Greening Suggestions
If Bloomberg is serious about pushing the greening of NYC I’ve got a few more suggestions for him, starting on a much smaller scale.
1) Fine businesses with their doors open and the A/C blasting. Seriously, maybe this is supposed to entice me to come in and shop in a cooler environment but in reality it just pisses me off. It’s so wasteful and arrogant to throw your doors open like that in the middle of an energy crisis and with a more conservationist public walking by.
2) Ban telephone books. Three different companies plop huge stacks of telephone books in my lobby every year, and the entire stack goes into the recycling a few days later. How long has it been since you used a telephone book?
3) Regulate packaging. My average take out lunch includes 2 paper bags, (one to wrap my drink, and one to contain everything), a plastic food container, 20 napkins, a packaged fork/napkin/salt combo, 1 piece of tinfoil, 2 pieces of waxed paper, a cardboard stiffener at the bottom of the paper bag, and a plastic bag AROUND the paper bag. Even trying to argue with the counter girl who is packing it all up doesn’t seem to lessen it. All I really need is the food container.
4) Ban menuing. I get 8 to 10 takeout menus, usually multiples of the same one, under my door every week. How much of that is necessary? I’d say none.
There you have it, my humble suggestions for greening NYC, what are yours?
Right on! I make a point of going into businesses with their doors open and A/C blasting and let them know they need to shut the door.
I also don’t take plastic bags and when I don’t take them I say, “No thanks, I’m trying to save the environment.” You would be amazed at how many people behind you in the line either smile or shake their heads like, “Oh, I never thought about that.”
This is a huge issue. I also think that NYC could make bundles of money if they started fining businesses who don’t clean up litter outside their shops. They did it on Broadway and beleive me, every shopowner now owns a broom and uses it. It’s a win-win — the City gets money and we keep it clean.
Thanks for the post! I would send it to Bloomberg’s office if I was you.
In Koreatown the other day I went to a restaurant that had a sticker on its papertowel dispenser that said “REMEMBER: These come from trees! Having this sticker on here saves X number of trees a year!”
I am a hot weather wuss, so I like the a/c on the street.
As far as the plastic forks/bags I just say I don’t need one.
Honestly I am just anti-the cars. This is the one city where you could pass such brazen anti-car laws, so I support those. But if we want a cleaner environment, why not start with some actual sidewalk cleaning, esp. in winter when there’s snow. And for the love of Bob, some noise pollution requirements. It’s all well and good that you can’t honk in rich neighborhoods, but how about everywhere that’s residential? And outlawing car alarms would be wonderful!
I aboslutely love New York and your suggestions would only make it better.
As for AC, I’m glad it exists. I can get pretty hot and muggy in the summer but if everyone kept their AC at 72 degrees and kept their doors closed we would all survive and those of us with not much natural insulation wouldn’t have take a sweater along for indoor activity.
I do think ditching bottled water is a good idea. I drink tap water in the city and have never had a problem with it.
My observation is that many shop owners in Manhattan keep their sidewalks very clean. Congratulations and appreciation to them. For those who do not, hey get with it!
Bottled water has a HUGE environmental impact, besides all the plastic that clutters up the world for thousands of years there is the impact of shipping, bottling etc. For instance Fiji brand water has to ship all those bottles to Fiji since they have no manufacturer on site there, then ship them back to the US full of water. They also had to build a private diesel powered generating station so that their bottler could run 24 hours a day because the power infrastructure on Fiji couldn’t support that. There’s also very little to say that the bottled water is any better than plain ol’ tap.