Freshkills Park Blog

This summer marks the one-year anniversary since the restoration of salt marsh wetlands along Main Creek in North Park. During the spring of 2013, a crew that specializes in ecological restoration completed construction in an area formerly dominated by Phragmites into a successional wetland.

From boxed rice to a can of soup, our food comes in packaging that is designed to be disposed of; even produce at some stores is offered in pre-packaged, cling-filmed trays. While it is encouraged that we recycle as much of these disposable packaging materials as possible (including the plastic wrap!),

Nestled amongst the sand hills of North Carolina’s Piedmont region, the Pinehurst Resort’s Golf Course has done much to reduce its impact on local water infrastructure. Prior to the restoration, there were 2,100 sprinklers onsite and after the process is completed only 1,400 will remain – a reduction of more than 30% that will lead to a decline of the golf course’s consumptive water use by nearly 40 million gallons per year.

Susan Mills, an artist who works entirely in artist’s book form in her NYC studio, is working with Freshkills Park on a project to be presented at this year’s Sneak ‘Peak’, on September 28 called UnCommon Pages. On July 19, Susan will lead a group to harvest plants including phragmites, the invasive species on our site (also known as the common reed) to make paper for a bookmaking workshop at our fall festival.

Three years ago, Professor Mark Hauber from Hunter College hung bird boxes in select locations at Freshkills Park and he has since been monitoring them on an annual basis. He is tracking the growth in the bird population as an indicator of the rejuvenation of the park.

For the sixth grade students at Marsh Avenue Expeditionary Learning School (MAELS), their visit to Freshkills Park was not an ordinary field trip. Like any group of students on a Freshkills Park walking tour, they played the role of park planners as they designed structures to keep stray soccer balls out of the landfill gas well heads, worked together to decipher the correct order for a series of maps about the park’s history, and participated in stakeholder role-playing exercise where they debated priorities for the future park.

A flash of yellow flutters among the upper branches as the students below point out the never-still yellow warbler to one another. Spring migration is here. During this precious time, a winged kaleidoscope of colors and patterns drop down from the sky.

What is your first memory of a school field trip? A recent study on students in grades K-12 found that a short one-hour field trip to an art museum improved their critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and interest in art museums.

On January 16, 2014, Freshkills Park Alliance signed a twin park agreement with Ariel Sharon Park (built on the former Hiriya landfill) in Tel Aviv. This agreement recognizes the similar challenges and opportunities that the two transformative projects face as urban landfill-to-park conversions.

The NY Times reported that American science is becoming increasingly funded by philanthropic donors, for better or for worse. Supporters of philanthropy cite accomplishments such as medical advances and meeting scientific funding needs in the face of government budget cuts. Others, such as the authors of a Nature editorial, note that philanthropic funding is skewed towards “fashionable” fields such as health, space, and the environment, and is disproportionately allocated to well-known universities.

The City of San Francisco recently announced that it would ban the sale of bottled water in containers less than 21 oz on city property. San Francisco will be the first major city in the US to enact such a ban, though Concord, Massachusetts and Grand Canyon National Park have already replaced bottled water with water bottle filling stations.

The silver lining to the recent unrelenting cold snap is that many types of invasive insects can’t survive the frigid conditions. These invasive insects include the emerald ash bore, known for killing millions of trees in the last decade, and the gypsy moth, which eats the leaves of trees, such as those used to grow agricultural crops.

In a bold piece of legislation, New York City will reduce its waste by one third by requiring that, by 2015, restaurants, grocery stores, and other commercial food generators send all of their organic waste, including food scraps, to either a compost facility or an anaerobic digester.

A bill was recently passed to ban Polystyrene Foam (also known as Styrofoam) in New York City’s food service, joining cities like Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Seattle; and Amherst, Massachusetts. Most recycling programs, including New York City’s, do not accept Foam Plastics for recycling because the material necessitates separate processing and must be kept exceptionally clean.

A recent study at the University of Exeter Medical School found that happiness may actually be influenced by the amount of greenspace in one’s community. This study focused on changes in happiness in the two years prior to moving to a community with more greenspace, as well as the three years following that move.

The number of people who choose to live in cities is on the rise, with 80% of the US population living in urban areas as of the 2010 census. While living in cities like New York reduces our individual environmental impact, it also causes the displacement of wildlife.

It might be easy to imagine designating a bottle or a newspaper for recycling or reuse – but food? That is the purview of former Mayor Bloomberg’s Food Waste Challenge. Over 100 New York City restaurants have made a commitment to divert at least 50% of their food waste.

The snowy owl, a bird made increasingly famous by its role as Hedwig in the Harry Potter movies, was spotted at Freshkills Park last week. As its name suggests, the bird can be recognized by its snowy white color, though they have varied amounts of black and brown markings on their wings and chest.

Imagine warming your hands at a campfire that is also lighting up a Christmas tree in DUMBO.

What’s going on here?

Have you ever felt a regular light bulb after it has been on for a while? It’s hot because a side effect of using electricity is that some of the energy is wasted as heat.