our community and to come up with creative new ways to complement the actions the Department of Sanitation is already taking.

**If you’re interested in attending future meetings of the Brooklyn Solid Waste Advisory Board, contact Ken Diamondstone at (718) 522-5437 or Nancy Walby at (718) 258 2701.

photo by Jeremy Teperman

I first began getting interested in environmental issues and community improvement around the same time, at the end of high school and have really tried to immerse myself in studying it during my time at Vassar. I’m really excited to be working with Sustainable Flatbush this summer!  First of all, I think it will be a great new way to learn about and hopefully give back to my New York City community, in which I was born and raised. Also, I really believe in the work that our organization does and I think this experience will help me decide if I want to pursue a similar career. Overall, I feel lucky to be able to work with Sustainable Flatbush and I’m looking forward to a great summer.

Go to the People;
Live among them;
Love them;
Learn from them;
Start from where they are;
Work with them;
Build on what they have.
But of the best leaders,
When the task is accomplished,
The work completed,
The people all remark:
“We have done it ourselves.”

–Lao Tzu

Today I say goodbye to Sustainable Flatbush, and to all of you, dear readers. Thank you all for coming to the events, for participating and engaging with each other and for supporting Sustainable Flatbush.

Dassa at Brooklyn College Earth Day (photo by Keka Marzagão)

And to the SF-ers: Anne, Keka, Jocelyn Cohen, Chris, and Mela (and Madeline & Maikel, honorary SF-ers and true gardeners). Thank you for opening your organization and your hearts to students like me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute something — something small, to be sure, but something at least — to the sustainability movement to which you are all devoted.

I wanted my last post to be about what I learned, but how can I encapsulate an entire semester in a single blog post? So instead I found a poem to express the thoughts for which I don’t have adequate words. Lao Tzu’s poem, above, captures what I have discovered over the past semester while working alongside the wonderful folks at SF: That giving to the community is not about passing down wisdom from up above; it’s about supporting people and giving them the opportunity to learn. And SF has given so many people — has given me — the opportunity to learn. For that, I will always be grateful.

So goodbye everyone, and here’s to many more years, and many more events, of giving others the chance to learn something new. What can be better than that?

The documentary Grown in Detroit, directed by Mascha and Manfred Poppenk, is an award winning documentary featuring urban organic farming efforts. Detroit was the home for mass producing automobiles, however, due to the decline of the auto industry one of the nation’s wealthiest cities has become one of the poorest. Nature in all its glory has taken over the empty lots and the city has started “greening” from within. Taking this opportunity into consideration the residents of the city have opted to use the land and its resources for their necessity.

The documentary is one hour in length and it follows students at the Ferguson Academy for Young Women, which is a high school for pregnant teens. They work in the school’s urban garden and learn how to grow nutritious food for their children. As one can imagine these teens aren’t able to cope in the beginning and they dislike farm work. However, as time goes by they see the fruits of their labor growing and then being sold for profit, which changes their attitudes completely. I think the insight into the lives of these teens can be an eye opener for the rest of us. We can learn from them valuable lessons about facing your struggles head on and coming out the victor. As well as, necessity being the mother of invention and how, when given resources, people will come together to reap the benefits.

Flatbush Food Film Forum presents GROWN IN DETROIT
sponsored by Sustainable Flatbush, Flatbush Food Co-op, and Ditmas Park West Neighborhood Association

WHEN: Wednesday, May 26th at 7pm
WHERE: Prospect Park Temple Isaac, 1419 Dorchester Road (entrance on Marlborough)

Free popcorn provided by Flatbush Food Co-op! Kosher snacks available for purchase

photo by christheobscure

We’re excited to invite you to another Monthly Volunteer Gathering at Vox Pop Cafe with Sustainable Flatbush! (Our second one, yay!) We’re going to be talking a lot about our next big event of the spring, the Neighborhood Energy Forum on March 20th. We all want to learn about how to make our homes more energy efficient, right? Who doesn’t like saving money and the environment at the same time?

Come learn about the event, share your energy-related stories (or any story, really!), and mingle with others in your community that see the need for change. Also, there’s delicious coffee and food at this one-of-a-kind café we love to hang out in!

Make sure you stay after the talk to enjoy some groovy live Blues music.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 9th, 6:30-8pm
WHERE: Vox Pop Cafe, 1022 Cortelyou Road

See you there!
Maria & Nicole

photo by Afroza Amin

Hi, My name is Afroza Amin and I’m going to be interning with this great organization for the Spring 2010 semester. I’m an undergraduate junior at Brooklyn College, majoring in psychology and accounting.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never really thought about sustainability issues as being such a big problem. However, a year ago I went back to my country Bangladesh, a country situated in Southern Asia. The state of poverty and overall environmental degradation in some parts of that country I visited, opened my eyes to the issue. People were struggling to make out a living but still not having enough to eat day to day. The roads were covered with garbage and people would walk by it without giving it a second glance, like its something they were used to. People are so busy struggling to live in such poverty, that they don’t really care what they are doing to their environment.

Once I got back to New York I did some research on sustainability groups or if there was any sort of action being taken for this state of Bangladesh. There wasn’t much being done about it and that got me thinking more about the issues. In the end, not really knowing what to do, I pushed the thought to the back of my head until I was in one of my psychology classes last semester. Professor Nancy Romer was offering a class for individuals who were interested in interning with sustainability groups.

Sustainable Flatbush was one of the organizations I was interested in because it was close to my neighborhood, so I emailed Anne. She replied back to me saying that they were interested in spreading the word to the South Asian community so my language skills would be needed. I was thrilled to hear this and after doing some research about the organization, I just knew this was the organization I wanted to intern with. The goals of this organization greatly interested me because it was the things I thought needed to be addressed in my country. Energy solution, zero waste, livable street; these goals of the organization are things I became interested in and would like to find out more about. All in all, I’m hoping to gain more knowledge so that I can help others in my community understand these things and become aware about what they can do.

While we were getting ready for our second annual Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are Event, we had to decide what would make our space look like Sustainable Flatbush was coming through without creating a lot of waste.

Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. (Clean Air Council)  We wanted to reduce that amount of waste, not add to it by buying brand new decorations! New York City already throws away enough garbage every day to fill the Empire State Building! (Clean Air Council)  How could we add to that in good conscience with our Zero Waste Initiative begging people to divert usable resources from the waste stream?

Flowers from Recycled Bottles (photo by Keka)

Keka had a great idea! We would use materials that people would have sent to landfills or recycling centers and instead, we would turn them into art.  During our arts & crafts party at Vox Pop, we cut water bottles into flowers, cut used paper into flowers, and even learned how to fold origami! One person’s garbage is another person’s reusable decorations!

After we had a bunch of flowers cut, we got to paint, sew paper flowers together, and talk about how great we hoped the event would be.  Our flowers were made with love and they filled the room with an air of DIY as all of the attendees and talented tablers discussed the upcoming gardening season.

Making Decorations at Brooklyn College (photo by Keka)

Thanks so much to everyone who helped and attended the event!!

I’ve been interested in urban sustainability, especially public parks and recycling/composting, since I was in elementary school. I remember that when I was about ten or so, my family had our postage stamp-sized backyard paved over. Previously, it had been a scrap of green heaven for me, full of weeds and bees and basketballs and wonderful childhood memories. I actually cried as three men in blue overalls pulled out our tiny swing set from the ground. I trace my love of public parks to that incident — it was as if I was determined that if my own private parkland was wiped out, there would at least always be a patch of park for me to go to, to explore, to love, to adopt as my own.

photo by Dassa Gutwirth

When I’m not out doing my part to save the world (or at least save the parks), I enjoying reading, bike-riding, and volunteering with children with disabilities. I hope to be back here on SF’s site soon, with more information on their events — and of course, with good, green news!

Come to learn & teach & talk with like-minded Flatbush dwellers.  The coffee is yummy and the company is fun, so come by and meet us (your new interns! Maria and Nicole, who are hosting their very first volunteer meeting!) and we look forward to seeing you there!

Make sure you stay after the talk to enjoy some groovy live Blues music.

WHEN: Tuesday, February 9th, 6:30-8pm
WHERE: Vox Pop Cafe, 1022 Cortelyou Road

Have a good weekend,
Nicole & Maria

photo by Maria Bergenhem

I spent last summer working for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Connecticut as a biological intern on Falkner’s Island, in Long Island sound. As part of the field team, I helped manage the productivity of two species of terns throughout the summer breeding season. This semester, I look forward to an exciting experience working with energy solutions on the community level with Sustainable Flatbush.

The big project of the semester is definitely the Neighborhood Energy Forum that Sustainable Flatbush is putting together. It’s taking place March 20th. The event is going to deal with how to make Flatbush energy usage both more efficient and increase the amount of alternative energy used for everyone in the community.

On my first day Jocelyn Cohen, Director of Sustainable Flatbush’s Energy Solutions Initiative, showed me around the Brooklyn College Campus and introduced me to some of the participants that have already signed up for the Forum. National Grid will be there, which seems like really big news. I am going to be helping with the planning of the event, contacting potential participants, as well as the organization on the actual day of the event. I am basically going to try to help Anne Pope, the Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Flatbush, and Jocelyn with whatever they need in order to make this a great event. This of course includes blogging! You can look forward to more posts from me as we get closer to the date itself. Saturday March 20th, mark your calendars today!