August 12, 2010

Recycling now a little easier

A blurb from the Town of Mamaroneck just caught my eye: we no longer need remove the bottle caps from plastic bottles before putting them out for recycling.

Seems like a small thing, but surely they add up. Maybe the added weight of all those caps will boost our recycling rate— which was a respectable 62 percent of all solid waste in 2009 —just a bit.

Of course, it would be a lot better— and a lot healthier, too —if we weren't using plastic bottles in the first place.

No one needs soda or fruit juice, and we have healthy clean water coming from the tap here in Larchmont. Invest in a water bottle — you can even keep it in the freezer to make sure it's cool when you set out. The environment will thank you.

Maybe we'll get to the point that there's so little solid waste in Larchmont-Mamaroneck that we can go to one-day-a-week collection. That  would surely help the tax rate.

August 11, 2010

If you aren't homeless, leave these tomatoes alone!

When I started plants from seeds indoors this spring, I tried to carefully label each pot. But thinking doesn't make it happen, and when the zinnias I transplanted to my corner garden began to grow, lo and behold, most of them were tomatoes.

My corner is a busy corner, passed each day by hundreds walking to and from the train, Turtle Park and the Palmer shopping district. I always lose a few flowers to people who must think I'm growing them for their dining room tables, and I've even caught people lifting whole plants from my garden.

So when the tomatoes began to grow among the dahlias, I wondered whether even a single tomato would make it to our table. Sure enough, even though the beautiful tomatoes growing on these almost six-foot-tall plants are yet to ripen, they're beginning to disappear.

And so I made a decision. These tomatoes would be grown to benefit the homeless; I'll donate the majority of them, along with other produce from my garden, to the "Nourish Your Neighbor" campaign that Ed Merians first announced on The Loop.
I've posted a sign on the plants saying: These tomatoes are to feed the homeless. If you are not homeless, please leave them alone!
I'm waiting to see if it works.