Want to make your own rain garden?

Every garden needs rain to thrive.  So what is a “rain garden” exactly?    And what makes it different from a regular garden? 

A rain garden is “a planted depression that allows rainwater runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas the opportunity to be absorbed."

There are a few advantages to having your own rain garden.  First, it will redirect precipitation, so that nearby storm drains don’t overflow when there’s a downpour.  As a result, your local water supply will also be cleaner, because it won’t take in as much runoff. 

Next, a rain garden is easy to maintain.  You don’t have to worry so much about watering your plants.  Instead, the set up of the garden does most of the work for you, collecting precipitation as it falls.    

Finally, it just looks nice!  A rain garden provides a splash of green in an otherwise concrete landscape. 

There are a couple things to consider, though, before making your own rain garden.  First, you can’t just plant anything that you want.  You should choose vegetation that can tolerate very wet soil for periods of time.  It’s also good to use plants native to your area, so that your rain garden blends in with the surrounding landscape. 

For directions on how to make your own rain garden, visit some of these websites:

http://www.socwa.org/nature/PDF/Rain%20Gardens.pdf

http://www.uri.edu/ce/wq/NEMO/Publications/index.htm#RainGarden

http://www.sustainability.uconn.edu/pdf/raingardenbroch.pdf

And don’t forget to check out Ace's Facebook and Flickr pages for pictures of our very own rain garden!

Connecting Memorial Day and Recycling

On Memorial Day, we remember all of those who have served our country and given the ultimate sacrafice. These days we tend to focus on the current conflicts though I naturally think back to Pearl Harbor and the beginnings of World War II. Why?

After the Japanese brought us into that war and we suddenly needed to gear up war time production of everthing from bullets to tanks, the US government issued a call to citizens to collect all sorts of materials necessary for the massive manufacturing effort. This early recycling drive planted the seeds for an industry that has evolved and grown even as wars have come and gone.

So today we would ask that you honor the brave men and women who have died for our freedoms by re-committing yourself and those around you to your recycling efforts at home, school and work.

Recycling turns trash into jobs!

Sounds provacative, right? But I see iterations of this headline on a very regular basis from around the country. The title of the blog today is verbatim from a Star Tribune (Minnesota) article published on June 1st. Check it out for yourself: http://www.startribune.com/business/120993779.html

The reason I bring it up is because here in the state of Virginia recycling is treated as a necessary evil, or at least that's how it feels. Clearly a more regulatory friendly environment and maybe some tax incentives would allow us to grow the industry here, and add real -green- jobs as we go.

But in spite of a persistently high unemployment rate, will it happen? Not anytime soon. Virginia continues to be landfill friendly with little on the horizon to indicate a change in direction.

Hopefully operations like ours will show a new direction that those in a position to create change can use!

The connection between obesity and construction debris!

Occassionally in this space we will talk about issues that are not directly about construction waste, but more generally about sustainability, which sometimes will include good and bad examples we see. Today's blog is such an example.

There is a lot of conversation these days about obesity, and the corporatization of food production. Tied to this issue is how to produce and distribute food sustainably. Needless to say, food can be enormously complicated and it can be difficult to know where to start if you feel compelled to be part of a solution.

I recently came across what I see as one aspect of a solution, which is improving the training of our city youth in healthier diets and food production. When you think about it, these kids are at the biggest disadvantage as a consumer because they are almost completely separated from food production. Food can appear to just show up on the plate ready to eat, which is oddly parallel to trash in the sense that in cities, trash placed curbside just magically disappears. Educate these kids and change behaviors with them and you have a good shot at a better future.

So if you want to be part of the solution, I'd encourage you to check out a program called Foodprints. These folks are already doing great work and want to build a teaching kitchen in a school. If that works, the sky is the limit. You can easily donate a small (or larger) amount of money and see direct and real results. Here is a link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/547484901/build-the-foodprints-kitchen-at-watkins-elementary-0

Where is the construction waste?

I'm sure if you've glanced at a newspaper or network news in the last couple of days, you've heard housing starts are at the lowest level since 1960 and 75% lower than just 5 years ago! Concurrently we are seeing federal, state and local governments trim budgets which is further tightening the construction market.

So what does a recycler of construction debris do?

Since we can't very well go out and generate waste ourselves, we've instead focused on tightening our operations and running extremely efficiently. We believe in the short term this will enable us to offer tremendous value to our customers (single stream construction debris recycling at competitive costs) and in the long term, will make us competitive for when the market revives.

One of the bottom lines of this extended downturn is its a buyers market. If you have a project planned but are not quite sure if now is a good time to start, keep in mind that it is unlikely that it will be quite this affordable for years to come! Ironic.

Recycling might have saved Bin Laden!

Yes, its true. MSNBC reported on its morning Joe program that one of the things that raised suspicions about the Bin Laden compound was the lack of garbage pickup. Everything was burned instead.

This raises an intriguing question: if the Bin Laden compound had contracted for garbage and recycling services, would he have been caught and killed? Could recycling have saved his life?

We here at Ace Recycling are glad Bin Laden is now dead and gone, but please don't make the same mistake he did. Recycle today :)

Richmond Getting on Sustainability Bus!

If you work in the green realm in or around the city of Richmond, you already know the city hired a very capable person as Sustainability Manager in Alicia Zatcoff. Now we hear she is putting together a group to develop a plan called "RVA Green: A Roadmap to Sustainability."

The plan will involve stakeholders in economic development, energy, environment, open space and land use, and transportation. If you haven't heard about this, definitely plan on becoming involved.

The first meeting will be June 9th 2011 at 1pm over at the Carillon at Byrd Park.

http://www.richmondgov.com/sustainabilityplan/RVAGreen.aspx

Hope to see you there!

Ryan goes public!

Earlier this week Ryan Schulze, our trusty and capable facility manager, spoke at the annual meeting of the Virginia Recycling Association. He talked about our plant, and despite technical difficulties with the computer that attempted to show his PowerPoint, the feedback was very positive.

Most of the people that attend this conference are industry professionals, with a few recycling fans sprinkled in. The highlight was a tour of Waterway Recycling, a company that takes in barge loads of construction debris. Seems they focus on concrete, unlike Ace that recycles the full spectrum of debris.

Many of the questions were about markets, as is usually the case. People are always amazed that we recycle so much carpet, for example. Future blogs will address this area for sure.

http://vrarecycles.org.dnnmax.com/Conference/tabid/58/Default.aspx

Nervous? Not us.

Today is the first day of Blogger school for us here at Ace. So while we have some first day jitters, we are excited more than nervous. We see this posting platform as a way to better connect with people interested in recycling and some of the innovative developments in our world.

In the coming days, months and years, staff here at Ace Recycling will be posting essays about issues near and dear to our hearts, or sometimes stuff that's just fun!

In the meantime please check out our Facebook page! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ace-Recycling/206697086037550