Category: clean up

Earth Day Moody Park Clean Up* (date change)

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You’re invited to join the Ewing Green Team in showing Moody Park some love.

In coordination with AmeriCorps NJ Watershed Ambassador Program, the Ewing Green Team will be holding an Earth Day Community Park clean-up event at Moody Park on Sunday, April 24th. 

The clean-up will run from 10 am – noon and pre-registration is required.  Participants aged 15 or younger must be accompanied by an adult. The adult should complete the registration and waiver and include the name(s) of the minor(s) in the comments as well as include the total number of people who will be attending under the adult’s name. Waiver

Trash bags, disposable gloves, hand sanitizer, and trash pickers will be available on site. Participants are also encouraged to bring their own supplies.

“Our Community Clean-up, slated for Earth Day+2, coincides with regional, state and county events focused on beautifying our communities,” stated Councilwoman Jennifer Keyes-Maloney, “including the Mercer County Sustainability Coalition’s Greening Together event, a week-long celebration of Earth Day- Arbor Day with both in-person and virtual events.”

Community members will be notified upon sign-up as to their reporting location at the park.  This is a rain or shine event. 

“We are so appreciative of residents who are willing to give up a bit of their Sunday to help beautify an important recreational space in Ewing.”  said Ewing Mayor Bert Steinmann.

As a thank you for all your hard work, cleanup participants will be rewarded with a treat from Rita’s Italian Ice! Each ice flavor will be pre-packaged, and you will receive biodegradable spoon! What a sweet way to end a cleanup!

Community members unable to participate in the event at Moody Park are encouraged to consider cleaning up their portion of the community, whether that be a street corner, storm drain or common area.  We invite you to share photos of your personal cleanups.

Thank YOU for making a difference in Ewing!

Event Summary

Title: Earth Day Community Park Cleanup
Date: Sunday, April 24th
Time: 10 am – noon
Location: Moody Park (parking lot at the corner of Buttonwood and Ewingville Rd
Pre-registration is required

Keep Ewing Beautiful: Participate in the Sept 20th TrashDash

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by Lynn Robbins

You’re invited to take part in a TrashDash plogging event Sunday, September 20. This national all-day event is open to everyone of all ages.

Join the Sustainable Ewing Green Team and Keep America Beautiful as we get rid of litter and create a cleaner, greener, safer community for all.

How to participate

Grab a bag, a pair of gloves, and a camera if you’d like to share photos. Choose a place to take a walk or jog and pick up any litter you find on your trek as we all join in to clean up our community while observing social distancing.

You can take photos along the way — the litter you find, a before and after comparison, your filled trash bag when finished, or whatever strikes you. Send your pictures plus any comments you wish to share to the Green Team at ewinggreenteam@gmail.com. We’ll post contributors’ results on our Facebook page. You can also post your experience on your favorite social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and on Instagram @KeepAmericaBeautiful. Use the hashtag #TrashDash or #DoBeautifulThings.

The word “plogging” combines “jogging” with the Swedish phrase, “plocka upp,” to pick up. The activity, started by Erik Ahlstrom around 2016, has grown to an international movement.

Spearheaded by Keep America Beautiful, the first TrashDash run in the United States took place last September. In addition to commonly found litter, this year TrashDash intends to bring awareness to the safety hazards of littered personal protective equipment (PPE), including used masks and gloves.

The organization describes TrashDash as “the engine to remove thousands of pounds of trash from neighborhoods, beaches, rivers, lakes, trails, and parks — reducing waste and plastic pollution, improving habitats, and preventing harm to wildlife and humans.”

Learn more!

Tips for Recycling Your Christmas Tree

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Next week we will be seeing that holiday staple, the Christmas tree, that gave its all for Christmas cheer, forlorn and discarded by the hundreds at the curbside.   Ewing Township, of course, collects your tree at the curb for recycling into mulch to be used around local parks, however, there are also many environmentally- and taxpayer-friendly ways you can use your tree on your own property.

Reuse your Christmas tree around your home and in your yard this winter and not only will you nourish the landscape, providing valuable resources and habitat for the environment, but you can also help reduce staff time with tree pickup, saving taxpayer dollars.

  • Winter mulch
    Evergreens provide winter insulation for tender plants in your yard and reduce frost heaving. Cut the boughs from the tree and place them over any delicate plants for the winter.   They also help alleviate the weight of snow on branches that might otherwise break from the added load.
  • Mulch with the needles
    Needles from your tree dry out quickly and decompose slowly.  They make an excellent mulch for the garden.  Pine needles are full of nutrients that can reduce the PH of your soil if its more alkaline.  Many on a branch fall off the boughs placed in the beds during the winter.
  • Brush Pile for Wildlife Habitat
    Wildlife need snug hiding places and protection from winter weather. Make a small brush pile from the boughs in a back corner of your yard and create a safe place to support our threatened vanishing wildlife.  Or leave your tree intact and place it in its stand outdoors.  Fill it with bird feeders hung from the boughs.  Again, this makes a wonderful addition to wintertime habitat for a variety of small animals such as birds, rabbits, and squirrels…
  • Firewood
    You can use your tree as firewood, but not right away. The wood is wet and can pose a fire hazard. Cut your tree up and let it dry out and then use in an outdoor fire pit.  It’s not good with an inside fireplace, but works well outside.
  • Fresheners
    Make a sachet from the tree’s pine needles to keep that Christmas scent in your home throughout the New Year.
  • Fish feeders
    Sunk into private fish ponds, trees make an excellent refuge and feeding area for fish.
  • Coasters
    The creative and crafty among us can make round coasters from the trunk.

These are just a few suggestions garnered from our own usage and around the web.  Perhaps you can think of more.

The Ewing Green Team hopes you all had a great holiday season and sends best wishes for  a wonderful New Year.

1. http://www.realchristmastrees.org/dnn/All-About-Trees/How-to-Recycle

“It takes a Village” at the Ewing Community Gardens

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It was a great day last Saturday!  With the help and energy of yet another contingent of TCNJ student volunteers under the direction of Professor Michael Nordquist and the Community Gardens Committee we accomplished what we have been trying to do all season – decimate a huge mulch pile and put its contents onto the paths of the Ewing Community Gardens on Whitehead Road Extension.  This was a fabulous accomplishment and will make a tremendous difference to the gardeners who use the site.   Gardeners have already commented on how much easier the site is to use this year since they didn’t have to do quite so much bushwhacking to get to their plots.  The efforts of the students and gardeners Saturday have sustained and greatly improved upon our previous efforts.  In addition, we were delighted to have the compost bins set up for the gardeners use.  Now they won’t have to cart out the weedy debris but can be more environmentally friendly and compost it on site.  The weeding and the planting efforts that they contributed were just the icing on the cake!

Ewing Township, the Green Team and most especially the community gardeners have been the recipients of a number of student volunteer community service days this year and are all deeply grateful for all of the hard work that the students put in.  We believe that in addition to implementing more environmentally friendly practices at the gardens, the cleanup days, so wonderfully supported by the students, are helping to create the community in our community gardens.

For more photos from the day, check our Photos page.

Ewing Trail Cleanup Sunday, June 2nd All are welcome.

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A cleanup date for the Johnson Trolley Line and the West Trenton Railroad Trails has been announced.    Make an impact by volunteering today.

Date: Sunday, June 2nd
Time: 8 to 11:30 am

Volunteers will meet at the far end of Whitehead Rd for the Trolley Line Trail and at the back right corner of the DOT complex where Lower Ferry Rd crosses the tracks at the former childcare bldg called Dot Tot.  The Township usually provides bags & gloves. Dress for the weather in comfortable grubbies – gloves, old sneaks, long sleeves, sun & bug protection.
Please join us in helping to keep our Ewing trails beautiful.

For more information please contact Arti Sahni at 609-477-0955.

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