TTF Watershed » Clean-ups

Rock Creek Riparian Buffer Planting at Cedarbrook Middle School

Steph — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:23:37 +0000

TTF joined Cedarbrook Middle School students and teachers, Earth Force, and NAM Planning & Design, LLC three days last week to install a riparian buffer on the school grounds. The work started with removal of Japanese knotweed and Phragmites, two invasive species in the area. After clearing litter from the area and digging holes, we worked with seventh grade science teachers Karen Shaffran and Debi DiBattista and 175 students to plant hundreds of native trees and shrubs along the creek. Students worked hard and learned a lot about botany, ecology, and stormwater management. All of the collaborators look forward to installing a boardwalk and celebrating with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the spring.

Check out more pictures from the project here.

Read more about our work with Cedarbrook Middle School here.

Terrific Clean-Up in Jenkintown!

Steph — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:47:14 +0000

Thank you to all of our enthusiastic and resourceful volunteers who made our Jenkintown clean-up a huge success! We were joined by members of the community in addition to a large group from Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church Of Christ) in Aston, PA. We worked up and down Old York Road, weeding and picking up trash from along the store fronts and sidewalks. Thanks to our volunteers, the downtown area was clean and ready for Jenkintown’s Festival of the Arts! Not to mention, our efforts helped contribute to cleaner waterways downstream. Despite the last-minute change of location, we had a tremendous turnout and made a big impact in the borough of Jenkintown.

This event was part of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. A special thank you to Fill A Bagel for providing our hungry volunteers with delicious bagels!

Check out more pictures from the event in this Flickr set!

Great Cleanup at the Tacony Creek Park!

Ashley — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:14:57 +0000

This past Friday, TTF hosted a service learning opportunity for students from the ACE Mentor Program. We were also joined by community residents, employees and co-ops from the Philadelphia Water Department and a Park Ranger from the Philadelphia Department of Parks & Recreation. In just three hours, we managed to collect 20 bags full of trash and 15 bags of recycling! We found everything from a hand grenade to lost shoes and computer keyboards. Unfortunately, we also found a few yellow jackets, but everyone was still in good spirits at the end of the event.

TTF will be working throughout the month of August to set-up regularly scheduled cleanups along the Tacony Creek so stay tuned for more opportunities to lend a helping hand! Check our Events page for details soon!

Check out more photos here!

Juniata Golf Club Stream Cleanup a Big Hit!

Ashley — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:58:24 +0000

Our stream cleanup event at the Juniata Golf Club was a huge success! We were joined by the Philadelphia Water Department’s Office of Watersheds and their Waterways Restoration Team, volunteers from the Kintock Group, a representative from State Senator Christine Tartaglione’s office, a member of Men in Motion in the Community (MIMIC) and community volunteers. Philadelphia Parks & Rec provided supplies and the Juniata Golf Club was a huge help hauling trash and providing lunch and FREE golf passes to all of our volunteers. Thank you all so much for you support and hard work!

Volunteers with all of the recycling, trash and debris we pulled from the creek! See more pictures here.

This event was part of a larger effort between TTF, the Philadelphia Water Department and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation to restore the health and vitality of our stream corridors by educating the public about how to keep our streams healthy, improving the physical characteristics of our streams and providing easy access to streamside trails and recreations spots.

We hope you will keep checking back for here more stream events!

Don’t Let Spring Cleaning Stop at Your Indoor Spaces!

Abby — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:41:09 +0000

This past weekend, Lesley and I joined with Reverend Williams and a group of 30-40 volunteers to participate in Mayor Nutter’s Philly Spring Clean-Up 2011. In bright orange vests, we split into smaller groups and raked, swept, and picked up trash and recyclable items along Belfield Avenue, Washington Lane, and Duval Street (at least; there may have been one or two more sites). The garbage pick-up came before we could do a total count, but I would guess there were at least 30 if not 40 bags; at least one per volunteer. We also found a couple tires, a plastic drawer, and I can say that I found five bags worth of recyclables on Duval Street and disposed of them at Arcadia with the help of Mike Saloma and the Grounds Guys (should be a band, ha ha). It was a gorgeous day to beautify the streets. To learn more about this project, check out this video:

To get involved in upcoming activities like this, go to www.ttfwatershed.org/events. Thanks and happy spring cleaning!

Huge Cleanup by the Tacony Creek Park!

Ashley — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:38:24 +0000

Thanks to all of our volunteers who came and helped out with the Philly Spring Cleanup at the Tacony Creek Park! We had huge success in cleaning up an area that suffers from lots of littering and short dumping.

We cleaned up:

56 tires
68 bags of trash and debris
1 shelving unit
3 car cushions
1 child’s tricycle
1 huge roll of carpet padding
2 passports, a stack of credit cards and 1 social security card
5 window shutters
A stack of plywood
2 buckets

….. Phew!

It was a lot of hard work, but we had a really great team with students from Maritime High School, neighborhood volunteers, and a Parks and Recreation employee all helping out!

Great job keeping up the sweep up! See you out there again soon!

See more photos from the cleanup here.

International Coastal Clean-Up at Wall Park

Katie — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:00:03 +0000

We would like to thank the awesome volunteers who came out last Saturday to help us clean the banks of the Tookany Creek in Wall Park as part of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Day. In just a few hours, our small team managed to remove all of the following items:

56 plastic beverage bottles
55 plastic bags
35 cigarettes
34 beverage cans
16 caps/lids
15 glass beverage bottles
12 pieces of tobacco packaging/wrappers
9 straws/stirrers
8 pieces of building materials
6 cups/plates/forks/knives/spoons
4 pieces of clothing/shoes
4 pull tabs
2 six-pack holders
2 paper bags
2 balloons
2 car parts
2 cigar tips

We also found a bunch of miscellaneous items, including a hair piece, several scratch-off tickets, birthday candles, ribbons, and bits of pottery.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to help us keep the creek clean! See more photos from the day in this Flickr set.

Plastics Recycling in Philadelphia

Katie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:55 +0000

Here at TTF, we talk a lot about how recycling can help to protect our waterways. Our Ethical Electronics Recycling Events help keep dangerous chemicals from electronics from leaching into our creeks and rivers. But what about plastics? From all of our work doing stream cleanups, we’ve found that a huge percentage of the trash we pick up is plastic — usually in the form of food or beverage packaging materials and plastic bags. (The City of Philadelphia currently recycles plastics #1 and #2, but not #3-#7. Montgomery County has different regulations.)

This month’s Grid magazine has an article on where Philadelphia residents can recycle plastics #3-7:

Because No. 5 is the next most common plastic (after 1 and 2), Weaver’s Way Co-op (weaversway.coop) collects it—including Brita filters—as part of the “Gimme 5” campaign. Plastics must be clean, dry and clearly stamped with the number 5. Collections take place on the third Saturday of each month at the Co-op’s garage (524 Carpenter Lane), and all the plastics are then shipped to the Gimme 5 processing facility in New York State. The South Street Whole Foods (929 South Street) also collects No. 5 plastics.

The other numbers are trickier. The foam variety of No. 6–Polystyrene and the dreaded No. 7–Other categories are notoriously difficult to recycle. But Recycling Services, Inc. (365 Elm Street, Pottstown, 610-323-8545) takes all comers (numbers 1 through 7), and the facility is open for public collection on Tuesdays and Saturdays (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.). They charge an $8/car gate fee, so consider loading up with your neighbors’ No. 3 through 7s, too, before you head out there.

If you drink a lot of bottled beverages, you can recycle the caps at the Big Green Earth Store (934 South Street) and at Aveda stores throughout the Philadelphia region (the Shops at Liberty Place, Cherry Hill Mall, Willow Grove Park and Exton Square).

And, in addition to recycling plastic, we can just try to use it less — especially when it comes to unnecessary purchases like bottled water!

Thanks to our Awesome Volunteers!

Katie — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:49:02 +0000

Many thanks to all the wonderful, dedicated volunteers who came out to help clean up the creek behind Cedarbrook Middle School this weekend!

More pictures will be posted soon on our Facebook page.

For more clean-ups, events, and volunteer opportunities, please visit our Events page.

Model Neighborhood Clean-up A Huge Success!

Katie — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:47:31 +0000

TTF would like to give a huge THANK YOU to the amazing, motivated Model Neighborhood residents who turned out on Saturday morning for a great day of street cleaning, porch painting, and illegal dumping prevention.

We’d also like to thank the City of Philadelphia for donating supplies, Wawa and Fresh Grocer for donating food, Reverend Williams and the Chew and Belfield Neighborhood Club for their support and the Philadelphia Water Department’s Waterways Restoration Team for their time, manpower, machines and general awesomeness. With their help, we were able to remove tons of trash from the lot at the corner of Clearview and Tulpehocken Streets. In addition, Clearview Street residents came out to beautify their street by painting their porches and railings, cleaning the street and removing graffiti.

Here are some fun photos from the day:

Reverend Williams, Katie and Sarah pose with the Waterways Restoration Team

Ashley leads a group of our youngest volunteers

To see more photos, check out our Facebook page!

Our next event for Clearview Street residents is coming up on May 1st. For more information, see our Events page.