Your Weekly Update: A Week in Review of the Environmental Commission

Image Credit

Sriteja and Reeti, Girl Scout Cadettes, presented their Silver Award project to the Environmental Commission. The title of the project is “Fast Fashion and the Impact on our environment”. Fast fashion is an unsustainable way of manufacturing poor quality clothing that is worn out more quickly than expected. Whereas slow fashion is a sustainable way of making high quality clothing that almost anyone can purchase and lasts much longer. Fast fashion negatively contributes to global warming and increases the risk of water pollution. The girl scouts sought to make others aware of fast fashion and slow fashion brands with a game they created. They also wanted to influence individuals' decisions in either buying or boycotting clothing brands.

Jillian Maingi got her Gold Award project approved by the Girl Scouts organization. Her project focuses on spotted lantern flies and finding a way to trap them and decrease its population. Her next steps are practicing building the traps, recruiting team members from her school environmental club, and giving a presentation and demonstrating her project at public events.

The planning board has been working on a few master plan items, specifically, the historic preservation element and the conservation plan element. For the conservation plan element, the updated draft needs to be looked over. A review of this element and suggestions may be provided by the environmental commission to the planning board. The town council annual budget is ready for the final hearing at the next meeting and the council members will be voting on the budget.

At the Sustainable Jersey Summit, Larry Katz, a member of the environmental commission, talked about how the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) is doing community solar - projects around the state. Residents can apply using the project finder on the Sustainable Jersey website that shows where these projects are and what communities can be involved in them. The twenty five projects on the website have been subscribed to. But, there should be an additional one hundred projects by the end of 2023. For more information, click HERE.

The 2023 NJ Home Performance with Energy Star program is now offered by NJ electric and gas utilities. Once a home energy audit is done, you may be eligible for rebates up to $5000, all rebates not to go over 50% of costs. Loans for qualified applicants up to $15000 at 0% for fixed rate terms. Each utility has their own rebate deals as follows: water heaters up to $1000, washers/dryers up to $300, smart thermostats up to $400, refrigerators up to $75 etc. For more information, click HERE.

Inder Singh, an environmental commision member has done research on fireworks to understand how it would be possible to use them responsibly and less. Fireworks negatively affect the environment due to air pollution, noise pollution, and water pollution. It also contributes to waste. Fireworks produce smoke, dust, and metal particles that can lead to poor air quality and result in respiratory problems. The chemicals found in fireworks can emit toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Fireworks can reverberate loud noises that bothers wildlife, pets, and individuals. The debris from fireworks can end up in water bodies and pollute them. Waste that comes from fireworks are the shells, packaging, and other materials utilized in production. It can take a while for the waste to decompose. To understand the chemistry of firework pollution, please take a look at the graphic on this website. One town in New Hampshire has created a fact sheet that has suggestions on how to use fireworks responsibly. To access it, click HERE.

If you value your weekly updates, tell your friends and neighbors, subscribe and support The Voice so we can continue to bring all you need to know, right to your inbox.  If you follow the links and form opinions as to the inner workings of our local government, write a letter to the editor and we may publish your thoughts.