All tagged Environment
Fall is a time of brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds adorning the trees and blanketing the ground with color. It is also the time of year that many people drag out their rakes and leaf blowers to remove all that summer growth. There is good news for those who dread this annual chore: don’t do it!
Recently, I’ve been learning about the impact that environmental racism has on children, by reading Harriet A. Washington’s 2019 book, A Terrible Thing to Waste. I expect that Zulene and Harriet Washington would really hit it off.
Contributor Stafan Roots offers an opinion piece about Covanta’s Chester trash incinerator plant, and how Covanta’s talking points are not passing his smell test any longer.
Opinion writer Stefan Roots describes new research showing that people who live in polluted areas — like Chester — are at increased risk from Covid-19.
Opinion writer Bob Foster highlights problems in the current recycling system and makes recommendations.
At the March 8 Swarthmore Borough Council legislative session, council voted to approve a zero-waste resolution. The resolution was supported by many local residents who spoke at the meeting.
At least once a year, I and hundreds of other volunteers take part in the Chester Ridley Crum (CRC) Annual Streams Cleanup, now in its 23rd year. We put on old clothes, glove up, and wade in to pull tires and much more out of our local streams and creeks. This year’s Annual Streams Cleanup will be on Saturday, March 20.
Swarthmore becomes the first municipality in the commonwealth to purchase renewable natural gas.
The Environmental Advisory Council is composed of seven voting members, plus a number of associate members, and volunteers. Meetings occur at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Voting members are appointed by the borough council to serve a term of three years. New voting members will be appointed in 2021. To be eligible for appointment as a voting member, you must be a current resident of Swarthmore Borough.
Since 1998, Susan Kelly has worked to improve Little Crum Creek Park, Swarthmore’s largest park, located on the eastern edge of town between Harvard and Yale avenues. As part of Swarthmore’s Environmental Advisory Council and other groups, she has coordinated several work days a year and built a list of many hardy locals who don’t mind getting dirty: the Park Pals. But that didn’t seem like enough.
When The New York Times published an article last week about an extensive dam-removal project on the Brandywine River, some Swarthmoreans were already familiar with the plan. They were the 80 or so folks who attended Science on Tap at waR3house3 on February 20.
This week’s Swarthmore Borough Council meeting was all about trees: a new inventory of the borough’s street and park trees, issues with PECO’s tree trimming, and more. We also excerpt a letter from the Tree Committee about the many benefits of trees.
Originally known as Curb My Clutter, Retrievr is a free service that helps people recycle. Here are some great things about it: It’s free. They pick up from your door. Requesting a pick-up is easy: Send them a text or visit their website to tell them how many bags of clothes and what electronics you have.
Swarthmore’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC)’s November 26 meeting was largely spent reviewing goals from 2011 and assessing how much progress has been made toward those goals to date. That year, a state grant funded a Temple University greenhouse gas inventory and action plan for the four communities of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District. Recommendations were made for specific steps municipal governments and broader communities could take to reduce future emissions — everything from encouraging residents to limit car trips to planting more trees.
