Green from the Inside Out March 27
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010| March 27, 2010 | ||
| 12:00 pm | to | 3:00 pm |
Green Your Home from the Inside Out!
Saturday, March 27th, 12pm – 3pm
Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, Building P
1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island
Solar One, New York City’s green energy, arts & education center, in partnership with the NYC Compost Project and the NYC Department of Sanitation, presents Green From the Inside Out on Saturday, March 27 at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.
Green From the Inside Out gives Staten Island homeowners the knowledge and resources they need to make their homes more environmentally friendly by saving energy (and money!), reducing waste, and recycling correctly. Come test your recycling knowledge, find out about composting, learn what incentives are available for your home improvements, find out if solar power and green roofs are right for you, and talk to vendors of green products and services. Featuring presentations by Solar One, the NYC Compost Project, the NYC Department of Sanitation, and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Energy $mart Communities.
Please RSVP to Celia Salgado at 212-505-6050 or celia@solar1.org.
Presentation Details:
Composting 101
The NYC Compost Project on Staten Island will discuss the simple steps involved in creating rich compost from household food scraps. Learn about the different ways to compost at home, how to effectively maintain a compost bin, troubleshoot common issues, and utilize the finished product in your garden.
Recycling and Beyond
Learn the basics and the fine print of New York City’s curbside recycling program. Best practices in waste prevention and reuse, as well as legislative updates on materials not collected curbside, such as plastic bags and rechargeable batteries, will be discussed.
Reducing Energy Costs Through Energy Efficiency
Find out how to save money, help the environment, and make your home even more comfortable. Learn easy tips for energy savings, as well as cost-effective ways to make a big difference in your home energy bills. Government and utility incentives for homeowners to make energy-efficiency improvements will be discussed by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Energy $mart Communities Coordinator for Staten Island.
A Survey of Rooftop Solar Applications in NYC: Solar Thermal and Photovoltaics
Learn the difference between the two most common kinds of solar power used in New York City homes, and how to determine which application is right for you. Solar One’s Chris Neidl will review the generous government incentives currently available for solar and discuss how homeowners can find a solar installer. “White roofs” and “green roofs” will also be discussed.
Free event! Refreshments will be provided!
Posted in Energy, Energy $mart Communities, Energy Efficiency, Housing, NYSERDA, New York City, Photovoltaics, Photovoltaics, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One, Solar One Events, Solar Power, Sustainability, Waste | Permalink
Green from the Inside Out, plus Winter Networking Mixer *FULL*
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009| January 20, 2010 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
Tonight’s Event is full. Space is still available for the 1/25 Green From the Inside Out.
Solar One in partnership with the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education will be touring Green from the Inside Out, a three-part workshop on recycling, energy efficiency, and rooftop possibilities for multifamily buildings, throughout New York City.
These workshops are designed to give building owners, shareholders, and managers the tools, resources, and information they need to green their multifamily building. Look below for the workshop descriptions, to see the date and location of the next workshop, and to reserve your spot.
If you would like us to bring these workshops to your neighborhood, contact Celia Salgado at celia@solar1.org, or 212-505-6050.
A Survey of Solar Energy Roof Applications for NYC: Solar Thermal, Photovoltaics, Green Roofs and White Roofs
In this workshop Solar One will introduce, define and discuss the economic and quality of life implications of three solar rooftop applications that have considerable promise in the five borough area: solar thermal technology, photovoltaics and white roofs.
Navigating NYC’s Recycling Landscape
Hear about new recycling laws and old misconceptions. Find out how to avoid fines, improve your recycling program and get your tenants to recycle. Learn about other ways to reduce waste, recycle more and help make NYC a little greener. OROE is a program of the Council on the Environment of New York City.
Combating Rising Energy Costs with Energy Efficiency for Multifamily Buildings
Find out how to reduce fuel and utility costs while improving resident comfort and building performance. Solar One’s NYSERDA Energy $mart Communities Coordinator will present cost-effective ways for residential building owners and managers to make lighting, appliances, heating and cooling more energy efficient. Learn about the government and utility incentives that are available for your building, as well as the Community Preservation Corporation’s new Neighborhood Energy Loan Program that provides financing for retrofitting multi-family apartment buildings for energy efficiency.
WHEN: Wednesday, January 20
6:00pm to 8:30pm, plus post-event mixer!
WHERE: Central Park Arsenal
830 5th Avenue, Suite 318, NY
RSVP’s required. Send email to celia@solar1.org to RSVP.
And from 8:30-10:00pm we are hosting a special event! Only on this special evening we will be hosting a Winter Networking Mixer overlooking Central Park! Invite your clients and business partners to partake in this unique networking evening. Find out what’s going green, and who’s going green in the Upper East Side! Entrance is free and drinks can be purchased.
RSVP’d guests can arrive at 6:00 to speak with Vendors about products. Presentations will start at 6:30pm and run until 8:30pm. There will be breaks in between presentations to talk to Vendors.
Free! Refreshments will be served. Vendors will be available to answer any technical questions about energy audits, different roof applications, and recycling.
GREEN FROM THE INSIDE OUT is a product of Solar One, in partnership with the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education. This series was made possible by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Posted in Energy, Energy $mart Communities, Energy Efficiency, Global Warming, Green Building, NYSERDA, New York City, Photovoltaics, Photovoltaics, Pollution, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One, Solar One Events, Solar Power, Sustainability, Waste, green roof, green roofs | Permalink
Solar-Powered Film Series “Flow: For The Love Of Water”
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009| September 12, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
Saturday, September 12th, 7pm
Short: Loyale (taken from From Elegance to Earthworms)
Feature: FLOW: For Love of Water
Experts are calling the World Water Crisis the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century. This film presents the case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching eye on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
Speaker: John Mundy, Project Manager, Majora Carter Group
John Mundy serves as Project Manager for the Majora Carter Group. The Majora Carter Group is a pioneering consulting group that builds highly productive relationships between organizations and across sectors to help civic, business and nonprofit organizations understand how to meet their needs by working together through green economic avenues.
Posted in Art, Education, Film, Solar One Events, Sustainability, Waste, Water | Permalink
Finally! Hudson Clean-Up Begins!
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Sometime in the near future, you won’t even need to think twice about frying up that prize striper you hooked out of the Hudson.
After twenty-five years of court appeals and other evasive measures employed by General Electric, the first of what will be many scoops of PCB-laden sludge was dredged from the Hudson River this past Friday as the result of a “good-faith” agreement with the EPA. The massive effort, only Phase One of the project, is expected to require the around-the-clock operation of twelve dredges six days a week through 2015; assuming this phase runs its course, this would equal 48,672 hours for the removal of sediment that has been accumulating since the end of the Wisconsin glaciation period around 12,000 years ago, but took two GE plants and other chemical facilities only thirty years to contaminate. The dried sludge will then be trucked to a landfill in Texas, while the river water will be pumped through a filtration plant and returned to continue its meandering course.
Nearly 200 miles of the river from Hudson Falls to the tip of Manhattan, just under two-thirds of the Hudson’s total length, was declared a Superfund site in 1984, and though GE has now adopted a veneer of compliance, it also continues to challenge the constitutionality of the legislation – the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) -that determines Superfund status and culpability. As part of the agreement, GE has also given itself an out clause – it will review the status of the project in 2010 and can then decide to opt out. The total cost of this phase is estimated at $750 million but could be much greater, though GE has declined to provide an estimate, a decision that, compounded by these other compromises, does little to alleviate the pervasive skepticism within the environmental community.
Still, the fact that the clean-up project is now more than simply a contentious point of debate is cause for at least tepid celebration. I imagine most of those keeping a close eye on this will remain patient until the 2010 review process is complete before any claims of restitution will finally be made. Meanwhile, for the past quarter century, those PCBs and their fellow contaminants have been just sitting there in the river bottom ooze, waiting for the party responsible to own up and make that first move.
Sources: “Dredging of Pollutants Begins in Hudson”, The New York Times, May 15, 2009;“”Reclaiming a River”, The New York Times, May 16, 2009; “Shaking Off “Man’s Taint, Hudson Pulses With Life”, The New York Times, June 9, 1996; “What was the Wisconsin Glaciation?” Wisegeek.com;“25-Year-Old Hudson River Cleanup Plan Starts Today”, Running Scared (blogs.villagevoice.com), May 15, 2009; “Pollution and the Hudson River”, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (www.ecostudies.org); Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (www.clearwater.org).
Posted in Legislation, Pollution, Waste, Water | Permalink
Green from the Ground Up
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009| May 11, 2009 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
In this workshop Solar One will introduce, define and discuss the economic and quality of life implications of three solar rooftop applications that have considerable promise in the five borough area: solar thermal technology, photovoltaics and white roofs. Note Location: University Settlement, 273 Bowery (at Houston)
6:00 PM - Navigating NYC’s Recycling Landscape
Recycling: it’s good for the city, benefits the planet and is required by law, but many find the reality of recycling challenging. How does your building’s program measure up and how can you improve your recycling performance?
Residential building managers, superintendents, board members and others will benefit from this presentation from the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education (OROE). Hear about new recycling laws and old misconceptions. Find out how to avoid fines, improve your recycling program and get your tenants to recycle. Learn about other ways to reduce waste, recycle more and help make NYC a little greener. OROE is a program of the Council on the Environment of New York City.
7:00 PM – Combating Rising Energy Costs with Energy Efficiency for Multifamily Buildings
Concerned about the increasing costs of energy in your building? Green from the Ground Up presents a workshop for Energy Efficiency in Buildings that offers tips on reducing your building’s energy use while making an environmental impact. Learn how to improve your building’s energy efficiency in lighting, appliances, and heating systems, thereby lowering your fuel and utility bills.
In this workshop, Solar One’s NYSERDA Energy $mart Communities Coordinator will discuss government incentives available for your building such as the Multifamily Performance Program, and weatherization programs. Vendors will be available to answer any technical questions, and to sign up your building for an energy audit.
8:00PM – A Survey of Solar Energy Roof Applications for NYC: Solar Thermal, Photovoltaics, Green Roofs and White Roofs
Over one million buildings make up New York City’s one of a kind built environment, and the nearly one billion square feet of largely vacant roofscape that mark its vertical border amount to what is perhaps our most underutilized asset. Our roofs have an enormous potential to accomodate clean solar energy applications and therefore to address a number of our most pressing local energy challenges, including the urban heat island effect, escalating household energy costs, power failure, growing carbon emissions, and poor air quality.
Posted in Education, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Green Building, NYSERDA, New York City, Other Events, Photovoltaics, Photovoltaics, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One Events, Solar Power, Sustainability, Waste, green roof, green roofs | Permalink
Manhattan Announces Green Jobs For the Ex-Homeless
Monday, April 27th, 2009
This past Friday, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced an innovative plan that will help curb NYC’s greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously providing jobs for those most in need of them. The Go Green! Cooking Oil Recycling Program will employ formerly homeless and incarcerated individuals to pick up used cooking oil from local city restaurants free of charge; the oil will then be sold to companies that conduct biodiesel conversion, cutting down on the use of standard diesel gasoline – among the dirtiest of hydrocarbon-based fuels – in commercial vehicles in and around the city.
The service will be conducted by RWA Resource Recovery, a venture of The Doe Fund and its Ready, Willing and Able Community Improvement Project. To date, RWA Resource Recovery has collected nearly 725,000 gallons of biodiesel since its inception in early 2007, an amount that should increase at a substantial rate under the new agreement; in March alone, RWA added 50 new client businesses around the city. Overall, through this community improvement project, The Doe Fund has aided more than 3,000 formerly destitute New Yorkers in their quest for self-sufficiency. The program will also partner with the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which will conduct education and outreach by training local students to serve as “eco-consultants” to help recruit other businesses into the program.
In addition to this venture, which will expand to neighborhoods in upper Manhattan over the next few weeks, the state will provide further incentives for biodiesel through tax credits for users and producers of the alternative fuel. Given current economic and employment trends, the Go Green! Cooking Oil Recycling Program will provide much-needed hope and opportunities while at the same time making progress towards a cleaner city.
Sources: “Speaker Sheldon Silver and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer Announce Free Cooking Oil Recycling Program for Local Restaurants”, press release – 4/24/09, Manhattan Borough President’s Office official website (www.mbpo.org); RWA Resource Recovery website (www.rwarr.org); The Doe Fund website (www.doe.org); Lower East Side Ecology Center website (www.lesecologycenter.org).
Posted in Biofuel, Green Collar Jobs, New York City, Politics, Recycling, Waste | Permalink
Come Craft with Us at Sustainable NYC on Thursday March 19
Friday, March 13th, 2009Some of you may remember the offsite Green Renter Lecture that Chris Neidl held at Sustainable NYC, a really cool and lovely eco-boutique on Ave A in the East Village. Owner Dominique Camacho has generously offered us her storefront windows for a Solar One display that will be up through spring. We’ve decided to make something solar and recycled, and came up with the idea of making flowers out of old shopping bags, then attaching some to solar panels with little motors. Those flowers will spin when the sun hits them, and the display will be interactive because passersby will be able to stop the spinning by blocking the light. Pretty cool, huh? After we take the display out of the window, we’re planning to have it at our Solar One events this summer.
This is what the flowers look like:
On Thursday March 19 at 6pm, bring yourself, your crochet hooks and knitting needles, your old plastic bags and your ingenuity. The flowers in the pic were made with a D crochet hook and the pattern will be available next Thurs, but if you’d rather knit, or have another idea for a flower pattern, well, bring it on! The more variety, the better. We’ll be meeting at Sustainable NYC at 139 Ave A between St. Mark’s & 9th St. There will be free snacks and tons of fun!
For those who are interested in the design/construction aspect of the display, please email Events & Marketing Coordinator Dina Elkan at dina@solar1.org for more info on where and when we’ll be putting it all together. We’d like to have the display in the window by April 1.
To recap:
What: Create flowers out of plastic bags by crocheting or knitting
Where: Sustainable NYC, 139 Ave A between St. Mark’s & 9th Street
When: Thursday, March 19 at 6pm
Bring: Old shopping bags (transluscent plastic only, please! The opaque, shiny bags get too sticky to work with easily), crochet hooks and/or knitting needles, your friends, your brilliant ideas and lots of enthusiasm!
We hope to see you there!
Posted in Design, New York City, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One, Solar Power, Sustainability, Waste | Permalink
New Energy Technology Is All Rubbish
Monday, November 10th, 2008
Imagine a technology that not only generates energy with minimal greenhouse gas emissions, but that can even remove existing emissions sources while also solving the problem of garbage disposal. If St. Lucie County in Florida proves correct, plasma incinerators may be one more option in our growing sustainability portfolio. Instead of dumping its trash in landfills, St. Lucie County hopes to blast it with streams of superheated gas (known as plasma) at temperatures of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, organic matter vaporizes into a form of gas that can be used to power turbines, generating waste steam that could be then be used to create more energy. Inorganic matter such as aluminum cans could be used as recycled material for construction and infrastructure, including filler for roadbeds.
Not only does St. Lucie County hope to provide power for 50,000 homes in the process, but, by keeping trash out of landfills, it would significantly curb methane emissions that would result from decomposition. In addition, the plasma process itself (also known as plasma arc gasification) apparently generates far fewer emissions than standard incineration, and the county administration expects that the resulting energy will be no more expensive than natural gas.
Though plasma plants have been around since the 1980s, St. Lucie’s will be the first intended specifically for waste disposal. Expected to go on-line in 2011, city planners anticipate that it will process 1,500 tons of garbage daily and will supply the local energy grid with 60 MW of electricity (though some sources claim that public outcry (see below) and other logistical difficulties have caused GeoPlasma – the plant’s owner and developer – to propose a scaled-back verison that will process only 200 tons per day).
The plan is not without controversy, however. Skeptics claim that the technology is unproven and may release unsafe amounts of dioxin and other cancer-causing particulates into the community. Others claim that the proposed benefits may be overblown; a study of a similar plasma arc waste disposal facility in Honolulu concluded that the technology actually increased waste disposal costs while providing little if any environmental benefit. Until such concerns are abated, our trash isn’t likely to go anywhere but into the ground.
Sources: “Plasma Turns Garbage Into Gas”, Scientific American; “Doctors Say: Be Careful, St. Lucie County; make Geoplasma prove its claims about proposed arc incinerator”, www.tcpalm.com; “City to Brief Council on Plasma Arc Recommendations For Landfill Reduction”, City of Honolulu Department of Environmental Services (press release); “Can We Turn Garbage Into Energy? The Pros and Cons of Plasma Incineration”, www.slate.com; “Plasma arc waste disposal”, “Plasma (physics)”, www.wikipedia.com; “How Plasma Converters Work”, www.howstuffworks.com; “The Prophet of Garbage”; Popular Science; “Generating Power From Waste”, www.recyclingexpert.co.uk; www.geoplasma.com (Geoplasma homepage).
Posted in Global Warming, Pollution, Recycling, Solar One, Sustainability, Technology, Waste | Permalink
Oceans Becoming More Acidic
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
By now you’ve probably heard most of the doomsday scenarios regarding global warming. Temperatures and sea levels are rising, glaciers and ice caps are melting, and shifting weather patterns are wreaking havoc with ways of life that have otherwise changed little for centuries. Climate change has been connected with everything from water-rights squabbles to failing crops to an increasing prevalence of malaria and dengue fever. Some scientists have speculated that these scenarios may be avoided by sequestering greenhouse gases in large bodies of water, but this short-sighted approach begs the question: what exactly are these emissions doing to our oceans?
“Ocean acidification” was a hot topic at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). According to researchers, our oceans have lower pH levels now than at any point in the last 40 million years, and at the present rate these levels will drop by another .3 units by the end of the century. This is due to the chemical reactions that result when carbon dioxide is dissolved in water, forming carbonic acid. Over the long term, this process could affect the food chain in significant ways. First, many organisms will not grow as large or will produce fewer offspring, as increased levels of CO2 render respiration and other physiological processes less efficient. Also, the absorption of greenhouse gases is likely to create dead-zones at some depths where the CO2-oxygen ratios are too low to support life. This is apparently already happening and is somewhat similar to the poisonous volcanic crater lakes that exist in central Africa, where high levels of CO2 and other gases are kept at the lake bottom due to water pressure — until something stirs up the water, leading to the release of noxious plumes that can have lethal, large-scale consequences, such as the 1700 people killed in Cameroon in 1986.
It is unlikely that the presence of such dead-zones in the oceans will present any significant danger to human populations, except in that such zones will lower the productivity of the ecosystem, affecting subsistence fishermen and others who rely on the sea for their sustenance and livelihood. But there is one more way in which ocean acidification could have serious consequences. Shellfish, coral and echinoderms may not be able to form their exoskeletons, as the calcium carbonate on which they depend dissolves during carbonic acid formation. One researcher referred to the massive volcanic explosions at the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago which caused oceanic pH levels to change suddenly, leading to the extinction of 90% of oceanic species, particularly those that make shells from calcium carbonate. Another researcher, looking into the combined effects of acidification and temperature increase, conducted experiments on purple sea urchins that replicated the ecological conditions that will exist in 2100 if emissions levels continue unabated. Her results indicated that the urchins had to work up to three times harder to create their shells, and that these shells were often deformed.
All this goes to show that you can’t simply shrug off greenhouse gases by pumping them underwater.
Posted in Art, Global Warming, Technology, Waste, Water | Permalink
Green Renter: Infrastructure and Environmental Health Risks in the South Bronx: A Review of the South Bronx Health and Policy Study With Dr. Carlos Restrepo, New York University
Sunday, February 10th, 2008| February 18, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Drawing on the findings of a collaborative research project completed by New York University and the South Bronx community, this discussion will focus on waste management, traffic hotspots, highways, and zoning in the South Bronx and how the environmental health risks associated with them can impact sensitive populations such as asthmatic children attending schools located in close proximity to major highways. Understanding the spatial relationships between these environmental health risks and land use could be an important input to environmental policy in the South Bronx.
Posted in New York City, Pollution, Solar One Events, Sustainability, Waste | Permalink
