GOOD IDEAS
Summer Gardens
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A late spring and rainy June set the stage for a beautiful garden season this July. Many of the first year native pollinator gardens that we planted throughout the Village: Neperan Park, Sarah Michaels extensions, Metro North Station and Gracemere are in full bloom. Our older gardens, Warner Library and Patriots Park, are lush and thriving with all the rain.

Native plant gardens are low maintenance and low cost to maintain . They are free of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. For info on how to start your own garden please visit our webpage: https://pollinators.tarrytownenviro.org/get-started

Please enjoy our new Garden Gallery page on the TEAC website: 
https://pollinators.tarrytownenviro.org/the-garden-gallery
And DO visit the gardens in person. The butterflies are finally arriving! 

Kayak to Nyack With Us - Hudson River Valley Ramble!

Come cross the Hudson River in your kayak with us! This crossing will take approximately 1-1/2 hours in each direction and will include a 20-minute break on the Nyack shoreline.

There will be safety boat escorts, but only experienced kayakers with the stamina to paddle 7 miles round-trip at an average rate of 2.5 knots should register. Life jackets must be worn at all times.

Participants must provide their own boat and gear – paddle, whistle, pump, skirt (optional). Must be at least 18 years old to participate or at least 14 accompanied by parent or guardian who will vouch for skill level and stamina. Register HERE, or scan the QR:

About the Ramble

Every September, participation continues to grow. Ramblers come not only from the Hudson Valley region and New York State but from other regions of the country as well to discover the riches our Valley has to offer. Whether you are interested in a challenging hike, bike ride or paddle, an inspiring walk through the grounds and homes of some of the Valleys most notable artists, authors, and Great Americans, a trip back in time to experience the significant role the region played in the Revolutionary War, or a family-fun festival or river exploration event, the Hudson River Valley Ramble truly offers something for everyone!

What does this mean? Many Ramble events highlight themes of the Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area such as the Revolutionary War, Great Estates, Hudson River School artists, designated Greenway Trails, and the Hudson River Estuary. Ramble events are generally outdoors, or include an outdoor portion, and are guided and/or offer an interpretation of the landscape, history, or ecology of the area. They can be guided walks, hikes, bike tours, kayak or canoe trips; a family festival, or a river exploration.

Where? The geographic area of the Hudson River Valley Greenway and Maurice D. Hinchey National Heritage Area includes all of the municipalities within these counties: Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland, Saratoga, Ulster; Washington, Westchester, and those portions of New York and Bronx counties adjacent to the Hudson River and within the city’s waterfront revitalization program area.

Succulent Kale Salad
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By Rachel Tieger, TEAC Co-Chair

During the heatwave, I turned toward refreshing salads and cool crunchy vegetables for meal choices. This garden kale recipe has become a staple during the summer season and is extremely versatile.  I used the last of some farmers market breakfast radishes from my fridge and sprinkled with raw salted pumpkin seeds for extra depth and protein. This recipe and technique of massaging the kale (more like kneading bread), breaks down the fibrous toughness leaving the kale succulent and more digestible. I used my favorite tahini dressing and then finished with a generous amount of fresh ground pepper and added the pumpkin seeds and radishes. Or feel to use your favorite dressing and adjust the ingredients to create your masterpiece. Note, any kind of kale works well!

By Dean Gallea, TEAC Co-Chair

In early July, a group from various environmental councils from the Rivertowns toured the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF, pronounced “murph”) in Yonkers, across I-87 from the Costco/Home Depot shopping center. We wanted to see firsthand where our recyclable (and non-recyclable) containers and paper went, and how they were processed, separated and bundled for sale to the recyclable materials market.

Trucks from the municipalities served by the MRF, including our Rivertowns and most of lower Westchester, bring in the materials and offload them onto one of two huge floors, one for paper and cardboard and another for plastic, metal and glass containers (termed commingle”.) A front-loader scoops up a cubic yard or so at a time from the pile of commingle and drops it into a hopper that feeds a conveyor belt. That raises the material high into the multi-story building, allowing it to be sorted mechanically into multiple streams of similar material, an essential part of separating the recyclables for sale.

On the container side, the items first travel through a device that breaks apart any bags or clumps of commingle so it can be examined and separated. The commingle then travels back up a belt to a station where real people identify and pull out obvious contaminants: Non-container items, non-recyclables, wires and other tangles that could foul up machinery further up the line. These go into a trash stream that gets taken to the Peekskill incinerator.

Camera-driven air blasts and robotics separate cartons (milk and juice), and plastic items into their own waste streams. Glass, being heaviest, comes off last. The various streams go into bins, some getting compacted and baled with wire for loading and transport. Recyclers buy them for a price determined by the type and uniformity of the material. We saw bales of cartons and others of large plastic buckets (cat litter, etc.) waiting to be loaded, and observed trucks leaving with loads of glass.

On the paper side, corrugated cardboard is most valuable, as it can be reprocessed fairly easily into new cardboard containers. Machines use air blowers and camera-driven robotics to recognize cardboard and separate it from other items like newspaper and office paper. Least valuable is glossy magazine paper which contains a lot of ink, clay and other contaminants, but there is still a market for it.

Recycling only works IF there remains a market for the separated products. Though some former markets - such as China - no longer want recyclables from the U.S., our MRF still can find buyers for about 80% of what we send there. The cleaner and purer our separated streams are, the more the MRF can charge, and the less it costs us as taxpayers. Below are some tips for making our recycling work better.

Recycle Commingle Right Tips:

• Unless your municipality requires it, don’t put your commingle in plastic or even paper bags, as they have to be removed at the MRF. Contaminants like these will end up as trash and have to be taken to the incinerator (see last month’s TEAC newsletter article on our trash management.)

• Don’t put broken glass or sheet glass into the recycling bin, as it can be hazardous to workers, and it ends up as trash anyway.

• Rinse food containers as well as you can, and replace caps, as small items like those aren’t easily scooped up from the dumping area.
  
  

Recycle Paper Right Tips: 

• If it’s raining when we put our paper recycling out, the moisture can be a problem for the machinery, and the piles of wet paper need to drain before they can be processed and properly separated. It’s best to keep your paper out of the rain, covering it or even skipping the weekly pickup if you can’t keep it from getting soaked. 

• Don’t put books - even paperbacks - into the paper recycling. The glue in the bindings can be hard to separate and can gum up the works. Similarly, metal should be separated from folders and spiral-bound notebooks, as this can foul the equipment.

There will be something for the whole family including kids activities, games, amazing live music, and fresh local food vendors at the TaSH farmers market! More information will be in our September Newsletter.

The Eco Fair brings together community sustainability organizations and local businesses to educate and share ideas to enrich our Villages and enhance the environment. It is an opportunity for community members to increase awareness and engage on environmental issues. The goal is to highlight things that we can all do at home and in our own neighborhoods.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE, RIGHT ON
What's This "Arcadia Power"?
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By Dean Gallea, TEAC Energy Committee

You might receive an email from Con Ed with a solicitation from a “partner” company called Arcadia Power. This might look like an attempt from an ESCO to get you to switch from Con Ed to their electrical supply (a tactic called “slamming” if it’s done misleadingly), but it’s something else. Arcadia Power is a broker of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), each of which represents a megawatt-hour of energy produced by non-carbon-based generation such as wind, solar and hydroelectric. What their offer provides, in cooperation with Con Ed, is that they will purchase, at no cost to you, RECs equivalent to half your home’s electric energy usage. This helps to make investments in renewable energy projects more profitable, encouraging the shift away from fossil fuels.

Of course, you may already be subscribed to Westchester Power, the ESCO chosen by many of our communities, including Tarrytown, to supply renewable energy (also through purchase of RECs) to residents who have not opted out or chosen a different supplier. But some residents, faced with the higher cost of energy from Westchester Power, have opted to return to Con Ed’s default supply. And Con Ed doesn’t offer a renewable energy option themselves. So, Arcadia offers an alternative way for environmentally-conscious residents to support non-carbon energy production, with no additional fees.

Another option from Arcadia is to purchase of RECs equivalent to 100% of your home’s energy usage, for an added cost of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour (with a minimum charge of $5/mo.) This lets you create the same level of demand for renewable energy as does subscribing to a “green power” ESCO (like Westchester Power), without entailing the currently much-higher supply costs. Joining this plan would raise your typical electric supply cost about $10/month.

For those not already on a green-power ESCO, we don’t see any downside to joining at least the free 50% program from Arcadia, and we think the 100% option is cost-effective for what it does. You can cancel your subscription any time without penalty. Let us know what you think in any case.

Another way to support renewable power is to join a local Community Solar project, which currently saves you 10% on your supply costs if you qualify. You must not already have a solar system on the house, but you can be a Westchester Power subscriber and still join Community Solar. For more info on that, see https://sustainablewestchester.org/solar/#benefits.

Alpha-Gal Syndrome

A known disease has been discovered to be more widespread than previously thought, affecting as many as 400,000 in the U.S. Called “Alpha-Gal Syndrome” (AGS), it’s caused by getting infected from a bite by a Lone Star tick (and possibly other ticks) that carries alpha-gal sugar molecules from mammals in its saliva. AGS infection causes a severe gastrointestinal allergic reaction to mammal (red) meat and sometimes dairy products. Symptoms include a plethora of allergic reactions like nausea or vomiting, heartburn or indigestion, diarrhea, dizziness or faintness, and severe stomach pain, among others. There’s no treatment except to discontinue consuming red meat and mammal-sourced foods such as gelatin. Just another reason to go plant-based, but you should always take precautions against tick bites! The Lone Star tick can be found in our area. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/alpha-gal/index.htm