Recycling with GrowNYC

Recycling is the right thing to do, but it can be pricey to get started!

Even with the increase in recycling in both the private and public sectors, prices for durable bins, starting at $15, can be a challenge for any organization.

But there is a better way, with a smaller cost. Share the effort, not the expense.

Cheap and durable storage containers make professional recylcling bins with a small bit of team work.

GrowNYC, through the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, funded our effort, taking on the $7 cost of rubbermade 18 gallon roughneck tote.

Then we organized a 1-period production line to convert them.

Our students worked in 4 stations.

1) drill a 4 inch hole with a drill (borrowed)

2) cut up and paste on recycling stickers (free from DSNY)

3) paste on specialized bin signs, (designed and printed by GrowNYC.)

After 45 minutes of work at our stations, we had a bottle bin for every classroom.

Next week, we will start off April by handing them out to each classroom.

This simple solution will help any school to do more, waste less, and be green for less green.

Big first step: move those trees!

With the help and support of our sponsor,

Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping service, we were able to clear space for our campus community garden.

In May 2008, Bushwick Campus was the first campus to work with the Million Trees initiative.

Students from BSSJ and AUP planted 6 Cherry Trees, 5 Zelkovas, and 5 Honey

Locust. For the last two years they have maintained them as well.

But as schools change, their needs for using their campus changes. Campus officials supported our request to move 6 of the trees for our garden, and to make more room for extracurricular athletics.

After two growing seasons, these trees are still small, but it would've taken at least two days to move them.

With the help of Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping, our garden's main sponsor, it only took one hour!

After they repositioned the trees, Crew chief Joe Delarosa advised us on how to prune them for best growth, and Nick Ramos showed us how to water them.

All his helped ensure that in their new homes on Bushwick Campus, they will keep growing for a long time.

Bushwick Green Team's Garden is happening! Get involved!

Its been a long winter here in Bushwick, but Spring is approaching--just look outside.

Be a part of it. the Bushwick Green Team garden space on Bushwick Campus is rapidly developing for its first growing season. Yes, right now it is still part of the softball field, but fence construction, tree relocation, and a donation of dirt (from Dragonetti Bros. Landscaping), will make it a real growing space. And with the vital support of Grow to Learn, Solar One and Eco Station NY, we will be able to start next month.

Now is the time to get involved! Students can earn a credit working in our garden. And local adults can feel great! If you would like to get involved, please contact the Bushwick Green Team!

Raised Bed Sub-Irrigated Planters: A solution for urban gardening

For millenia, soil has meant life, the source of our harvest. That makes it one of the cruelest ironies of our post-industrial world that so much urban soil is harmful. There is a whole host of industrial contaminants, from lead to cadmium to dioxins, that may be found in our back yard farms.

Raised beds are the solution, based on trucking in dirt and making sure it does not leech. But there is sub-irrigated (SIP) solution, a planter that does not need the dirt, and that does a better job of meeting a plants needs. Most SIPs are made of plastic, like the famous earthbox, or its many DIY iterations.

Well, Robert Hyland over at insideurbangreen has let us in on a great new compromise--a sub-irrigated raised bed planter--made of wood no less!. In this post, he gives us a materials list and basic how-to.

This post is a must for community gardens looking for new solutions to the old challenge of urban soil. But, I should warn you--they work better too!

Greening Schools: A handy guide

This simply written whole school guide was produced by the Worcester PolyTechnic Institute in partnership with a Costa Rican High School(Carlos Pascua Zúñiga High School).

Its an impressive project that more NYC schools should consider taking a page from!

There are activities applicable for every type of class, every type of student, and every part of the school.

Guide for Improving Student Attitudes toward Recycling

To understand the work that went into this amazing document:

Happy SIP Container Gardening! Earthbox is just the Beginning

On the roof at Bushwick Campus, our GreenLab is getting its first workout. Inspired by the Earthbox we got at Home Depot, we are now expirementing with a few other DIY planters types.

We have a lot of 5 gallon "carboy" Deer Park bottles. They take quite a lot of work to cut open, I have found...

Thanks, custodian crew! I don't have my own circular saw!

The Cat Litter box was much easier. Just picked it up on the street. Both are bottom reservoir type containers, like the tote box in the last post. They both have drain holes for

access water.

i have a tote box type planter I'll show ya'll next week. Soon, we'll take on tires!

homemade SIP + Earthbox!

The homemade SIP is made with a clear plastic tub, 2 waterbottles, and 12 plastic planters along the bottom. To see some great websites on how to make your own SIP check out:

• Mr. Brown Thumb's styrofoam planter
• Inside Urban Garden's tote planter
• Inside Urban Garden: Upcycling Nursery Flats in SIPs
• Inside Urban Garden: A Personal Urban Food Production System
• Inside Urban Garden: An Indoor Coffee Plantation
• Inside Urban Garden: A SIP from a 5 gallon water jug