TTF Watershed » Trash

LOVE Your Park Tacony Creek Park Clean-Up A Success!

Abby — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:51:23 +0000

This past Saturday morning, Tacony Creek Park got some much needed LOVE from dozens of volunteers of all ages. Tacony Creek Park is this year’s signature park for LOVE Your Park Week, which made both TTF and the creek very happy! The volunteers, led by staff from Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, the Fairmount Park Conservancy, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, helped cultivate and mulch tree pits, pick up trash, mulch the path, and cut back invasive species at the park entrance at 5100 Tabor Ave.

Volunteers planted flowers around the sign to brighten things up a bit

Check out more photos here!

The mature trees in this entrance to the Tacony Creek Park are excellent buffers for stormwater runoff from the street. Before the water can get to the creek, the trees soak up much of the rainwater and filter out many pollutants. TTF helps plant and tend trees with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) because they are an inexpensive and effective stormwater management tool. They do, however, need to be maintained and kept healthy — which is why trees are so much happier when they don’t have to compete with weeds, and when mulch is used to insulate and moisten their roots! To learn more about the benefits of trees, click here.

TTF will continue to work towards making Tacony Creek Park a resource for the community for walking, bicycling, picnicking, nature-watching, and learning. Nearly everyone driving by the park on Saturday looked over and some people honked their horns in support. Maybe next year we’ll have a “HONK if You LOVE Your Park!” sign!

There’s still time to celebrate your Philadelphia parks! Click here to learn more and join TTF for a rain garden workshop with PHS and a garden party in Vernon Park!

To volunteer for events, please contact 215-844-8100 or email Ashley Schmid at ashley@ttfwatershed.org.

To get involved in tree planting or tending in Philadelphia, please contact 215-844-8100 or email Abby Grosslein abby@ttfwatershed.org.

Working to Clean our Watershed on the MLK Day of Service

Katie — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:36:27 +0000

This Martin Luther King Day, hundreds of volunteers rallied together to beautify the streets of Germantown around the Awbury Arboretum. The event was organized by Rev. Chester Williams of the Chew and Belfield Neighbors Club. The group of over 160 volunteers included members of Enon Tabernacle, TTF, Earth Force, and Awbury Arboretum. After meeting up, enthusiastic groups of volunteers dispersed over the surrounding neighborhood, picking up bags of trash and sweeping sidewalks along Chew Avenue, Washington Lane, Stenton Avenue, Haines Street, and Clearview Street. One group focused on Clearview Community Park at the intersection of Washington Lane and Clearview Street.

TTF’s Steph Clymer poses for a picture with some of the volunteers. Photo courtesy of Enon Tabernacle Photography Ministry.

Meanwhile, other members of the TTF team worked with volunteers from Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Friends of Vernon Park and Villanova University to clean and green Vernon Park: raking leaves, picking up trash, building protective fences around young trees, and cleaning debris out of storm drains.

Volunteers build a fence around a young tree in Vernon Park.

TTF also worked with Mount Moriah Baptist Church, Habitat for Humanity and local residents to clean up trash and debris in Southeast Germantown. We removed over two dozen bags of trash and recycling and talked with local community members about the importance of clean streets and how they relate to our water quality.

Volunteers pose for a picture at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church.

Learn more about the day of service here. Thanks to all of the great volunteers who came out to help clean up our watershed!

Car Bumpers, Muddy Bikes, and Traffic Barricades—Oh My!

Steph — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:43:55 +0000

We had a great group of volunteers from the Hackley School (Tarrytown, New York) come join us for a clean-up at Tacony Creek Park on Thursday, October 13th. With the expert guidance of Tacony Creek Park expert, Jackie Olson from Parks & Recreation, students and teachers pulled out invasive vines, picked up trash, cleared pedestrian bridges of debris, and raked leaves off of paths. Some noteworthy items of trash included two car fenders, two muddy bikes, pieces of a traffic barricade, a trash can, and a whole watermelon! The park looks much cleaner now, thanks to these volunteers!

AmeriCorps VISTAs Dan Brown from Earth Force and Steph Clymer from the TTF Watershed Partnership

To see more pictures of this event, check out our Facebook and Flickr pages. You can also read more about our work in the Tacony Creek Park here and 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!

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!

TTF Adopted Electronic Waste Code of Ethics at Recycling Drive

Katie — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:52:35 +0000

With the incredible swimmer/activist Christopher Swain and a fantastic crew of committed volunteers, TTF collected 8,337 pounds of electronic waste at Cedarbrook Middle School last weekend in spite of fierce winds and freezing temperatures. It will be processed in accordance with the highest and most comprehensive set of standards in the world.

In addition, TTF became the first organization in the world to sign the Electronic Waste Code Of EthicsTM, a global set of standards developed by Christopher Swain. The Electronic Waste (e-waste) Code Of Ethics includes a mandate to educate youth about the global problem of Electronic Waste as well as a pledge to prevent e-waste from being dumped or deposited into solid waste landfills or incinerators. It also requires signatories to ensure that their electronics are not dumped in developing countries, or processed by child and/or prison labor.

Over the last several years, in partnership with Cedarbrook Middle School and Christopher Swain, TTF has hosted Ethical Electronics Recycling EventsTM that have diverted nearly 50,000 pounds of electronic waste from landfills, incinerators, and dumps in the developing world. For more information please contact: Sarah RobbGrieco at sarah@ttfwatershed.org or 215.208.1613. For more information on the Electronic Waste Code of EthicsTM, please visit: www.toxtour.org.

Below are a few pictures from the event. You can view more in this Facebook photo album and this Flickr set.

30 Days to Cleaner Streets — Final Results

Katie — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:27:44 +0000

November is over and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the results from our 30 Days to Cleaner Streets campaign! In fact, we had so much fun leading this campaign that we are going to keep it going all year round. From now on, you can participate by clicking on the “Cleaner Streets Campaign” tab on our website under “Programs.”

What did we pick up off the streets (and keep out of our waterways) this month? Participants found:

Athletic tape, bank deposit envelopes, beer/soda cans, bubble wrap, candy, a CD, chip bags, cigarette packaging, coffee cups, a dust mask, flyers, food wrappers, glass bottles, headphones, a license plate frame, napkins, newspapers, packing material, paper towels, papers, a pizza box, a planter, plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic utensils, postcards, takeout containers, tissue paper, and wood.

Participants covered a wide area including areas outside of our watershed. We picked up trash in Northwest Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia, East Falls, Center City, West Philadelphia, Cheltenham and Plymouth Meeting. Check out all the places we found trash Trash Map!

Go to the 30 Days to Cleaner Streets Trash Map!

By a huge margin, plastic bottles were the most common items found. William Shatner’s “The Transformational Man” CD remains the most unique item found.

Thank you again to all who participated! Don’t forget, you can keep adding to our trash map here. And stay tuned — we’ll be running another 30 Days contest in the future!

30 Days to Cleaner Streets Update — Week 3

Katie — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:31:27 +0000

We’re 22 days into November and our 30 Days to Cleaner Streets campaign is moving along fabulously! This week, we had our most bizarre piece of litter for the whole month. Albert found William Shatner’s “The Transformational Man” CD on 2nd and Girard. While I certainly understand why someone might not want to keep that, next time I hope he or she will decide to recycle it ethically instead.

Also, this week we had our first piece of trash that was reclaimed instead of trashed or recycled. Dave found a plastic license plate holder on Jenkintown and Easton Roads in Glenside. He kept it and is considering using it for a picture frame. What an awesome idea!

With just one week left in our campaign, let’s see if anyone can beat William Shatner when it comes to strange trash! Thanks again to everyone who is helping us keep our streets a little cleaner this month!

30 Days to Cleaner Streets Update — Week 1

Katie — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:35:57 +0000

Well, it’s been a great start to our 30 Days to Cleaner Streets campaign! Check out all of the trash info that’s been added to our Trash Map so far.

Most of the trash we’ve found so far has been packaging waste: plastic water bottles, food wrappers, and plastic bags. Here are a couple of highlights from our first week.

Dave found this plastic bottle right in a Tookany Creek storm drain — with a “No Dumping” medallion on it!

And here’s Ashley depositing Nerds candy into an Arcadia University trash bin.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to help make our streets cleaner. And please join us! Go to www.ttfwatershed.org/30-days to find out more!