Philly Cleanup a Sparkling Success

If there's one thing I hate, it's people who disrespect their own community and chuck their refuse on the ground. This goes for everyone from the mom who tosses her Macdonald's bag out of her car window to the lawyer who drops his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk as he enters his office building. (How come if you're a smoker, the world is your ashtray? Can someone explain that to me?) Bottom line: litter sucks. It turns cities into garbage dumps, hurts tourism, lowers property values and encourages crime. It damages the human environment, which just happens to be the one in which we all have to live.


That's why this past weekend I was happy to participate in Philly Cleanup, a one-day city program promoted by Mayor Michael Nutter to pick up some of the litter and trash across Philadelphia. On Saturday morning, I headed out with a group of my coworkers at Philadelphia Tourism to beautiful FDR park in South Philly, where volunteers handed out gloves, rakes and trash bags. We were given a tough assignment, which was to walk over to the skatepark under Interstate 95 and clean up some of the trash. And boy was there ever trash to clean. Thousands of plastic bags chucked from car windows. Hundreds of bottles and cans chucked by kids. Car tires. Candy wrappers. Newspapers. A real mess. I even found a parking meter that had been liberated and cut in half for whatever coins it once held. But no decayed bodies--thank Jeebus.


When we first got to the area, I thought we wouldn't even make a dent. I was wrong. Even though there were only nine hardy souls in our group, we managed to pick up at least ten large bags of trash and recyclables. Within a couple of hours, the place actually looked decent (for a skatepark underneath an interstate highway). We even saw a living creature in the sea of detritus--a little snake curled up in the sun. He seemed happy to see us cleaning up his home.


Thank you Mayor Nutter, for showing us what we could accomplish with a little elbow grease and a few hours of our time. Let's keep this going and have another cleanup day in the summer and then every warm season after that. I'll show up and I bet a whole bunch of my fellow citizens will as well. It's time to clean up Philadelphia's act for good! Huzzah!

**Thanks to Rawle for the photos.

Mailbag: Recycling Microwaves & Printers

Chris Mesure from Philly asks:

"I have an old Microwave and Computer printer, both of which I am trying to dispose of in the most earth-friendly way I can. Do you know of any recycling, or disposal program in Philly (or the area) for both?"

Thanks for the question Chris. If your printer and microwave are still in working order, my first recommendation would be to try Freecycle, a global grassroots network where you can list items that you have to give away, as well as items you're seeking. Phillyfreecycle has a very active membership, with more than 8,000 participating, so if you have working appliances, there is a good chance you can find someone to happily take them off your hands.

I have not personally tried Freecycle, but I have friends who swear by it. It takes 100% less energy and raw material to reuse than to recycle, so by all means take advantage of any opportunity to give your old items new life in new homes.

Now if your electronic gadgets are all busted up, you can head over to Pottstown and take them to Recycling Services, Inc. RSI is a non-profit organization that accepts many, many materials for recycling, from wire coat hangers to clothes to used fishing line. God bless them!

You'll have to fork over an $8 donation for each carload, and $5 extra if you're dropping off something really large, like TVs, copiers and computer monitors. This covers the cost of recycling your junk and I think it's a small price to pay for a clear conscience. RSI is open for collection on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Recycling Services, Inc.
365 Elm Street Pottstown, PA 19465
Phone: (610) 323-8545


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Please keep the questions coming! They makes me a happy eco-nerd.
blukas (AT) gmail (DOT) com

Recycle Your Christmas Tree in Philadelphia and Elsewhere

First of all, I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Santa was very good to me this year, bringing me Guitar Hero III for the Wii, as well as several good books on environmental issues. I even got a little gadget that measures how much electricity devices draw when plugged into the socket. Very cool. I'll have in-depth reviews of all that good stuff, except for Guitar Hero. So far, I suck at Guitar Hero.

Second, I would like to weigh in on one of the greatest challenges facing the world today--what to do with used Christmas trees? If you followed my advice and got a real tree this year, pretty soon it's going to start turning brown and looking all ghetto in your living room. You can water it to forestall the inevitable, but sooner or later you're going to have to get rid of your tree. That beautiful formerly living thing is one of God's creatures and should return to the earth from whence it came.

Now, most towns have Christmas tree curbside pickup so you can just let the garbage dudes take it away. From there, one of three things is likely to happen:

1. The tree will be composted. (green)
2. The tree will be chipped up and turned into mulch. (greenish)
3. The tree will be chucked into a toxic landfill full of batteries and dirty diapers where its precious nutrients will never enrich the earth again. (not green)

I recommend checking with your local sanitation department to see which of these fates will befall your tree. If the answer is compost or mulch, go ahead and leave your tree on the curb on the assigned day and muse upon the rarely-seen wonders of effective government. If the answer is landfill, then you have to do a little due diligence. Chances are there is an alternative program in your area for recycling trees. You just have to find out where it is and when to haul your tree over there. And then somehow get all of the pine needles out of your car.* Sigh.

For example, in my hometown of Philadelphia, the city will indeed pick up your tree for no extra charge. However, they will dump it directly into a landfill after collection. You would have to do a little research in order to figure that out. You can't just assume that the tree is going to be recycled. Apparently, that's too much to ask. Fortunately Philadelphia does provide a tree recycling option:

"Citizens who wish to drop off their tree for recycling may take it to the Streets Department Sanitation Convenience Centers located at 3033 S. 63rd St. (entrance on 61st St. side), Domino & Umbria Lanes and State & Ashburner Roads during this week only. The sites are open from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, Monday, January 7 through Saturday, January 12."

If you don't live in Philadelphia, I recommend running a Google search for "Recycle Christmas Tree [your city or state]". That should get you the answers you need. If not, you can always try the excellent Earth 911 database, which lists many of the tree programs across the country.

Finally, if you have a truck, you might offer to haul a couple of your neighbor's trees to the recycling center while you're at it. It might earn you an extra pile of cookies next year and I might also forgive you for owning a truck.

*Try to avoid using your household vacuum cleaner to suck up pine needles. It usually ends up clogging the machine and you end up with a bigger mess than you started with. Try a broom.

Philadelphia Streets Department Christmas Tree Recycling Information
Interesting Facts about Tree Recycling (Earth 911)

You Better Believe They Recycle That

Tomorrow is Saturday. Yippee! Even better, it’s the first Saturday of the month—and you know what that means—I can finally recycling another month’s worth of plastic and cardboard. Joy! Although my section of Philadelphia has curbside pickup, they only take paper, glass and metal. Center City just got wicked cool single-stream recycling, complete with 1 and 2 plastic. So jealous.

Thank golly, then, for the many volunteers at the Philadelphia Partnership Recycling Program. Once a month at locations around the city, they give up part of their day to gather up the recyclables that the city for some reason does not pick up from our homes. I get a kick (I told you I was a geek) out of driving over to my local site on Saturday morning with a carload of trash that won’t end up in a landfill. And no, my car doesn't stink... much.

No matter where you live, there are many recyclables in your home that aren’t picked up curbside. Think batteries, plastics 3 - 7, motor oil, compact fluorescent bulbs, computers, cleaning agents and on and on and on. Recycling doesn’t stop at paper, glass and aluminum, but you might have to do a little more work to get the job done. Luckily, it is now very easy to find places to recycle your odds and ends. I highly recommend visiting Earth 911 and searching your zip code to find all the collection sites near you. You can find everything from the Radio Shack in your town that takes old batteries to the Advance Auto Parts store that takes used motor oil. Retailers are starting to pick up some recycling slack, so take them up on it. That nasty oil filter isn’t going to recycle itself!

Earth 911
Single Stream Recycling Comes to Center City Philadelphia (Illadelph)
What's Single Stream? (Earth 911)