SJC BLOG

Light Up the Holidays with Less Waste!

During the holiday season, between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, Americans will generate 25 % more trash than within the same period of any other time of the year. Holiday food waste, shopping bags, bows and ribbons, packaging, and wrapping paper contribute an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (U.S. EPA, 2016). Let’s be grateful, not wasteful this holiday season, shall we?

Stuff the Turkey, Not the Trash Bin

Holiday season panic...we all experience it twofold. First in the store: How much food do I buy? Are you sure that will be enough? Is this turkey big enough? And second time at home: Who is going to eat all of this? Where am I going to put all of these leftovers?! Millions of pounds of leftover food are thrown away every year. But there is a way to plan more accordingly and load off some of the stress with the pointless leftovers.

1.  Have an accurate head count to plan portions accordingly. If you are still not sure how much food you should buy, you can use a tool to help estimate how much food you will need based on your head count, e.g. Save the Food's Guest-imator.

2.  Purchase imperfect produce for cooked dishes, such as bruised apples for apple pie.

3.  Encourage guests to bring a reusable container they can bring leftovers home in or lend them yours.

4.  Enjoy your leftovers days after by creating new dishes like turkey soup or hot turkey sandwiches. If you are out of ides, get inspiration from websites collecting leftover food recipes, e.g. Save the Food or Love Food Hate Waste.

5.  Be realistic about the leftovers you can eat, and freeze the extra that won't last in the refrigerator. You can always defrost it based on demand!

6.  If you have any uncarved pumpkins left from Halloween, you can make a soup or a pie. Don’t know how to make a homemade pumpkin puree? It’s simpler than you may think!

Sustainable Holiday Gift Guide

We all know how difficult it is to get our close ones something they would appreciate. Something they don’t have yet, maybe even something they wouldn’t think of getting for themselves, yet something thast is not destined for a yard sale. Here are few tips on how to do all that without breaking the bank!

1.  Gift an experience! Invite people to do something they have never done before or what they really enjoy. Plan a weekend getaway, hit the slopes, go hiking, cross country skiing or snowshoeing. Enjoy a cooking, art or fitness class, visit a museum, or see a musical or theater production. But how to wrap this under a Christmas tree? Print personalized gift certificate!

2.  Gift a reusable mug, water bottle, plate, silverware, to go container, shopping bag, bulk fruit and vegetable mesh bags, etc. And if that doesn’t seem enough, you can make an ‘on-the-go kit’ filled with various reusable items!

3.  Give back to the community by donating to a non-profit organization in the name of a loved one or donate your time together helping out a local organization.

4.  Create, bake or craft unique gifts. Make edible gifts to share like breads, cookies, fruit & nut mixes, jams, jellies and herbed vinegars or olive oils and decorate a reusable jar instead of gift wrapping. Knit a scarf, crochet a hat or mittens, paint a watercolour, embroider or wood burn a design, carve a spoon or design your own jewellery.

5.  And if you decide to buy a gift that needs wrapping, consider saving money and using materials that you already have at home, such as old paper bags, washed jars from preserves or even cardboard boxes from rolls of parchment paper or foil to create original packaging. If you don’t feel creative or don’t have the time, it may be niftier to use a gift bag or a reusable elastic gift wrap which is not only easier to use than wrapping paper but also can be stored and reused next year!

For even more sustainability tips over the Holidays see EPA website.

Happy holidays full of joy and happiness from our SJC family!

With so much excitement surrounding many elements of Christmas, packaging and the recycling of it can be easily overlooked

With so much excitement surrounding many elements of Christmas, packaging and the recycling of it can be easily overlooked

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Public Meeting Of Shade Tree Committee Mon Nite City Hall

Join Sustainable Jersey City at City Hall 7pm for the Inaugural Gathering of the NEW Shade Tree Committee (STC)! This group is intended to help shape urban forestry policy in Jersey City and along with the City’s new Forester, public participation will bring momentum to their work 👍

Please come out to support this initiative - there will be sub-committee activity and certainly more work than this group can handle given all the issues that persist with our Trees and the deteriorating Tree Canopy in Jersey City. Come take a listen, learn about the challenges, see where you can get involved to make a difference ~

When you arrive at City Hall, ask the Security Desk what room the SHADE TREE COMMITTEE meeting is being held - the public announcement read the “Business Administrator’s Conference Room” but that is a small conferencence room for a public meeting so may have been a misprint.

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Get To Know Our SJC Green Drinks +ART Sponsors – Dec 4th 2019 @ LITM, 6-9pm

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We wanted to write a short post with some reference links about our sponsors, so you get to know more about the terrific work they are doing to make Jersey City greener and more resilient.  Some of their work is close to the ground with building projects they are working on locally and some of their work expands to statewide initiatives and development projects in other countries.

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The Lively, developed by LMC and located at 321 Warren St in Jersey City, is an 18 story, 180-apartment home community inspired by a love of art and design. This boutique apartment community features refined residences, a dynamic 14,500 square foot multi-arts center for a local non-profit organization, and an unbeatable location in the heart of downtown Jersey City's vibrant Powerhouse Arts District. The building earned the National Green Building Standards (NGBS) Silver green certification for the use of sustainable material, systems, and on-going commitment to sustainability. The Lively is also the first project in the State’s history to electively install a permanent storm water retention system beneath the public right-a-away, which will benefit the building and the surrounding community. Furthermore, the Lively will also include the following sustainable features: condensing high efficiency gas boiler servicing the entire building, central high efficiency heating system for all common areas, LED high-efficiency lighting, high-efficiency  appliances, intelligent heating system at exterior pool, recyclable insulation, high-efficiency water closets, faucets, and showers, prefinished exterior materials, and intelligent utilities tunneling. LMC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lennar Corporation, is a multifamily real estate development and operating company with diverse portfolio of institutional quality multifamily rental communities across the U.S. Learn more about LMC at www.LiveLMC.com and the Lively at www.theLivelyapartments.com.

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JMA Jorge Mastropietro Atelier is both an architectural studio and development company with offices in Hoboken and Buenos Aires Argentina. He has completed a number of JC projects with advanced energy efficiency, materials re-use and green infrastructure elements as the main of his structural designs.  JMA considers every project, big or small, as an opportunity to bring momentum and awareness to the Green Building Movement, and as a step further towards a more ecofriendly society.

Their project at 345 Central Avenue in Jersey City skillfully complemented a 1-story historic building with a 3-story sustainable design structure which integrated natural materials, strategic placement of windows and openings to allow cross ventilation and natural light to permeate all levels, bringing the lower supermarket level and the food growing roof, which now services a business operation and the consumers of the site, into a closed loop system.  They took great pains to conserve additional energy at each level of the building system, including incorporating motion sensors along the common spaces which will greatly reduce wasted energy overtime. The project took maximum advantage of several sustainability aspects achieving JMA’s overall performance goal for the project.   More about the JMA philosophy and approach here

345 Central Avenue

345 Central Avenue

We’re very excited about this upcoming event and the opportunity to bring professionals from all walks, neighbors and artists together.  Sustainability is a cultural conversation and for that to take flight, folks need to meet each other and start talking about What Sustains Us?  Join us on Wednesday evening Dec 4th downtown at LITM, 6-9pm, for some relaxed conversation -  let’s get to know one another 😊

@LITMJC  @thelivelyapts  @jorgemastropietroatelier  #LITMJC  #SustainableJC  #SJCGreenDrinks+ART  #Sustainable  #JersecyCity 

JC to Host Historic Climate Action Plan Meeting: You’re Invited

JC to Host Historic Climate Action Plan Meeting: You’re Invited

Submitted By Amanda Novello, SJC Core Team Member

The United States federal government is currently working on formally exiting the United Nations Paris Agreement, the non-binding pledge to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions to slow the onset of climate catastrophe, which will make the U.S. the only industrialized country excluded from the agreement. Thankfully, US cities and states are acting differently, and are acknowledging that all governments, businesses, and individuals have a role to play in dealing with climate change. 

The US Mayors for Climate coalition, representing 82 cities and 39 million Americans, was a pledge for cities to stick with the accord, and to take the steps needed to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change. Jersey City was one of those cities. Residents of the city know first hand just how important this is. Only seven years ago, Hurricane Sandy caused $50 million in damages and lost wages, and the potential for storms of equal or higher intensity is growing all the time.

When Jersey City joined the Mayors for Climate coalition in 2017, Mayor Fulop declared that the city “will continue to invest in green infrastructure, clean energy, expanded open space and innovative ways to reduce our carbon footprint." A year later, in 2018, Mayor Fulop took a more concrete step toward achieving these goals when he signed onto the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. This committed the city to measuring its emissions, setting competitive emissions reduction targets, and creating an action plan for meeting those targets. 

Fortunately, 2016 benchmarking data for the city was available so the JC Office of Sustainability, with assistance from Montclair State and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability USA, was able to produce a report to document Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Jersey City. The report will be used to inform the public, and to provide a baseline for next steps toward creating Jersey City’s Climate Action Plan, which is intended to be finalized next Spring, and which will be the subject of the November 7th public meeting at City Hall.  

The next step for Jersey City is to set targets to reduce emissions, and to create a plan with concrete milestones toward achieving those targets.  For those interested in participating in the next phase of developing Jersey City’s Climate Action Plan, there will be four Working Groups forming that will meet monthly over the next four months and which will address the following topics - Energy, Transportation & Land Use, Waste Streams, and Equity.  There is an application process to participate and you can submit your interest to do so here. 

Points of Discussion for the November 7th Climate Action Plan Meeting

What follows can serve as a primer on the topics in the GHG Inventory Report and some related ideas to reduce emissions which will hopefully be addressed in the November 7th meeting and subsequent working group planning sessions.

The main sources of climate pollution, as identified in the recently published GHG Inventory Report (2016 data) is Commercial Energy from commercial buildings and multi-family high-rises (42% of 2016 city-wide emissions), Transportation including all private and public vehicles (30%), and Residential Energy, or 1 - 4 family housing (16%), and Waste, Landfill and Wastewater (3%)

  • Commercial Energy: Looking around, it’s no surprise that Jersey City’s biggest source of pollution are it’s most dominant feature: commercial buildings. Electricity used to power our commercial buildings produced 500,000 metric tons of CO2 (out of 2.9 million metric tons, total, in the city). In addition to Electricity use, Natural Gas and Fuel Oils were also significant inputs into commercial building energy emissions production. Steps taken to reduce emissions from commercial building energy could include: 

a) Energy Efficiency - provisions to require that buildings use less energy including building retrofits for old buildings, or LEED certification requirements for all new buildings.

b) Renewable Energy - encourage buildings to use electric power that comes from renewable energy sources like solar and wind by requiring buildings to generate a minimum percentage of their own electricity, or a city-wide plan to boost renewable energy generation. (See Stevens Institute JC Sustainability Report for other ideas on how to expand renewable energy, including community solar programs.)

c) Emissions Targets - require each building to meet an emissions reduction target, eg. each building must reduce their CO2 emissions by 50% by 2025, with predetermined enforcement measures in the case that targets are not met.

Similar and complementary actions could be taken to curb emissions in Residential Buildings / 1-4 Family Homes.

  • Transportation: Jersey City was recently listed as one of the worst places to drive in the whole country, based on factors that included per capita traffic and congestion statistics. Fuel-combustion cars are among the least environmentally friendly forms of transportation, and Jersey City has a lot of them. In fact, “gas powered passenger transit” - AKA cars - were the leading source of transit sector emissions here (producing 680,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2016) - nearly 7 times the next highest source, which was diesel freight. 

    Thankfully, the city has benefited from federal and state investment in regional public transit systems like PATH and Light Rail and is a strong advocate for expanding bike share access and has invested in increasing the amount of bike lanes. But there’s a long way to go to reducing transit related CO2 emissions. Here are a few clear areas for improvement:

a) Expand bike lanes: Jersey City has devised a plan to do so, recently passed, and following through with the plan could make biking a much more viable alternative to driving, especially in areas like the Heights and the city’s west side. 

b) Improve public transit options: There’s not much the city can do to add capacity in the PATH system, but there’s a lot to be done in terms of buses: add more buses to make schedules more frequent, adapt new technology to ensure schedules are accurate and trackable, and add new routes.  

c) Reduce emissions from public transit: Invest in electric buses and create a concrete plan to get diesel buses off the road. Infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs).

  • Waste: Cities all over the world are aiming to be “zero-waste” - an aspirational goal that would involve a serious commitment to recycling, composting, and encouraging less trash-producing consumption. The city’s recent plastic bag ban, which started in June, was a first big step, in addition to expansion of composting at community gardens. Again, more can be done, including banning styrofoam, striving for universal commercial composting for all organic waste, expanded educational programming on waste reduction strategies, expanding drop-off centers for food scraps, and providing more recycling bins. Creative incentive and disincentive programs are being explored in other cities that we can potentially learn from and which can be researched during the planning period.

A Note About Green Infrastructure: Any climate action plan must include climate change mitigation (reducing climate change inducing emissions in sectors like commercial buildings and transportation) and also climate change adaptation (improving communities’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change). Green Infrastructure can be a multiplier effect for both mitigation and adaptation strategies. Infrastructure aimed at controlling stormwater runoff in a natural and sustainable way, is key. This could include increasing the acreage of green space and planting more trees and rain gardens, in order to relieve pressure on our combined sewer-stormwater system. Plus these natural systems absorb CO2 and other pollution and offsetting the urban heat island effect to keep us cooler (see the JC OpenTreeMap for more on the positive impacts of trees).

Economically and socially, it doesn’t hurt that each of these developments - retrofitting hundreds of buildings for energy efficiency, increasing renewable energy generation, and building other infrastructure for transportation and resiliency - would create hundreds if not thousands of jobs in Jersey City throughout the Climate Action Plan’s implementation. 

Lastly, I recommend looking at the very accessible Stevens Institute JC Sustainability Report that expands on some of what is written here. It too is a good primer for getting more involved in green civics in Jersey City. And I hope you come out to the public meeting to share your ideas, too, as it’s important for the Climate Action Plan to be created by and for Jersey City residents!

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Climate Action Plan For JC - Public Meeting Thurs Nov 7th, 6:30pm, At City Hall

Climate Action Plan For JC - Public Meeting Thurs Nov 7th, 6:30pm, At City Hall

Submitted by Deb Italiano Board President, Sustainable JC

Dear Friends,

SJC has been waiting a few years for this and we are really pleased that Kate Lawrence, Director of JC’s Office of Sustainability is leading the effort to develop a Climate Action Plan for Jersey City. She has been spearheading a lot of work behind the scenes and now it’s time for the public to come out and support this next step which is specifically designed for public input.

First, check out the new 2016 JC Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report which is well done and very accessible! Don’t be thrown off by the date, 2016 is the benchmark we will be using as we move forward to create goals for the future and measure our progress. You can find the report and catch up with where the City is at on this new Climate Action page on the JC Make It Green website. Will be great if you can join, but even if you can not, please make time to read the report - it’s a quick read and is an important update. The meeting will be held in Council Chambers - light refreshments will be served.

This meeting will focus on current greenhouse gas emissions and recommended actions our community can take to reduce them. Following a presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to provide feedback and offer additional ideas on the City’s climate action planning process. This is the first meeting in the City’s outreach effort which will lead to a codified Climate Action Plan this Spring 2020.

 Please come out to have your questions answered about the report and to offer your input toward the City’s Climate Action Plan.

SJC will also be taking on an action agenda in support of the City’s efforts for this planning process and as part of our organizational priorities for Jersey City - More Green Infrastructure, Reduced Waste Streams and Fewer Emissions. Look forward to working with more of you as we organize new campaign activities in coming months.

Hope to see you on Thurs Nov 7th !

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