Trees dropped off at Transmitter Park last year. Someone left theirs in a plastic bag – please don’t do this!
Now that all the gifts have been torn open, treasured or returned, it’s time to start disassembling (and storing, disposing of or donating) all your holiday decor. And lo, Mulchfest 2018 is upon us! You can drop off your Christmas Tree at McGolrick Park, McCarren Park or Transmitter Park from Sunday, December 31st to Sunday, January 7th to have it get turned into some very useful mulch. On January 6 and 7 from 10am to 2pm at McCarren Park (a chipping location), the Parks Department will chip your tree and give you your very own FREE bag of mulch! Make sure to strip down your tree and remove all lights, ornaments, and netting before bringing the tree to a MulchFest site.
You can also volunteer on Saturday, January 6th (11am-1pm) to help spread the mulch around McCarren Park to protect them from winter weather! Greening Greenpoint will be holding the tree stewardship event; to volunteer, you should register with NYC Parks and Greening Greenpoint.
The NYC Department of Sanitation will also be conducting special curbside collections for mulching and recycling of Christmas trees. Read below for more info on how to dispose of your holiday decor: Continue reading →
This Saturday, April 29th from 10am-4pm on the North side of Grand Street between Lorimer and Leonard Streets, you can drop off your old computers, cellphones, TV’s or whatever old gadgets you have laying around. Last year’s Grand Street E-Cycling event recycled over 3800 pounds of waste, and they’re hoping to recycle even more this year. For full info on what kinds of items you can bring, check out the list.
If you’re anything like me, the darkest depths of your cupboard house a motley crew of old plastic takeout containers jumbled into a heap, which you rarely use. And since you already have too many, you end up throwing away even more plastic containers whenever you get takeout. But now you don’t have to gift your plastic to the garbage gods every time you order from your favorite restaurant. Neighbors Allied For Good Growth (NAG) has just launched a free program for reusable takeout containers—funded by the GCEF and in partnership with Common Ground Compost. Jimmy’s (92 Calyer Street) and Anella (222 Franklin Street) are the first Greenpoint restaurants to participate.
The goal of this pilot program (officially starting tomorrow, December 8th) is to test the feasibility of a wider-ranging effort to reduce waste across the restaurant industry by incorporating more reusables. Folks are frequently ordering from the same restaurants, and end up throwing away one-time-use containers after every meal. This pilot gives repeat customers the opportunity to choose a reusable container option.
The customer will receive their food in reusable containers, and at their convenience, personally drop it off and receive a 10% off coupon. The containers will then be washed in Anella and Jimmy’s dishwashers (following Department of Health standards), and the zero waste cycle begins again. This is a great way for community members to engage in sustainable practices and directly reduce waste from takeout. Continue reading →
Stevie Van Horn, Conflict Palm Oil free/Trash free/Plastic free at Homecoming
“I love the trees in Greenpoint!” says Stevie Han Horn, 28, who moved to Brooklyn from Colorado in 2012. “Part of it makes me feel as though I’m in a small town. There are a few roads in Greenpoint that make me feel so smitten because the trees funnel the street making it extra dreamy.”
Nature lover? Sure. But when I learned that Stevie lived “trash free”, that seemed a little too hippy dippy for me. Yes, even by my standards! At first I didn’t believe her, like, is it even possible to live trash free? What does that even mean? Continue reading →
What do you do with your old electronics that you can’t seem to give away? Throwing it in the trash is illegal ($100 fine), so here’s your chance to get rid of them old things once and for all – legally! Partnered with Lower East Side Ecology Center and Tekserve, Grand Street BID is hosting an E-Waste Recycling event January 16th from 10am-4pm on Grand St between Graham Ave and Humboldt St. Continue reading →
Transform old furniture into something fresh!Transforming furniture is one of the things we love to do the most at Suite Pieces (located at 162 Huron Street)! We’re going to share with you how fun and easy it is to change the look of something you already own without the hassle of sanding and priming. We’ll be using one of our favorite product lines that we offer in the shop, Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan. By the time you do all that prep-work with traditional latex paint, you’re ready to call it quits and leave yet another unfinished project sitting around your apartment taking up precious, expensive square footage. When you use Chalk Paint® for your painting projects, you get instant gratification that keeps you going till it’s back in place ready for a photo op! Continue reading →
We bought over 1000 white christmas lights to decorate our Holiday Market and we hope to use them for a long time. When they finally die and we recycle them, they may end up in Shijiao, China, the “Christmas Light Recycling Capital of the World.” This interesting video by Adam Minter, of the blog Shanghai Scrap, shows how the process works in order to recover valuable components like copper and insulation. In the USA this insulation would end up in a landfill, but in China it is reused as slipper soles.
How many of you Greenpointers have your own compost bin? Or bring your food scraps to the Greenmarket on Saturday in McCarren Park? Doesn’t it feel so good? Do you get giddy when you see all the food waste that doesn’t get thrown into plastic bags and sent to a landfill? Now the rest of this city is finally getting on board and this will directly benefit Greenpoint and North Brooklyn.
Due to rain last weekend, the Electronic Waste Recycling Event was rescheduled to this Saturday, May 18, 2013 from 11am-5pm.
Help divert New York City’s electronic waste from landfills!
So many phones, laptops and televisions end up on the curb when they can instead be recycled. Our own local Green Chip Recycling companyhelps prevent your old electronic junk from ever being sent to a landfill.
Drop off your broken and unwanted electronics for recycling to the Go Green! Festival at McCarren Park this Saturday. Spread the word about electronic recycling and help make every day Earth day!
All electronic waste will be recycled locally in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Green Chip Recycling is an R2/ISO14001 company with a zero landfill policy.
Starting today – Greenpointers (and all other New yorkers) can finally feel slightly less guilty for ordering delivery at four am in a snow storm! At long last NYC recycles all hard plastics, from busted big-wheels to plastic forks. DSNY just asks that you please rinse the General Tso’s juices out before tossing them in with your other recycling. It is anticipated that this move will save the city quite a lot of money in disposal fees and reduce the amount of plastics being buried forever in landfills or left to drift in our rivers and seas.
No No’s: plastic bags, wrappers, pouches or foam. (Bummer.)
Even so, it’s important to continue to reduce our use of plastic, as producing and recycling plastics uses a hefty amount of resources and energy.
Green Pointers: (get it?)
• opt for veggies in that aren’t shrink wrapped (Foxy lettuce, we’re looking at you)
• buy a reusable water bottles instead of bottled water – NYC tap water is clean and safe
• try living without plastic wrap and ziploc bags; trust me you can do it!
• instead of that tupperware that you lose all the lids for, store leftovers in a bowl covered with a small plate – works just as well
• use a canvas tote and say NO to evil plastic bags! You know that guilty feel you get when you forget your tote on line at the grocery store – it’s because satan made you do it…
This Saturday, April 29th from 
If you’re anything like me, the darkest depths of your cupboard house a motley crew of old plastic takeout containers jumbled into a heap, which you rarely use. And since you already have too many, you end up throwing away even more plastic containers whenever you get takeout. But now you don’t have to gift your plastic to the garbage gods every time you order from your favorite restaurant. 
