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Happy New Year! Ring in 2025 with Our Eco-friendly Resolutions

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Resolutions for a sustainable 2025

As the old year ends and the new one begins, we frequently resolve to begin anew, to do something better and be better. To kick off 2025, the Ewing Green Team and some of our supporters share some of the personal resolutions to which we have committed for the coming year.  We believe these answer a question that we commonly receive: “What can one person do to make a difference?” We share them with you as examples of simple and realistic sustainable resolutions you can implement in your daily life.  What would you add to the list?

These green resolutions are part of our collective commitment to embodying the principles and actions necessary to help us face issues such as climate change, environmental pollution, the biodiversity crisis, and much more.  They range from the very personal to resolutions that can easily be adopted on a wider scale. We thank you for all that you do and invite you to join us to help build a better world for future generations to come.    

Best wishes for a Happy & GREEN 2025!

The Ewing Green Team

Ruth Chin

“Eradicate this spring’s garlic mustard in a 20’x30′ patch along the canal by March 31.“

Kathy Barringer

“I resolve to skip the stuff when I order takeout.  I will decline plastic utensils, napkins and condiment packs.  My family has also resolved to discontinue use of plastic water bottles in 2025.”

Heidi Furman

“I’ve been asked by our West Trenton Garden Club to “green” our Hospitality Committee’s practices for our monthly meetings.  I resolve to do this by helping to educate our members in matters of sustainability. We’ve already primed members to remember to bring their personal reusable flask to meetings.”

Devin Spence

“I will become a more conscious consumer, knowing where products are coming from, the impact they have and questioning if I really need it.”

Daniel Bowen

“My New Year’s resolution is to choose to take my bike instead of the car to the grocery store more often this year.”

Joanne Mullowney

“As a gardener who gardens for wildlife, I resolve to step up my efforts to garden sustainably.  This includes removing more non-native plants from my property and replacing them with natives, particularly keystone species that provide the greatest support for wildlife relative to their biomass.  I also plan on adding a couple of new native trees to my landscape and removing more lawn to provide additional soft landings under my trees for wildlife…  Whatever I can do to provide habitat and support for disappearing wildlife is on my to-do list. 

Evan Crumiller

“I am going to try going the first week of January without using a single piece of reusable plastic! Depending on the results I hope to continue from there, at the very least cutting way down.”

Jennifer Keyes-Maloney

Jenn has shared that she plans to become more sustainable in 2025 with the following resolutions:

  1. “Limit clothing purchases generally, and only purchase items that do not require dry cleaning
  2. Bundle online purchases to avoid shipping impact
  3. Share plants with others, and recycle plant containers
  4. Commit to reusable containers for water and coffee.”

Aaron Watson

“We should strongly encourage everyone to enjoy nature, become stewards of the outdoors and to strive for deeper engagement in the environmental sector.”

Lisa Feldman

“I resolve to become a more mindful consumer, particularly of the food that I buy. I have gotten in a bad habit of unrealistic food purchases and end up throwing a lot of food away, salad bags that go bad, fruit that I don’t eat. Prepared meals that I think will be appealing but never seems to eat?  I hate that it’s ending up in the waste, it’s costly and wasteful. I hope that I can be a better planner.”

Caroline Steward

“I hope to work on a butterfly garden.  I plan to reduce my lawn size by converting it into a more bird and butterfly friendly space.”

Karen Sare

“I resolve to attend more environmental webinars and also research ways Ewing can make more of an impact regarding clean communities.”

Alexis Freiling  

Has a number of goals to she wants to work on.  “I plan to focus on buying fruit and vegetables that are in season. This helps reduce the reliance on greenhouses to keep fruit/vegetables stocked year-round.  I also pledge to remember to bring Tupperware from home when eating out at restaurants, so I can pack up my leftovers without relying on the restaurant to-go containers. And finally, I want to create a wildlife pond in my garden, plant more native plants and replace some of my non-native plants with native alternatives in my garden.”

Mark Wetherbee

“I resolve to compost food waste and provide nature support to my landscape.”

Garry M. Keel

“Please take the time to recycle the proper items.  If you are not sure what is recyclable and what is regular garbage, check with Mercer County Recycling.  We all have a duty to do what we can to make our world as clean and as green as possible”

Thank you to all our members for their wonderful suggestions!

We add one final suggestion.  We don’t know what the future holds for us in the coming year, but the roles of the states, local governments and environmental organizations will be more critical than ever in continuing efforts to protect and clean up our environment.  So, resolve to join with us in our work, you are more than welcome.  Come to a meeting and help us influence others to make needed positive changes for a better tomorrow for our town, our state, our country and our world.

Recycling Update!

#5s now accepted in 2025!

The Mercer County Improvement Authority (MCIA) which manages most of the curbside recycling in Mercer County, will now be accepting #5 plastics in your curbside recycling containers in 2025.

This includes items like yogurt containers, condiment containers (think ketchup bottles), amber colored medicine bottles, plastic beverage caps, and to-go containers. See Recycle Your #5s in 2025! If you are uncertain, be sure to check for the #5 in the little triangle on the bottom of the container. As a reminder, all items must be empty, clean, and dry and should not have contained any toxic or hazardous substances.

Report Road Salt Spillage

roadsaltspillage During winter ice and snow events applying road salt helps to lower the melting point of ice, allowing sidewalks, parking lots, driveways, and roadways to stay free of ice buildup. But there is a downside. Salts are also soluble. As we put it down, it dissolves into snow melt and stormwater runoff. This works its way into our storm drains that empty into our streams and rivers. As a result, the US Geological Society reports that waterway chloride levels have doubled over the past 50 years.

A Few Road Salt Facts

  • Salt doesn’t “go away” and is not removed by traditional water treatment plants.
  • Fish and plants don’t like salty water, it is toxic to freshwater animals. It is also toxic to plant life, and the soil as it builds up.
  • Humans don’t like it either. Our drinking water gets salty when chloride concentrations are over 250 mg/L.
  • Salt harms our infrastructure, corroding metal and concrete resulting in damage to our roads, bridges, and personal vehicles as well.

How You Can Help

  • Reduce salt use: shovel right after it snows and then salt sparingly if needed.
  • Remove excess salt after the salt has done it’s work.
  • Consider environmentally friendly alternatives such as cheese brine, beet juice and sand.
  • Help the Ewing Green Team in monitoring the impacts of road salt by participating in the annual New Jersey Salt Watch.
  • Report road salt spills on Ewing Township roads using our reporting form here. This will help the Public Works Department to remove the excess as required by NJ statute and keep our community safe.

Township Sustainability Reminder for EV Owners

If you have an electric vehicle or are considering purchasing one, Ewing Township has made recharging your vehicle more convenient with four charging stations now online at Ewing municipal locations! One ChargePoint dual port level two charger is located at the Hollowbrook Community Center (in front of the pool), and two ChargePoint dual port level two chargers are located at the Municipal Building – one in the front lot on the lower level, and the other is in the rear lot on the upper level. There is a Livingston Energy Charger by BTC dual port level two charging station at the Station 30 Fire Company at 1666 Pennington Rd. in the parking lot in the rear of the building.

Electric vehicle owners are encouraged to use these charging stations while they conduct business at the municipal building, enjoy the pool or a program at the Community Center, or visit the Construction Office to apply for a permit, or whether they’ve simply found Ewing in an EV map while on the go.

Happy New Year!

May your 2025 be filled with joy and success and may we all come together to work for a healthier, greener Ewing!

 

The Ecological Benefits of the Not So Perfect Yard: Leave the Leaves

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Ahhh, yes, it’s happening.  Fall is finally here, and we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief.  We are finally leaving the hot, sticky days of summer behind us for the cooler, more breathable days of fall.   (Now, if only we could get some rain….)  As we begin the dive into the month of October, we all remember why we so love autumn.  Our neighborhood trees will soon blanket the ground with their last gift of the growing season, a recharge for our landscape that creates habitat for wildlife.  The Ewing Green Team entreats all Ewing homeowners to treat their leaf litter, not as trash to be carted away, but rather as the gift that it truly is to the millions of tiny creatures that are a part of the life of our gardens.

Ewing Township New Leaf Collection Guidelines

By now we hope that you have heard about the updated leaf collection guidelines that will begin this fall for leaf pickup at the curb.  Ordinance 24-19 allows a scheduled period of loose leaf collection during the months of November and December (and as needed in October and January) to simplify and expedite the process of leaf collection for residents. (Yard waste must be containerized for collection at the curb any time outside this scheduled collection window.)  We will leave it to the Township to explain the basics of the new collection system, but suffice it to say, that the new system is a compromise.  Allowing loose leaves in the street for very limited windows of time for pick up by DPW staff will be a major convenience for residents and will be balanced with the need help Ewing to keep our storm drains clear and improve water quality while maintaining compliance with New Jersey stormwater regulations.

The Green Team, of course, strongly encourages you to mulch your leaves, but does recognize that for some that may be impractical.  However, we do want to take this opportunity to put in our annual plug about the benefits of keeping your leaf litter on site and dispensing with the piles of leaves in the street leaving your property.

Leave the Leaves

Leaves are a valuable resource that many property owners let go to waste every fall.  They are blown into piles on the street and left for DPW pickup. They cause unsafe driving and biking conditions, clog storm drains, and can become a source of unwanted nutrient runoff into our streams and rivers causing unhealthy algae blooms.

 As a homeowner, landscaper, or property manager, are there better options?  Yes!  “Leaving the Leaves” is a growing environmental movement that provides the best and simplest solution.  It is easy to learn, easy to implement, gets great points for being “green,” and better yet, actually saves time and money!

The Benefits of Leaf Litter

In nature, trees don’t drop their bounty at the curb for pick up, but rather they bestow a host of ecological benefits including providing an insulating winter cover in the garden for plants and the tiny creatures that sustain life in the garden and help to conserve soil moisture.   We encourage you to mulch with fallen leaves.  As much as possible, leave them to decompose where they fall in your garden beds.  Or settle the leaves under the branches of your trees and shrubs. Give it a year or so and your leaf litter will have broken down while providing mulch, improving your soil, and increasing its water retention abilities.

You can also rake out some of the leaves from the beds that might smother tender plants and cause them to rot over the winter. One option here is to add them to the compost pile.  A second option is to add them to the leaf pile on the lawn. Then take your mulching mower and chop them up into small pieces.  Rake up most of the chopped leaves and place them back in the garden around shrubs and plants.   Now that they are greatly reduced in volume, they contribute to a neater appearance.  The remainder can stay on your lawn and decompose there. Do this as needed until the end of the season and the leaves will break down over the winter.

While the option of mowing your leaves into mulch is not optimal and destroys some of the small critters that overwinter there, it is a far superior option to carting ones leaves to the curb where they provide no benefit at all to your landscape.

You might think that this leaves the yard looking a little less than perfect, however you are nourishing the landscape.

The Benefit of Providing Habitat

This somewhat messy yard contributes yet another important benefit – habitat.  While habitat is not a traditional concern of the average gardener, we believe it should be, and more and more gardeners are coming to realize it.  Did you know that despite its not so perfect look, leaf litter provides an important foraging space and shelter for a wide variety of birds, small mammals, and insects?  Also providing benefit is the untrimmed winter garden where ladybugs and lacewings reside in native grasses and pollinating bees settle in hollow plant stems.  Butterflies and moths winter in chrysalides on the ground and baby spiders hide out amid the decaying plant stems. Birds feed from dried seed heads in winter.

Some wildlife uses the leaf litter and other dead vegetation to insulate them from winter’s chill, while others, such as earthworms feed on the litter, breaking it into smaller pieces. Bacteria and fungi in turn convert theses smaller pieces into nutrients which then sustain neighboring plants. They in turn help support biodiversity by becoming food themselves. Toads, beetles, ladybugs and much more also live in your backyard’s leaf litter. Each is an integral part of the food web.

Support Wildlife Thru Your Not So Perfect Yard

We recommend the following practices to help you in your quest to provide habitat and reduce your ecological impact.  Adopting good practices in the fall also leaves you well set for spring in the garden.

  • Leave your leaves on the property. Leave them in the garden beds when you can, mow them, or compost them.
  • Allow dried flower heads of some of your garden favorites to stay standing in your garden as a food resource. The dark stems and flower heads of some of our native flowers look gorgeous against the snow and nothing is more exciting than seeing our small, winged friends feasting upon the seed heads.
  • Don’t cut down your native ornamental grasses. Let them grow tall and seed.  They provide shelter for the insects that pollinate our gardens and feed fledgling birds and other wildlife. Not to mention that they also look fabulous swaying in the wind.  They make a fabulous addition to the fall and winter landscape.
  • Build a brush pile with fallen branches instead of removing them.  If you build it, they will come. This author no sooner established a small brush pile in a back corner in the yard and it was inhabited.
  • Forget the chemicals. (This one is not hard. Just do it!)  They flow from our properties during rain events and end up in our water supply.
  • Finally, don’t be in a rush to begin your garden cleanup in the spring. Wait until after several 50℉ days to begin, when spring has really arrived, allowing overwintering pollinators to move on first.  You gave them a home all winter; don’t take it away from them too soon.

Vanishing Habitat

As habitat for wildlife decreases, the wildlife it supports does also.  More than half the world’s wildlife has vanished since 1970. This includes mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. 

Wildlife needs habitat to survive, and we need to do a better job balancing the need to provide habitat for animals’ survival against commercial forces.  Habitat requires food, water, and shelter and even a small yard can support birds, butterflies, beneficial insects, and small animals thru proper landscaping and landscaping habits. 

We ask you to adopt a somewhat messy yard and eschew the leaf disposal.  Keep your leaves so that they can decompose naturally in your own yard and support the butterflies and other small insects that live in the leaf litter.  To learn more about how the Ewing Green Team is promoting gardening for wildlife, take a look at our initiative – the Ewing Community Wildlife Habitat Project.   During this season of renewal so essential to preserving the next generation of wildlife, we invite you to join with us and pledge to garden messy.  Then put your feet up and enjoy the season.

Printable brochure of sustainable fall landscaping tips

Ewing Green Team to Host 10th Annual Community Fall Spin Bike Tour as a Part of Ewing Community Fest

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Mayor Bert Steinmann, the Ewing Green Team and the Ewing Community Affairs Department are pleased to announce the 10th Annual Ewing Fall Spin bike tour, to be held on Saturday, September 21, 2024, starting at 8:15am. The event will start and end at Campus Town at The College of New Jersey. All proceeds from this year’s event will be donated to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (T.A.S.K.).  

Individuals or teams, ages 16 years and older are encouraged to register early. “We would love participants to sign up as individuals or come as a team of friends, family members or co-workers,” says EGT Member and Bike Tour Chairperson, Garry Keel. The Fall Spin registration fee is $15 for students ages 16 and older, $20 for adults (individuals 18 years or older) and $40 for a Family Plan (3 or more individuals living in the same household 16 years and older). All persons registering by September 14th will receive a T-shirt.  Register through communitypass.net or call the recreation office at 609-883-1776 x 6202 for assistance. Day-of-event registration will begin at 7:45am.

Participants will enjoy a leisurely paced, 12-mile ride throughout Ewing Township neighborhoods. The tour will be escorted by Ewing Police, and rest stops and free bike inspections will be available. 

The Ewing Green Team (www.ewinggreenteam.org) was established in 2009 by municipal resolution under the auspices of the Ewing Environmental Commission, and is part of the statewide Sustainable Jersey effort (www.sustainablejersey.com). The Ewing Green Team envisions a township that incorporates sustainability into the actions and decision-making processes of community members and municipal offices to create and maintain sustainable ways of living; builds strong and diverse economic opportunities; and cultivates a community that welcomes people from all walks of life.

3rd Annual Ewing Restaurant Week Kicks Off This Saturday

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2024 Restaurant Week April 13 – 21.

Mayor Bert Steinmann, Ewing Township Council, and the Ewing Green Team announce a week+ celebration of great dining opportunities in Ewing with our 3rd annual Restaurant Week running from April 13th – 21st.

Ewing’s Restaurant Week is a week-long promotion bookended by two full weekends that features a dozen unique dining options in the community.  Treat yourself to breakfast out, grab a quick lunch, enjoy a delicious dinner dining experience, or even just pick up a dessert or treat – our participating restaurants offer a variety of culinary options. 

Restaurants will offer diners a variety of discounts, whether that be a small discount on a particular food item or a more robust pre-fixed price menu – encouraging Ewingites to ‘get a taste’ of what Ewing restaurants have to offer.  Chefs will prepare delicious menus at mouthwatering prices! All costs are exclusive of tax, beverages, and gratuity.  Be sure to check out in advance whether you need to mention “Restaurant Week” to receive your discount!

No tickets or special passes are needed. However, reservations are strongly recommended for those who choose to “dine in.” Contact individual restaurants to make your reservations. Specials for the week and restaurant contact information can be found at the bottom of the Restaurant Week page of ewingnj.org.

Jennifer Keyes-Maloney, Ewing Councilwoman, has contacted many of our local restaurants in town regarding their potential participation in this event.  She believes that it is possible that a few more restaurants will participate.  We encourage any late applicants to register their restaurant and specials ASAP (Restaurant Week) to be included in this event that is sure to generate extra traffic at your establishment. 

Mayor Bert Steinmann encourages everyone to come out and support the great restaurants in our community.  “Ewing Restaurant Week is the perfect opportunity to visit your favorite establishment or discover a new one.”

The Ewing Green Team is excited to introduce this fun new way for people to try some new places or revisit an old favorite. We hope you take advantage of these special offers. What a great way to try something new and support local businesses at the same time. Bon Appetit!

Kick the Habit: A Dirty Dozen of Common Gardening Bad Habits You Need to Kick

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Bad Habit #11

Landscape Fabric  

It’s a myth that landscape fabric prevents weeds.  Yes, they may initially, however, the fabric, once down, tends to stay in place season after season and that’s where trouble starts.  Issues include:

Weed seeds blow on top and germinate in the mulch layer sinking their roots down thru the fabric making it/them hard to remove. 

The roots of desired plants grow across and on top of the barrier.  Thus, they are not as deep in the soil as they should be.  The lack of deeply penetrating roots make the plant easily toppled by high winds and very susceptible to drought.  We want to encourage, not discourage, deep root growth. 

Landscape fabric prevents plants from spreading and naturalizing in your bed.  Worse, weed barriers are also sometimes impregnated with herbicides and fertilizers.

A major drawback of the practice is that it inhibits soil building.  When mulch is applied over the fabric it can’t decompose and contribute to building the health of the soil beneath it.  Many of the old weed fabrics aren’t water and gas permeable leaving the soil beneath dry and compacted.  This starves plants for water and nutrients and results in greatly reduced soil food web activity, noticeable by a lack of insect activity and earthworms.   When used on areas that hold on to excess water and become soggy, the weed barrier can trap water beneath it, creating a swampy mess, and a perfect breeding ground for some noxious weeds (e.g. field horsetail). 

A final observation is that many are plastic films, and you know what we think of plastic!!  They eventually break down and you find bits of plastic everywhere.  Landscape fabric is really hard to remove once it starts breaking down and depositing microplastics in the soil.  The long-term implications of the excess of microplastics in our ecosystems are yet to be fully defined, but we suspect that they are not good. 

Kick the Habit There is no magic solution that will eliminate weeds.  Apply mulch, more mulch, and more mulch still.  Wood chips, leaves, other organic materials such as pine straw and compost all will do a better job while eventually breaking down and building your soil.  Even stones and pea gravel are better.  Layer your mulch 2-3″ thick and very few weeds will get through.  Better yet, use a living mulch of native ground covers to outcompete the weeds and reduce the need to add brown mulch each season.  In summary, landscape fabric offers a short-term gain in return for a long-term problem.