Christmas tree recycling day!

The Mt. Airy Business Association in partnership with GRINCH and the Allens Lane Art Center is sponsoring a Christmas Tree Recycling Day.

When: Sunday, January 10, 2010 from 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Where: Allens Lane Art Center -- 601 Allens Lane, Philadelphia 19119

We are asking a $5.00 donation to help cover our costs.

Trees will be chipped into a pile which will then be available in the Spring as free mulch!

Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Trees are just like any other trash that gets sent to landfills and becomes pollution. By chipping the trees and re-using the mulch, you are helping to save our precious planet.

Please contact Kim Miller, executive director of the Mt. Airy Business Association at 215-242-0777 or kim@mtairybiz.com if you have any questions or if you would like to volunteer to help that day.

City of Philadelphia passes Green Building Legislation!

Last week City Council voted unanimously to pass Bill No. 080025, green building legislation introduced by Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown. The bill requires large city-controlled construction projects that are primarily funded by city capital dollars to meet LEED-silver requirements. To emphasize energy efficiency, the bill requires that projects be designed and constructed to use at least 20% less energy than basic structures. The bill applies to capital projects undertaken by all departments and agencies across the city, including the airport.

This piece of legislation furthers the Next Great City recommendation that Philadelphia build energy-efficient, healthy city and school-district facilities. Next Great City testified before Council’s Committee on the Environment in support of the bill because it exemplifies the long-term vision that Philadelphia needs to make us the next great city with a sustainable future. We applaud City Council for taking this important step.

GRINCH tours Eforce Compliance

Grinch tours Eforce to see where all that ewaste goes.
Eforce is located in S. Philadelphia on 3114 Grays Ferry Ave. They've been there for years, fixing up old electronic items and selling them in their retail location called Selectronics. But they've branched out and now they handle the dismantling and recycling of most electronic items, such as computers, televisions, healthcare equipment and many others that can be found on their website at www.eforcecompliance.com. Personally, I felt really good after our tour that all the ewaste we collected on our Weird Waste Day went to one of the only environmentally responsible e-waste recyclers in Philadelphia. Many of the other recyclers ship it out overseas to developing countries that do not have the environmental regulations that we have here, leading to public health hazards and toxic dumps that will be polluting their land for centuries. As Charlie said, "If they got overseas containers outside their facility, they are shipping the waste overseas." Another way to know if your waste is being handled environmentally is that if you're not paying to have it recycled, it's most probably not being recycled properly. It costs money to do it right.
Thanks to Charlie Nygard, Managing Director, for our very informative tour!

These are one of the component parts of CPU's. They are hand dismantled and sorted into large boxes and then sent to be recycled.














All this wiring will have the copper and other metals taken out of it for reuse. It takes one of Eforce's workers 7 to 10 minutes to take apart one CPU and sort the parts.

More Details about Philly RecycleBank plans

You can find out more about the specifics of the new, and ultimately citywide, recycling program, and when it will be coming to your neighborhood. You can set up an account now even if your actual service won't begin for several months.

This link to the program's homepage is a good place to start. At least for the moment, RecycleBank is offering to automatically give you 100 points (I have no idea how much that's worth) when you open an account. I just went through the registration process, and as long as your address is in it's database, it seems pretty straightforward; and there were indeed 100 points in my account when I logged in. It seems smart to me to make a big publicity effort now, and to make it easy for people to get engaged early on in the process even if the direct benefits haven't yet started in your particular neighborhood. It will be wonderful if this program really works and makes a real difference in our behavior and significantly reduces the amount of trash currently going into landfills.

Recycle Bank returns to Philly!!

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20091203_Phila__goes_into_recycling_overdrive.html