A bit wonky but important:

By Duncan Watson, Assistant Public Works Director, City of Keene, NH, President, Board of Trustees, Northeast Resource Recovery Association.

from SWEEP :

“the impact of China’s National Sword policy..has left recyclers scrambling. ..a brief synopsis…

Around 2 decades ago China began incorporating capitalism into its economy and the result was…a torrent of demand for raw materials to fuel its double digit economic growth.  …China had its own .. free-for-all with little law or regulation to keep things in check. Developed countries seized on the opportunity to send their recovered discards to meet China’s seemingly insatiable appetite for..everything.

…waste brokers were making a killing, as there was little in the way of specifications to risk a load being rejected. Soon upwards of 2,000 shipping containers filled with discards–paper, plastic, and metal–were leaving U.S. ports bound for China each day. In 2013 Chinese officials realized their country was becoming a dumping ground with, in some cases, over 20% of a received load being off specification and therefore requiring alternate disposal other than recycling….further exacerbated by the lack of infrastructure to properly dispose of the non-recyclable material. The result was polluted waterways, open burning dumps, and the expense of additional infrastructure to handle someone else’s problem.

Through its 2013 Green Fence policy, China began the slog towards gaining control over its waste imports and put the world on notice … [re] non-compliance of specifications. ..[but] the world continued to send China the bulk of its discards….it was apparent that economic growth was more important than environmental protection…

Last July, China announced a new policy… National Sword..on January 1^st…Unfathomably, little to no heed was paid to the potential impact on recycling programs and the domestic industry of eliminating demand for 55% of the world’s scrap paper. But just because scrap paper and plastic demand has dried up, does not mean that supply has done the same. Recycling programs, built on 40 years of exhortation to do the right thing, continue to collect huge amounts of materials, materials that now have nowhere to go.

…we are currently in crisis mode…. there is not enough capacity in the world to replace China’s lost demand. What we need is a profound rethinking of market structure and infrastructure in the U.S. …we should be responsible for improving the quality of the material processed by materials recovery facilities, and we should have greater capacity to utilize these raw materials domestically.

As this crisis continues to unfold …the next six months will likely see communities and recycling processors in the U.S. needing to make some uncomfortable decisions. There is no practical way to stockpile all the material that would normally be shipped to China….there probably will be a need to burn or bury large amounts of material until the market responds to make recycling domestically more economical.

…I operate a dual stream materials recovery facility, I am able to produce a quality of material that continues to make our product marketable. That may change as this crisis grows. …I support China’s crackdown. …the new specifications are literally impossible to meet…[they] were not designed to improve the materials coming into China, they were meant to stop them completely, and…they’ve succeeded magnificently.

…it is incumbent on recyclers to improve the quality of their product to the greatest extent possible to compensate for the years where there was little to no accountability. ..”

Get Ready for August 8th’s Rivington House ACTION.

From University Settlement:

Ribbons for Rivington

Ribbons for Rivington is a ribbon writing activity where we ask that you share what the loss of the nursing home means to you or the community.

Write what you might worry about, how much you care, or even just about your resolve to stand up for others.

LoDown:

“Seeing people in trouble, as vital institutional safety nets crumble, weighs on us even if we can’t bear to notice them given our own daily grinds and preoccupations.

This is how we are made to feel complicit and helpless in the damage being done in our name to the most helpless.

As family, friends and neighbors maybe all we have is our determination to care….

And sometimes, when we act, we win a few.

Friday August 10th 6:30pm

Please contact the office to ensure a slot!!

Venus Galarza-Mullins: VMullins@NYSenate.gov 212-298-5565

From Mijente*: “…Everyone deserves to live with dignity…this is about who gets to live and who is left to perish today in America”

Chalk your message on sidewalks, or write it on ribbons to loved ones, or help make a banner. We’ll collect your stories to add to the Rivington House booklet.

*Mijente fights for immigrants. Full quote:

“To stop family separation, we must rise in moral chorus: Everyone belongs here. Everyone deserves to live with dignity and to be free. Because this is not just about immigration: this is about who gets to live and who is left to perish today in America.” – Mijente

Volunteers from  New Forsyth Conservancy restoring the gateway to these gardens! (they are here every Thursday – come by and help out!) – with help from Danny.

Basketball, Gardens, Soccer…

Tree Pruner (more pruning needed in immediately South of Delancey area):

Credit Parks Department for the Repair of the Oval, done in-house, faster, less expensive. It looks beautiful.

Field Permits link to Parks Department Website for use of Sara D. Roosevelt Park Athletic Fields and Courts

How to Reserve an Athletic Field or Court

Organized leagues or special events need a permit to use an athletic field or court. For people under 18, the permit is free. For those 18 and over, a fee is required.

To reserve space, please see Parks Department  Athletic Permits and Applications page.

View Basketball Courts for ALL NYC Parks

Thank you to the team from Forestry and to Park’s Department’s Administrative Parks & Recreation Manager Mark Vaccaro, Park Manager Elizabeth Martinez and Chief of Staff to the Manhattan Borough Commissioner Steve Simon.

And to all the 311 callers!

For making our Park a lot safer to be in!

A much better scene than earlier this week:

From The New Forsyth Conservancy:

“The great Reformers of the Progressive Era agitated for greenspaces in tenement districts because they asserted that people need parks. Turns out the opposite is true too- parks need people (not only to chillax in, but to help maintain).

Last week our humble Tenement band got to work rehabilitating some historic gates in the plots of Sara D Roosevelt Park that we steward.

Look only on what a couple hours of dedicated work can do, and think about how much more we could accomplish with a larger group of volunteers!”

Sarah will meet non-Tenement Museum staffers at the SDR Park in plots just south of Delancey Street!

Speaking of the positive effect of grass roots activism and fearlessness:

“… history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension. Sometimes one person inspires a movement, or her words do decades later; sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement and millions do; sometimes those millions are stirred by the same outrage or the same ideal and change comes upon us like a change of weather. All that these transformations have in common is that they begin in the imagination, in hope. To hope is to gamble. It’s to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.”

-Rebecca Solnit