Dear Editor:
Next week, Hoboken will celebrate Earth Week with a series of events including a movie viewing and workshops on urban agriculture and composting, energy conservation, and recycling more. The week will culminate with the Hoboken Green Fair on Saturday, April 22nd. The fair will feature eco-friendly vendors of housewares, toys, art, clothing, solar power, and other services. There will be organic food, live music, community groups, and information on reducing energy costs, urban gardening, recycling and much more. Bring your bike to participate in a family-friendly community ride or a guided historic bike tour of Hoboken. Free paper shredding will be provided. For a list of participants and more details visit www.hobokennj.org/greenfair.
We’re proud that Hoboken received Sustainable Jersey certification last year because we can and should be a leader in going green – it’s the right thing to do for the environment and it will save us money. We’ve installed efficient and cost-saving lighting in municipal buildings, promoted greener transportation options like walking, bicycling, and the Hop shuttle, planted more than 100 shade trees, and we are developing a green infrastructure plan to address flooding while avoiding pumping sewage into the river.
But we also want to enable our community to be part of the solution. Last year we changed our laws to make it easier to install solar panels on roofs. We switched to single stream recycling, and our community’s recycling rate increased by more than 50 percent in a few months. And next week my Administration is introducing legislation to permit our residents and businesses to have composting containers and rain barrels. Reducing our waste will cut our disposal fees and by diverting rain water from the sewers, we can all play a part in alleviating flooding.
I look forward to seeing our community at an Earth Week event.
Mayor Zimmer