Long Beach Township—Blazes a Sustainability Trail:
Lifts the lid on new Hydration Station Units and Rockets into food waste
composting
By- Angela Andersen, LBT Recycling Coordinator
Science Co-Chair Long Beach Island Foundation of
the Arts and Sciences
Long Beach Township has emerged as a trailblazer in the world of sustainability and has
pioneered some of the latest technological advances and progressive community concept
projects in an effort to bring choices to residents and visitors to make a positive impact on
the planet, one drink at a time and one meal at a time.
Getting Tapped in:
LBT installed three municipal Hydration Stations. These community tankless drinking
water units are sponsored by an anonymous donor through local organization, Alliance
for a Living Ocean.
The maiden unit is located at the 68th street beach entrance behind town hall in Brant
Beach and was unveiled in July
2011 with the help of the LBT Lifeguard in Training students.
Plastic marine pollution is a global issue. Promoting the use of reusable water bottles will
help diminish that problem.”
LBT, like many of their neighboring coastal towns try to keep plastics off the beaches
with the increased number of trash and recycling collection bins. But that is for what is
generated that day at that location. So much of what washes up comes from farther away
through tides and currents.
The model for the Hydration Station project came from the Long Beach Island
Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, located in the Loveladies neighborhood of LBT, in
2010. It was the media coverage for that project that prompted the anonymous donor to
come forward. ALO, ReClam the Bay, LBIF and Regenerate, an eco-store in Beach
Haven were the original sponsors of the LBIF hydrations stations.
ALO and LBT partnered to utilize the donation deciding on the municipal project as the
best way to implement the project.
The Township installed the next two locations at Bayview Park in Brant Beach and at the
end of Bay Avenue in Holgate in the parking lot of the Edwin B. Forsythe Refuge Park.
ALO and LBT are now planning on presenting this environmental solution to build
hydration stations to the rest of the municipalities on Long Beach Island. Some local
businesses are also expected follow suit.
“Put water in your bottle, not your bottle in the water is the mantra the partners in this
project have produced,” said Andersen.
The hydration stations allow all beachgoers, walkers and bikers of the island to fill their
reusable water bottles with cold, filtered, re-mineralized municipal water. The purpose of
these stations is to help promote the use of reusable water bottles and reduce the need for
plastics.
The units are purchased by ALO and provided free of charge to the municipalities.
Statistics: filling one reusable bottle keeps 167 single use plastic bottles from entering
the environment
270,000 tons of plastic are used to manufacture single use water bottles annuallyPicture your plastic water bottle filled ¼ with oil—that is how much oil is used to create
the bottle
Buying bottled water costs you more than 1000 x as much as using tap—which we
already pay for
8 out of 10 bottles wind up in the land fill or ocean
To show commitment to the cause, LBT has installed 7 tankless water coolers in the
municipal complex and police station, eliminating the need for water delivery.
Rocket into food waste reduction
Long Beach Island Consolidated School District RECEIVES BOOST TO AID
Coastal Community Composting
State Farm® Youth Advisory Board grants $28,500
August 25, 2011 – The State Farm Youth Advisory Board announced in August that the
Long Beach Island Consolidated School District was awarded a $28,500 service-learning
grant for Coastal Community Composting, an Environmental Responsibility servicelearning project.
Long Beach Island Consolidated School District is one of 64 community organizations to
receive a youth-led service-learning grant across the United States and Canada.
The grant money was used to purchase a Rocket compost unit for the school cafeteria. All
K-6 students at the LBICSD will become responsible for collecting and recycling food
waste from the school's breakfast and lunch program. Food waste will be composted and
returned to the school's vegetable, landscape, and rain gardens to nourish new and
existing plantings. Our children will become aware of organic wastes as potential
resources, rather than something to be thrown away and forgotten. They will learn
through direct experience that they can personally make a difference and have a positive
effect on the environment and the community.
The grant was jointly written by Technology staff at the school and the Long Beach
Township Recycling Coordinator. By addressing the solid waste issue, composting
provides a way of instilling in our children a sense of environmental stewardship. Our
educational programs already focus on reducing, reusing, and recycling our solid wastes.
Composting fits in with this idea but takes it a step beyond. With composting, children
can do more than recycling cans, plastic bottles and newspapers, they can see the entire
cycle, from their own food scraps to something that is pleasant to handle and good for
growing their own vegetables.
Additionally, through this project, we have the ability to reach parents and other
community members to foster and improve environmental awareness and create a cleaner
habitat. At this time there is no food waste collection or composting at the town or county
level. It is our hope that our project will translate into a change at those levels, thus
changing the climate of waste.
Our 'Coastal Community Composting' (CCC) will be enhancing awareness of socioeconomic issues by highlighting the importance of composting, growing produce and
volunteer efforts.
“We are excited and very thankful for this grant that will enable us to acquire a Rocket
Composter though NATH Sustainable Solutions to recycle our food waste. The students
in the school district and the community at large will benefit greatly from the purchase.”
said Carol Laird, teacher at the Long Beach Island Consolidated School District.
The State Farm Youth Advisory Board has granted over $20.7 million in grant money
since its inception in 2006, empowering youth to implement service-learning in 331
communities.
About the Youth Advisory Board: The State Farm Youth Advisory Board is a diverse
group of 30 youth, ages 17-20, who were chosen through a competitive process to lead
and oversee this $5 million/year signature service-learning initiative. The Youth
Advisory Board identified the issues, issued competitive grants and will now provide
technical assistance, communication and oversight to grantees.
The Rocket unit is scheduled for launch in the Spring of 2012
Statistics:
Recognized as one of the first of its kind in the nation, LBICSD follows the lead of other
sustainable communities in New Jersey. The Chatham Township Food Waste Composting
Program has been operational since 2011 and acts as a mentor for the LBI project.
The recipe which LBI is modeling from Chatham is set apart from other composting
programs because of its three key ingredients: 1. Incorporating composting concepts into
curriculum 2. Reducing school waste reduction 3. Integrating the food waste composting
efforts of the residents, community organizations and providing the community with
compost
Tidy Planet's Rocket® Composter.
What is Composting? Composting is nature's way of recycling!
It is a process of recycling decomposed organic materials into a rich soil known as
compost. Anything that was once living will decompose. Basically, backyard composting
is an acceleration of the same process nature uses. If you have a balance of fallen leaves
or straw (we call “browns”) and kitchen food scraps and grass clippings (we call
“greens”), then you have all you need to make compost. Finished compost looks like
soil–dark brown, crumbly and smells like a forest floor.
Statistics:
Compost in the earth holds moisture
Composting reduces carbon footprint: e.g., less garbage, so less to landfills = less
methane emissions from landfills (also, eventually, fewer garbage trucks / pick up = less
CO2 emitted, less pollution)
Composting reduced expenses: e.g., less garbage = reduced garbage fees (cost of solid
waste removal in Ocean County 71.21 per ton for household waste)
-Can earn municipalities “Action Points” under the “Sustainable Jersey Program”
(www.sustainablejersey.org), which Long Beach Township is a registered community.