Clue: Planeteers love this big blue buddy

Answer: BUFFALO ReUSE RAIN BARRELS!!!

Give someone a 55 gallon gift this year!  Buy a ready-to-go, pre-assembled Buffalo ReUse Rain Barrel

ONLY $20 on Black Friday.

Maybe you already have a rain barrel at home, or maybe you need one too.  You might know someone with a thirsty garden, or someone who uses rain water as a way to reduce their water and sewer bills.  Rain barrels are a way to conserve water and improve our local environment; they divert water away from building foundations, slow water run-off, reduce the amount of water entering storm drain systems, and reduce the amount of pollution that is carried into our waterways. What a great gift!!!

A Buffalo ReUse Rain Barrel includes:  a 55 gallon food grade barrel, a hose bibb (spigot), a screened drain cover, all fully assembled, and instructions for installing the rain barrel under your downspout.  Once installed, the barrel will hold 55 gallons of high quality rain water, and you can attach a hose and use it for whatever you want.

Save more than 30% on Rain Barrels, only on Black Friday.  No other discounts or offers are good with this deal.  Get ‘em while they last!

Starting next Tuesday, November 16th there will be a series of three public meetings to inform city residents about the new zoning code that the City of Buffalo is going to create over the next couple years.

As stated from the Buffalo Green Code website;

The new Buffalo Green Code will be the first opportunity Buffalonians have had in nearly sixty years to establish a new regulatory framework for the development of our neighborhoods.

Zoning is the tool by which we build our communities.  It determines what gets built and where.  It’s essentially Buffalo’s DNA.  The process to re-imagine the city’s future and write a code that matches the community’s vision will be an exciting opportunity for the people of Buffalo.  As this process gets rolled out, over a period of three years of serious work, encouraged that all citizens in every section of the city participate and take an active role.

If you do not know what zoning is, the question and answer section of the green codes website does a decent job covering the topic.  It definitely is a very important tool in creating and maintaining cities and is going to be a key part to Buffalo’s accrued success moving forward.

We have one of the most friendliest and enthusiastic cities out there and it shows as you walk up and down the streets of Buffalo, no matter what neighborhood you are in.  So please come out and continue the support and give your input on our City’s own future.  If you want something done you have to go out and do it.  Things don’t happen on their own. So come out and have a say next week, there will be three different meetings that are held to provide Buffalonian’s an opportunity to have a say in our promising future we all have known this City is capable of.

Tuesday, November 16th, 7pm.   Central Public Meeting

Buffalo Musuem of Science. 1020 Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo, NY,  14211

Wednesday, November 17th, 7pm.  North Region Public Meeting

Bennett High School. 2885 Main Street, Buffalo Ny 14214

Thursday, November 18th, 7pm.   South Region Public Meeting

Tosh Collins Community Center. 35 Cazenovia St. Buffalo NY 14210

Keep up with the Buffalo Green Code’s development by becoming a fan of their facebook page and signing up for the website’s newsletter. Issue #1 is already out. Follow this link to read more.

Fall is here — leaves are flying and clear plastic bags full of them are piling up at the curbs.  Some of those leaves have made their way to our compost piles, thanks to some happy volunteers raking in our neighborhood, and one of our crew members, Brandon, who filled his van full of bags and brought them for us to (re)use.  Leaves are great fuel for the compost pile — they’re an excellent source of carbon (see below) to feed your compost pile, bin, or bucket.  Having a compost pile reduces the amount of garbage you generate, and using the fallen leaves you rake helps take a bit of the burden off the street sweepers and garbage collectors, providing you with some “black gold” for your garden and good Karma for reusing your waste.  Putting compost in your garden soil improves its structure and its ability to hold water, and also provides essential nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms to the soil and the plants you grow in it.  Still not convinced that you should start your own compost pile? Wait until you see how easy it is…

Here is the new compost bin we setup at our garden to help us reuse our garden waste and the leaves we have been raking up.  The container that you use for a compost setup can be just about anything, or nothing — 5 gallon buckets, straw bales, an old garbage bin with holes drilled in the sides (for air circulation), a circular frame of “chicken wire” (welded wire), or a simple, large, static pile right on the ground.  In the picture, we used a forklift pallet and some reclaimed 2×4′s and slats to build a frame, and closed up the front with a bit of welded wire mesh.  Every container may have a slightly different process to how you compost in it, but you’ll figure it out as you go.  Compost is a great learning experience because of just that — there isn’t an absolutely “right” way to do it, but you learn ways to do it better as you go.

When choosing or building a container, important things to keep in mind are the amount of space you have to work in, the amount of materials you have to work with, air circulation, and where the container will go.  If you have, for example, a small upper apartment, you might be better off going with an indoor worm bin or a Bokashi composter. Also, the 3-bucket compost system utilizes three small containers (like 5 gallon buckets) to quickly decompose small amounts of waste at a time in a small space — and it’s especially helpful in winter.

Compost is the product of nature’s decomposition process.  You can make it scientific or simple.  Bacteria, mold, and fungi break down waste with a little help from their friends — the worms.  As they break down the materials, it consumes oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, creating heat and releasing water.  Having a good balance of oxygen, moisture, carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials creates an ideal atmosphere for the beneficial bacteria and other decomposers hard at work making your compost.  Learning how to get that balance is part of the experience.  It’s not completely necessary (anything will break down over time), but it helps reduce odors, speeds up the process and makes a better product.

When you begin your pile, and while you build it, try to balance the kinds of ingredients you put into it by adding a layer of one when you add the other.  If you put a layer of kitchen scraps in your bin (primarily “greens”), put a layer of leaves or shredded paper or wood chips (“browns”) to even it out.  You can get very technical, but you don’t have to — it’s your compost pile.  Compost 101 has a good article to reference for carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials.  They have a very rigid, technical approach to balancing the carbon to nitrogen ratio (25:1 C:N) — which is a bit over-complicated for the beginner — but is helpful to think about.  They also have some great tips to consider as well.

There are two types of ingredients for your compost: browns and greens (or carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich).  Browns include: paper, ashes, cardboard, cornstalks, leaves, and wood chips.  Greens include: grass clippings, garden waste, coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and weeds.  See the link above or google for a more complete list. AVOID Adding: meat scraps or bones, sawdust from treated woods, grease or fatty foods, domesticated animal feces, clippings from chemically treated lawns, etc.  Think about what you add to your pile before you add it.

Aeration and moisture are the only other elements that you may have to provide, depending on how you establish your compost system and how you maintain it.  If you purchase a bin composter, or build one from a old garbage can, you may need to turn it every now and then to give it some air.  If you build a large static pile, you may only turn it over once or twice.  If you add too much nitrogen-rich materials, you might end up with a wet, stinky mess — and too much carbon leaves your pile dry and cold.  My suggestion is to keep it simple: start small and add a little bit of brown every time you add a little green, and experiment with different kinds of compost techniques to learn how the materials work.  As your experience grows, so will your pile (and vise versa).

From the Lexington Co-op’s Annual Report:

SUSTAINABILITY

We Compost! Buffalo ReUse helped the Co-op compost 18,000 lbs of food scraps in 2010, 9% of total trash.

From the Kenmore Village Improvement Society:

The Kenmore Village Improvement Society (KVIS) and the residents of the Village of Kenmore and the surrounding area wish to thank you for helping us recycle this year. Having the ReUse truck come to Kenmore for collections once a month from May – October, not only helped us keep many items from going to the Niagara Falls landfill, it also gave us a chance to become more aware of how. much we throw away that can be given away. Thank you for helping us become a more enlightened and greener community.

We publicized the pick-ups quite a bit and received over one hundred calls about ReUse. We would refer folks to your online pdf of what items you accept, and would provide your phone number to those without internet access. We hope that you think the collections were worth while and we’d like to invite you back for Kenmore collections in 2011. We believe that the amount of items collected will grow next year as more and more people learn of the initiative.

We’re very grateful to Kenmore for suggesting this pickup series and we got a lot of good material from Kenmore residents. Thanks,Kenmore!

ReUse is participating in World on Your Plate this year!  Brad and I will be teaching a workshop on Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening Method on Saturday 4pm, but there are lots of other great workshops and speakers too!

Message from Jordana Geist:

The 7^th Annual World on Your Plate Food ForumFriday, October 8, 6 to 10 p.m.
Saturday, October 9, 9 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Daemen College,
Charles J. Wick Campus Center,
4380 Main Street,
Amherst, NY 14226.

Friday night includes:

• Vegan dinner reception and the screening of the documentary Living Downstream, a trailblazing and inspiring scientific exposé, based on the book by Dr. Sandra Steingraber

Saturday’s program includes:

• Morning keynote address from bestselling author of Diet for a Hot Planet, Anna Lappé

• Afternoon address from Dr. Sandra Steingraber, internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health.

The day also offers participants their choice of two workshop sessions, from choices including Community Gardens, Organic Apiculture, Living Roofs, Holistic Health, Raising Organic Beef, Raw Foods and more!

Also presenting in the afternoon are featured speakers:

• Margaret Mitchell, MD, Functional Medicine Specialist

• Caesandra Seawell, Dir. of Community Programs at Buffalo ReUse

• Michael Schade, PVC Campaign Coordinator, Center for Health, Environment and Justice will be bringing Betty, the Be Safe Ducky, an inflatable 25-foot rubber ducky that’s been making headlines coast to coast, in support of a PVC-free and toxic-free future.

Cost is $25 with pre-registration and $30 at the door.

Students with ID are admitted free but must pre-register.

Registration includes both Friday and Saturday programs, as well as a Friday night light vegan dinner, Saturday organic lunch, and ongoing access to local vendors and information tables.

For more info. or to register, visit www.worldonyourplate.org

Several of our artist friends are exhibiting at the huge BEYOND | IN WNY 2010 art extravaganza this weekend:

Dennis Maher – lover of all things deconstructed, and we don’t mean words and sentences and paragraphs . . .

Carl Lee – our favorite filmmaker; his exhibited work will be familiar to demolition fans . . .

JM Reed – photographer, real estate broker and supporter/advisor of Buffalo housing activists such as ourselves . . .

All three are exhibiting at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College. Opening reception is this Sunday, 2pm to 4pm.

Paint me EXCITED!
I am beaming because Diane sent us images of her submission for our first-ever fashion show of garbage couture! If you know a fashionista, designer or dumpster diver who might be interested in creating some clothing for the show–please forward them the link for the CALL FOR ARTISTS. The deadline to submit your design is October 13th, but don’t wait because there are a lot of other details to take care of!

If you’d like to help with the exhibiton, please email volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org

ReTHREAD
Thursday, October 21st
7–10pm
ArtSpace
1219 Main Street in Midtown Buffalo