Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Winter Clothing Drive
Warm Up Our
Neighbors Annual Winter
Coat Drive
Coat Drive
In partnership with NYSDEC and the
Town of New Paltz for distribution through the New Paltz United Methodist
Church
to local organizations and shelters.
to local organizations and shelters.
Please donate new or your gently used
coats, gloves, scarves and hats to benefit local shelters. We will be collecting items through December
12th at the following locations:
-
Town of New Paltz Recycling Center
- Town Building Department
Clean, stain free, wearable items only please.
Contact recycling@townofnewpaltz.org for
more information
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Town and Village of New Paltz – New Paltz Zero Waste Initiative
“New Paltz’s sustainable materials program is proof that cost can be reduced while donations and revenues increase; providing materials and opportunity to build our community.” Laura Petit, Recycling Coordinator
The New Paltz ReUse and Recycling Center is a municipally operated system consisting of four buildings and several accessory buildings. It serves a population of just under 20,000 and employs two full time employees with a part time Waste Reduction Assistant in the ReUse Center. New Paltz stepped up programs in 2016 to reach its zero waste goals by involving the community.
Briar Creek Farm has been a partner and part of the livestock food recovery initiative since 2012. They collect food from several local retailers to supplement what they feed their cows, pigs and chickens. They also take shredded paper collected at the New Paltz recycling center for bedding which is later composted. New Paltz held a “Feed The Hog” – a “used” pumpkin collection that took place right after Halloween for Briarcreek livestock.
March brought new source for commercial food waste and a $20,000 revenue. The Culinary Institute of America composts all food waste and New Paltz staff used it to created beautiful compost which is used by local gardeners.
April has been designated as the annual textile collection month in partnership with the New Paltz Clean Sweep program. In 2015, NYSDEC Regional Director, Martin Brand, attended the first event which began as a partnership in 2014 with Region III NYSDEC and the solid waste local authority in support of the ReClothe-NY program. With the help of volunteers, the clothing collection is now ongoing and 4.39 tons was collected this year for local charities.
May was 14th Annual SUNY New Paltz campus dorm cleanout and Great Community Giveaway. This year seven (7) tons of clothing, food and other items were donated by students. After volunteers collected and sorted everything, the material was delivered to twelve (12) local charities with the remaining items put under tents donated by the United Methodist Church for the public to take.
New Paltz closed the 2016 year by joining Rescuing Leftover Cuisine to pick up food donations from local businesses for drop off at local charities. This was an incredible step to feed our hungry and jump into the long term goals of our zero waste plan. Partners include Sodexo of SUNY New Paltz dining hall, Omega Institute and several local restaurants. To date (January 1, 2017-October), 9,000 pounds of food has been recovered and delivered to pantries and soup kitchens.
The zero waste and food recovery goals could only be achieved with community volunteers. New Paltz has partnered with Food Insecurity Collaborative (Rondout Valley Growers Association, Family of Woodstock and Ulstercorp) as a centralized hub food for gleaned and/or overproduced fresh produce. A Cool Bot® refrigeration shed is almost completed and will be used to store produce until food pantries can pick up.
In total, 162 tons of material was diverted for reuse including aggregate and shredded paper; 84 tons of food and clothing was donated; 237 tons was recycled; and, 1222 tons of organics including food and yard waste was composted or repurposed in 2016.
The New Paltz ReUse and Recycling program diverted 1,428 tons of organics and reusable material from the waste stream reducing disposal costs by $151,915 if all materials were landfilled and supplementing local charities with much needed items.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NPreusecenter
(845) 255-8456
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
New Paltz ReUse Center:
2016 Recap and Plans for 2017
February brought us a
batch of chicks hatched from local eggs donated by Briar Creek Farm of New
Paltz and Trudy’s Egg Basket of Gardiner in an incubator rescued from the waste
stream. (The chicks were given back to the farms after the public had some time
to enjoy them and a pamphlet on raising chickens as part of a food security
program was created.) Briar Creek Farm has been part of the livestock recovered
food initiative and collects food from several local retailers to supplement what
they feed their cows, pigs and chickens. They also take shredded paper collected at the New Paltz recycling center for their livestock
which is later composted and participated in “Feed The Hog” – a “used” pumpkin
collection that took place right after Halloween.
March brought us a new source for commercial food waste and a $20,000
revenue. Staff created beautiful screened compost which was used by local
gardners and on the Field of Dreams.
April has been designated as the annual textile collection month in
partnership with the New Paltz Clean Sweep program. In 2015, NYSDEC Regional
Director, Martin Brand, attended the first event which began as a partnership in
2014 with Region III NYSDEC and the solid waste local authority in support of
the ReClothe-NY program. With the help of volunteers, the clothing collection
is now ongoing and 4.39 tons was collected this year for local charities.
In May, New Paltz was
selected to receive the 2016 Environmental Champion Award from the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region II for its commitment to protecting and
enhancing environmental quality and public health. Later in the Fall New
Paltz received national EPA recognition for its Food Recovery Challenge. These programs
have been a success because strong partnerships with the local NYSDEC Region
III office and community members have been developed. Two of our dedicated
volunteers, Joan and Vincent Gallagher, were recipients of the first New York State Recycling Leadership
Citizens’ Award.
May was also the 14th
Annual SUNY New Paltz campus dorm cleanout and Great Community Giveaway. This
year seven (7) tons of clothing, food and other items were donated by students.
After volunteers collected and sorted everything, the material was delivered to
twelve (12) local charities with the remaining items put under tents donated by
the United Methodist Church for the public to take.
In June, New Paltz received $264,000 in recycling grant
funding. The grants were written for the composting and brush program for
capital equipment purchases that were reimbursed at 50%. The funds offset the
cost of the horizontal grinder purchased in December 2015.
Over the summer, local artists contributed their time and
skills to paint a mural on the New Paltz ReUse Center. New Paltz High School
students participating in the Roost Youth Group (RYG- a local gallery) spent
the entire summer painting. This partnership led to the ReUse Center’s second project. A ReUse
Sculpture Park on Clearwater Road, using materials diverted from the waste stream
to represent all aspects of society and sustainability. The first sculpture was
a collaboration between RYG and the Maya Gold Foundation. The Maya Gold
Foundation was created in response to the tragic death of 15-year old Maya
Gold, a New Paltz High School student who took her own life in October of 2015.
Maya’s parents launched the organization with help from community members and
friends, in response to the social pressures and concerns her death brought to
light. This sculpture is “Community”.
New Paltz finished a very busy summer by tabling at the Ulster County
Fair. With the help of a dozen volunteers, hundreds of children’s hard cover
book spines for personalized story books were given away. (Eighteen cases of
educational material was brought into the New Paltz recycling center for
disposal and diverted to the outreach program.) Several teachers interested in
class writing projects were sent home with a case of hard covers. Fair goers also received reusable shopping
bags that had been pre-packed with information on the ReUse Center, native
gardens and other program literature.
New Paltz ReUse and Recycling Center and New Paltz Youth Center (NPYC)
volunteered at the annual Taste of New Paltz event. Sponsored by New Paltz
Chamber of Commerce, this event invites local restaurants and food artisans to
have the public sample their products and was promoted as a zero waste event.
Young volunteers from the NPYC and SUNY New Paltz were stationed throughout the
fairgrounds to guide fairgoers on how/where to place compostable items,
recycling or garbage using a three-bin system. The carts were donated by local
business, Solid Waste Disposal Service, Inc.
Only ten 35-gallon bags of
garbage were collected; mostly non-compostable #6 condiment portion cups and
recycling that was contaminated with
food.
SUNY New Paltz invited ReUse and Recycling Center staff to attend several
sustainability events including a statewide conference in September and
October. SUNY students are the largest resource of volunteers that the New
Paltz Zero Waste program has, and their energy and core knowledge is
inspirational. Recycling Coordinator, Laura Petit, was invited in November to attend
PLANs northeastern conference at the University of New Hampshire.
Town of New Paltz Sustainability Film Series - Several screenings of a
series of sustainable films of documentaries created by people who were
inspired to change their lives and the environment by changing their habits by plugging
leaks in local economy, local currencies while appropriately using natural
resources, urban agriculture and food resilience. Sustainability is a
transformation. The first film “ReUse: Because You Can’t Recycle the Planet”
was shown on two separate dates in November that led to the the 2017 project plan.
Hudson Valley Regional Council and Feed the Hudson Valley sponsored “Just Eat
It” a film on food waste shown in December that will lead to the overall food
recovery program for 2017. Laura Petit and a regional NYSDEC representative met
with SODEXO representatives (one regional; the other local) to coordinate how
volunteers with be picking up leftover dining hall food to donate to local
charities.
These films motivated New Paltz ReUse and Recycling staff to draft a plan for 2017 that includes:
Spare Share (a program for teachers to take FREE supplies recovered from the
waste stream to use in their classrooms – August 2017); Bike Share ( a program
that leases bikes recovered from the waste stream); Scrapped Kitchen (a program
of workshops including seed harvesting, gardening, composting, perennials,
cooking seasonal produce and canning); Extreme Recycling (a program of select
recycling center users willing to break down their recycling beyond four
containers and to recover additional materials such as coffee grinds from
K-cups and Box Tops for education); Edible Trail and Scavenger Hunt Trail (a
program that ties ecology in with the arts and gardening).
New Paltz closed the 2016 year by joining
Rescuing Leftover Cuisine to pick up food donations from local businesses for
drop off at local charities. This will be an incredible step to feed our hungry
and jump into the long term goals of our zero waste plan. The goals can only be
achieved with community volunteers. New Paltz has also partnered with Food Insecurity
Collaborative (Rondout Valley Growers Association, Family of Woodstock and
Ulstercorp) as part of the food recovery hub for gleaned and/or overproduced fresh
produce. Plans for building a Cool Bot® in the ReUse Center to store produce
until food pantries can pick up items are being drafted for February 2017.
Staff helped SUNY Sustainable Agriculture students prepare
a banquet on Sunday November 20th entirely out of rescued and gleaned produce. Students
and New Paltz staff prepared the feast at Huguenot Farm which was transported
to the SUNY campus that fed eighty (80) students.
The last event of 2016 was during the first major
snowstorm of the season at a Boy Scout Pancake Breakfast event. A full table of
materials from the ReUse Center was set out for the next generation of creative
minds to use. That and a hot glue gun (supervised by an adult of course)
resulted in some really cool snow globes!
New Paltz
ReUse and Recycling Center achieved another benchmark in 2016 by coming in
under 300 tons of garbage that had to be hauled to a landfill over four and a
half hours away. Before New Paltz partnered with the EPA in 2011 as part of a
national zero waste pilot initiative, New Paltz was receiving over 800 tons of
garbage annually destined for landfilling. This year 297 tons of garbage was
received (down from 324 tons in 2015) and revenues were at their highest to
date through new programming and commercial food waste tipping fees.
Staff
Laura Petit – Recycling Coordinator/Environmental
Educator recycling@townofnewpaltz.org
Robert Karlsbarch –
Transfer Station Operator
Lloyd Luckett – Municipal Worker I
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)