We've got some New Year's green resolutions from the Rye Sustainability Committee. And you thought all you had to do was lose weight, get in shape, read more, spend more time with friends and family and excel further at work… Add mama nature to your list!
Have a different green resolution? Share in in the comments.
ANDREA ALBAN-DAVIES
Conservation Chair, Rye Garden Club
Reuse it. Pack a waste-free lunch for yourself and/or your kids. To include in your (reusable!) lunch bag: reusable water bottle, reusable metal food containers, reusable cloth (or other) sandwich bags, silverware, and a cloth napkin.
LIZ GARRETT
Organic landscape designer & former Chair, RSC Rye Healthy Yard Program
Leaves. Think of three ways you can use leaves in your own yard to feed the earth; be it the brown in your home composting recipe, shredding them and blowing them into a shrub (or arborvitae) border to blanket the shrubs and beds, or making sure your landscape company mulches the leaves in place on your lawn next fall. January is the time to discuss this with your landscape contractor or find a new one who can. [Need a new landscaper? Visit RSC’s Landscape Directory for suggestions.]
Pesticides. Remove at least one pesticide from your arsenal. Are you using chemicals to get rid of weeds in the patio or driveway? Hand pull them instead. Does your lawn care service apply some blanket herbicide as weed control? Try mulch-mowing or over-seeding in the fall to combat weeds that thrive in poor soils. Are you quick to grab a fungicide or pesticide if you see disease or an infestation on your prized ornamentals? Try an organic systemic soil additive or biologic control instead. The recent NY Times article on “The Insect Apocalypse” is a sobering read.
Go native. In that vein, if you are adding to your yard, add natives or other beneficial plants and shrubs that will provide pollen and sustenance for native caterpillars and insects. The birds and larger bugs will appreciate it.
KERRY LINDEROTH
Director of Sustainability & AP Environmental Science Teacher, Rye Country Day School
I will continue striving towards a zero waste lifestyle – both at school and at home! I don't have a trash can in my office, which serves as a conversation starter and educational opportunity about the growing problem with waste in our society. The average American generates 4.4lbs of trash per day, but that number can be greatly reduced by recycling, composting, and reducing unnecessary packaging.
Kerry reports that she also asks her AP Environmental Science students to write out their own green New Year’s resolutions. A good idea to get young minds thinking green!
CHRISTINE SILLER
Executive Director, Rye Nature Center
Don’t let the winter cold make you idle! Turn off that engine.
Once a week, buy nothing.
Christine suggests taking a look at Rye Nature Center’s Green Tips as well.
ANNIE TEILLON
Chair, Apawamis Club Green Team
My dream for 2019 is to help foster an understanding that going green is not just for the younger set. Our efforts to protect Mama Earth affect today's environment, economy and our overall health. I am working with members of The Apawamis Club Green Team to pinpoint areas that can easily go green without making a huge lifestyle impact to members. Our initial goals are to reduce the single use plastics such as straws and cups club wide and find alternatives to the coolers full of single use water bottles on the golf course. Waste reduction must span generations so that we can learn from and teach one another. Recycling is integral to regaining a balance of the environmental intricacies of our planet, but not using plastics in the first place beats all!
Read all the rest.
TED CARROLL
Lifelong Rye Resident, Member of the Rye Good Governance Work Group
8 Great 2019 Green Resolution Questions for the Rye Sustainability Committee:
1. What city would create 2 sets of turf chemical application records – one of them false – in violation of both Federal & NY State pesticide law, and a Class D Felony in NY, punishable by up to 7 years of incarceration?
2. What city would employ a municipal attorney to represent a city employee client with directly adverse interests to her own municipal duties, submit tampered turf chemical records to our own municipal court and have him plead guilty based on those tampered records?
3. What city would conceal scientific turf test results, paid for by taxpayers, from the public showing municipal employee product misapplication, and not solely product contamination, caused a multi-million dollar taxpayer loss?
4. What city would conceal independent scientific turf test results and records documenting municipal employee application negligence from a product manufacturer and its insurance carrier in order to fraudulently obtain a multi-million dollar damage settlement?
5. Why would a city council member & Sustainability Committee founding member abet municipal concealment of state & federal turf chemical application records from local citizens indicating a multi-year period of MASSIVE and REPEATED over applications of a registered pesticide in an environmentally sensitive wetland ecosystem and then remain silent when a corrupt local ADA is discovered interceding to ensure no further charges are brought when these records become public?
6. What city would refuse release of key municipal turf chemical purchasing records when the local newspaper documents and publishes multiple violations of municipal bidding procedures, purchasing policy and municipal purchasing laws?
7. What municipal attorney contracts with a so-called ‘outside labor attorney’ to research and present to the city council on camera a false report to the taxpayer public exonerating municipal employees of wrongdoing just prior to their arrest for wrongdoing?
8. What city supports the issuance of a false sworn affidavit by its City Manager concerning the public records he continues to illegally suppress covering ALL these very same fraudulent and illegal municipal activities?
(Answers can be found by simply typing Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 in the MyRye.com search box at your upper right.)
Two more questions for the Rye Sustainability Committee?
What city supports the pollution of its harbors by failing to enforce current sewage treatment regulations?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7d8rc-euHk
What city supports the breeding of millions of mosquitoes by allowing the storage of thousands of gallons of water in bird feces infected water tanks used for domestic household water?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT2FHXxz8xg