Sustainability Issues
Middletown Area School is Green Through and Through
You can’t describe the Lucy School, a preschool-through-8th grade private school midway between Middletown and Myersville, without talking about the boots. To me, the boots symbolize the approach this school takes to its educational mission, which founding director...
The Comeback of Water Fountains (and the going-away of plastic water bottles)
The marketing campaigns by bottled water companies have won the hearts and minds of Americans during the past few decades. So imagine that now, as we wean ourselves off the single-use bottle, xx of which are thrown away each hour, we now have to create publicity...
The Coffee Makers Funeral
The other day I heard a man brag about giving a worn-out coffee maker a ‘Viking funeral’. For those who are not familiar with the Vikings, they would set their dead on a boat and light them on fire. Then they would sail off to Viking heaven. Back then, of course,...
Paris to Pittsburgh: a Review!
Leann Nizzardi contributed this blog after the showing of Paris to Pittsburgh by the Multi-Faith Alliance of Climate Stewards at Middletown United Methodist Church. So last evening my daughter and I went to a showing of Paris to Pittsburgh. This is a new National...
The Anthropology of Roadside Trash
For a year now I have been routinely cleaning up litter along a two -mile stretch of Harmony Road, sometimes with the help of family and friends. We adopted it as part of Green Frederick's mission to serve the community. Its a bucolic setting, winding along the stream...
School Composting and Waste Sorting Data
Joe Richardson of Bar-T Mountainside Ranch (a directory member!) and member of the @Frederick Compost Workgroup recently presented data from a number of waste sorts and composting efforts he coordinated at schools in Frederick County. He presented the data to the...
“There’s a new ‘JOHN’ in town”
If you poop, add a scoop. If you pee, let it be. Months later, top-dress the brown spots in your lawn. I interviewed David Myers of Build-Rite Construction LLC/Myers Barn Shop, and RN, a customer of his, about the Sun-Mar Composting Toilet. And the statements above...
New City Leaf Policy – Storms of Change
Some people eren’t happy about the City of Frederick’s new “leaf collection policy” when it was put in place last fall. Interestingly, it’s just another example of the indirect impact of impact climate change on our everyday lives. In an attempt to soften the change...
Urban Gardening and Help for Hungry People/Food Deserts
A Hood College grant program was celebrated recently for tackling the problem of hunger -- also called "food insecurity" -- in Frederick County. The program, in its first year and housed under the Center for Coastal & Watershed Studies -- seeks to link sponsors...