Last night we joined forces with United By Blue for a full night of activities. We kicked off the night with a clean up on the Gansevoort shoreline facilitated by our friends at the Hudson River Park.
After only an hour, the team of volunteers collected, counted and categorized over 330 pounds of trash. United By Blue kept things extra fun with prizes for the weirdest piece of trash and the best guess for pounds collected.
From there, we headed to the United By Blue store on Elizabeth Street where cold brews from Sierra Nevada awaited us. After putting on name tags (of course), we settled in to a more traditional Mappy Hour with featured speaker Kara, from United By Blue’s content team. Her topic for the night: waste-free living.
The Five Rules for Living Waste Free
1. Avoid all packaged products. Grocery shopping can be the most difficult task, so think through packaging that may come up and opt for farmers markets. Perhaps even bring your Tupperware with you to the grocery store and ask them to put deli products directly in there (wax paper and the price sticker are waste!)
2. Bring your own everything. Zero waste requires being prepared: a mason jar for composting, cloth napkins, and reusable bags should all be in your arsenal.
3. Turn down future trash. This means saying no to receipts, plastic straws and other forms of quotidian waste.
4. Compost! Recycling is still waste.
5. Be Creative. You’re going to need to find ways to do the things that are really tricky (Kara resorted to making her own pizza because the pizza boxes couldn’t be reused.)
Thanks to everyone who joined. You can check out UBB’s future cleanups here.
