Tin Cans In Your Windows… and More on Recycling
Story and photos by Rebecca Hammond
THE OLDEST RECYCLED ITEMS in your home, if you’re lucky enough to have your original windows, are the clever and elegant solution to balky windows – the sash weights. This Old House claims that, with care, original windows will outlast replacements. We love ours, even their leakiness, indoor air being more polluted than outdoor air, but only one still works as designed. You can waltz up to that one and raise or lower it with a fingertip. The rest apparently exist to infuriate us.
The book, Garbology, by Pulitzer-Prize winner Edward Humes, states that our curbside bins, into which according to SOCCRA we should put anything that fits, are actually an old idea. First used in NYC when the waste problem there became so huge, a czar of sorts initiated a mocked-buteffective army of workers that marched in whiteclad units in the streets. Residents were required to sort their garbage, which had lots of tin cans, which were made into the sash weights that may be in your house. (You may not want to know what else was recycled, or into what.) Why we humans come up with good solutions to problems and then abandon them is beyond me. Garbology makes another interesting point in a section on shows like Hoarders: We all hoard stuff, it’s just that hoarders value it enough to want to keep it. The rest of us store it elsewhere, imagining it gone.
NOW IT’S FEDERAL: The Flint water crisis remains in the news this week, having gone national. It occurs to me that the cheapest thing all along is to keep local water sources clean and drinkable. When Flint reconnected (at great enough expense requiring the charity of the Mott Foundation) to the Detroit system, I assumed that although the effects of having consumed lead would remain with anyone unlucky enough to have ingested it, the water now was again safe to drink. Not so. Pipes were damaged enough that lead is still a concern. It’s both heartening that charity groups rally to get truckloads of water to Flint and irksome that Lansing is not handling this, period. But when I hear from now on that regulations are too expensive, I’ll always remember Flint. Was this cheaper? Federal aid has been requested. The bill seems to go up by the day.
BACKYARD HABITAT NEWS: A screech owl sings from a neighbor’s big spruce most evenings. They have a sort of ventriloquist effect, making them hard to pinpoint with a flashlight. After maybe an hour of searching one night, I found the little songsmith near the trunk a bit above roof height. It was not a bit bothered by my search; in fact, it paid no attention to me until I made clicking noises, then stared me down, bold for something so small. It’s clumsy taking photos with a flashlight in one hand and a camera in the other; probably all I’d have needed is a hoop-twirling on one leg to be a vaudeville act, but I did get a few nice shots.
Notes from (slightly) Up North: Pleasant Ridge’s Environmental Committee are working with their city government on a sustain-ability plan, with SOCCRA on an electronics-and-metal collection site at the PR DPW, and on the following upcoming events, all nearby and open to the public. Thanks, Leslie Jones, for sharing this with us:
Monday, March 21 at 7:00 P.M. – The Effects of Pesticides on Health and the Environment, an educational seminar discussing why and how to avoid pesticides in the lawn and garden. Pesticides are linked to multiple human health concerns, as well as the decline of bees. Dr. Tom Kocarek, Researcher and Associate Professor at Wayne State University’s Institute of Environmental Health Sciences will outline the latest in scientific research involving the impacts of pesticides. Melissa Cooper Sargent, Environmental Health Educator at the Ecology Center, will provide tips to creating a lush and beautiful yard without pesticides. Community Center, 4 Ridge Road. The PR group will also be hosting a talk on Native Plants with Brendan Nolan on May 23 at 7 pm to be followed by a Native Plant Sale on June 4. Also at the Pleasant Ridge Community Center, free and open to the public. For further information and to RSVP, contact Leslie Jones at 248- 506-4754 or p.ridgeenvironmental@gmail.c om, and look for them on Facebook.
Claire Galed, co-manager of Huntington Woods DPW which works with their Environmental Advisory Committee, offered these New Years’ tips for a greener year:
• Start 2016 with a Pledge: landfill less and recycle more.
• For monthly information on recycling, sign up for the the SOCRRA e-newsletter at www.socrra.org.
• The New Year is a good time to ensure that recycling is easy and throwing things away is difficult. Have a container near your mail-sorting spot. Put recycling containers in your bedrooms and baths.
• Turn unused waste baskets into recycling containers (a great project for children and grandchildren). It is a good cold or rainy day activity, and can lead to increased awareness and more recycling. By making the container, there is ownership of the situation.
Rebecca Hammond prowls yards and the streets of Ferndale in search of owls. Their calls can be heard citywide, and by googling “owl calls.”
If some happened with our soundness, we believe there is a solution to any maladies in a medicament. What medicines do patients purchase online? Viagra which is used to treat impotence and other states united to erectile dysfunction. Learn more about “sildenafil“. What people talk about “viagra stories“? The most substantial aspect you should look for is “sildenafil citrate“. Such problems commonly signal other problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Causes of sexual dysfunction include injury to the penis. Chronic disease, several medicaments, and a condition called Peyronie’s disease can also cause sexual malfunction. Even though this medicine is not for use in women, it is not known whether this curing passes into breast milk.
