The Providential Gardener

Time Banking Comes to Rhode Island

"A Time for Transformation: Banking on Families & Communities to be the Change" was the title of the 2011 TimeBanks USA conference held at Brown University this past weekend (August 4-7). More than 150 people attended from as far away as the UK and Spain for an information-packed program that featured the unveiling of their new mission statement* (see below, and it's also on the blackboard in the photo), a preview of the organization's new website, which is to go live in the next few days, and the brand-new, Drupal-built "Community Weaver 2.0" website that is a robust tool for handling unlimited numbers of new TimeBanks and streamlining the management of the more than 270 TimeBanks currently set up in the United States.

What is Time Banking? The short answer is: Time Bank members spend an hour or several hours doing something for another member, thereby earning "Time Dollars" that are recorded in their TimeBank on Community Weaver. they can in turn spend the hours they have banked when members do something for them. Members list what they would like to do for others, and search the services offered to spend their Time Dollars on what they need done. Everyone's time has equal value: one hour equals one hour. Time Dollars are an alternate currency, a complementary currency (but not a replacement) to money as we usually think of it, sorely needed as we watch the Dow and S&P plunge these days.

The basic idea is simple, but the practice of Time Banking would have profound and substantial benefits for Rhode Island if we could "get" this. It clearly can integrate into the existing programs of environmental and social service groups and reinvigorate our neighborhoods. It values EVERY Rhode Islander equally and has tremendous potential for positive societal change.

The TimeBanks website is the place to begin exploring. Check now, but also go back and check in a few days when the new website is sure to be live. They have immensely improved the training materials, resources, and support. In the more than 30 years since Edgar Cahn came up with the idea, they have worked out solutions to many of the problems that have sunk earlier time banking experiments and trials. Time Banking's time has come!

To get started, I highly recommend hearing an 8-minute interview with Edgar Cahn (pictured in the photo above) on NPR July 19, 2011, "Beyond Bartering: Banking On Community Connections." It will whet your appetite for reading his books, such as "No More Throw Away People." Talk about a recycling program!

There already is a Rhode Island TimeBanks Initiative currently under the auspices of the Parent Support Network of RI. Our local TimeBanks movement is poised to develop quickly as we catch on to this way of working together for the common good.  We are fortunate that the Executive Director of the RI TimeBanks, Lisa Conlan-Lewis, is also on the Board of Directors of TimeBanks USA and is developing member services. Rhode Island is already wired into the national movement and resources.

I will be writing about this in more detail on the Providential Gardener and sharing updates to ecoRI on Time Banking as I read up on this fascinating and practical approach to getting necessary work done. There is so much to say, and Rhode Island is the perfect place to make Time Banking take off big time.

*TimeBanks USA Mission Statement:

"To nurture and expand a movement that promotes equality and builds caring community economies through inclusive exchange of time and talent."

Why, Why, Why? My Pitcher Pitch and My Pitcher Pi'tures

DRINK LOCAL WATER!

This is not a tongue-twister exercise. It's about Cool, Clear WATER. [Water!] Listen to the Sons of the Pioneers sing this song written by Bob Nolan in 1941 here! [Thank you, YouTube!]

As another song goes, "I read the news today, oh boy...." This morning's Providence Journal story about Rhode Island's bottle bill hearing (April 24, 2008) got me thinking,

Why do people spend their good money buying bottled water?

It would be worth having bottled water in, say, a Katrina-type disaster when the public drinking water supplies are not safe. But today we have perfectly fine tap water in Rhode Island that costs next to nothing. With gas prices zooming up past $3.50 a gallon, why are so many folks going into Rhode Island markets and buying bottles of water that must be transported hundreds of miles from places like Maine, and even thousands of miles from places like France? When did we get brain-bottle washed into thinking that it is cooler and healthier to DRIVE to the store, LOAD up the cart with 12-packs of water, PAY hard-earned money, WHEEL them out to the car, LUG them into the house, and then THROW them into the trash?

I will remind readers again that these bottles are seldom recycled but go as trash to the Central Landfill in Johnston, which can be seen from hills in Providence ten miles away, the landfill itself being a significant hill in this state with a highest point of 812 feet. We see the bottles rolling around in the road until they are flattened by cars. The water bottles (and of course the other beverage containers ~ but I'm just on a roll about water bottles today) are in the shrubs, in the woods, in the waterways, on the beaches. 

Why do so many businesses and conferences pay for the above-described lugging of water bottles? Why do our local restaurants, in this day and age of emphasizing eating local food, sell imported bottled water? Why do we order bottled water in a restaurant? How did it get to be the better option to buy bottled water? What are we thinking?

My Pitcher Pitch

Bottle bills have been throttled at the State House for years, and each side argues passionately for and against refunds on returned bottles. I see the Projo has a SURVEY today on the bottle bill question and provides the text of the current bill . Whatever your view on this important question, though, Rhode Island does need to achieve much higher recycling rates on beverage containers.

"Most R.I. municipal recycling rates are less than 15 percent." ~ RI Resource Recovery Corporation  (RIRRC)

There are so many pros and cons in the bottle recycling arguments, and I'm not going into all of the permutations here, but why not simply go back to drinking tap water and using pitchers and cups or glasses? Why not pitcher in?

• Think about it. Why do you drink bottled water? Are bottles of water the only way to have water at a meeting? You say your business is green? But is your company buying bottled water?
• Bottle bill or no bottle bill, just because they sell it, we don't have to buy it. Just say NO. Don't buy bottled water. Especially at work or when you are out and about, find some other way to supply drinking water to the troops. Be the first to bring your own water mug to the committee meeting this afternoon, and don't reach for one of those bottles somebody put in the middle of the table today.
• Hold "PITCHER INs." Use pitchers and paper cups (or, gasp, glasses) ~ something recyclable, washable, or biodegradable. At least put pitchers of water out for the folks.

And back to those bottles~ it has to become "cool" to recycle water bottles. Rhode Island should be the best at recycling! Especially businesses, which to date have a TERRIBLE recycling rate. RIRRC has help for starting business recycling programs. But we'd have less to recycle is we just drank tap water and put out pitchers and cups at meetings.

Do you have some pitcher pi'tures? I was inspired this morning to get my little collection of water pitchers out and to photograph them in the early sunlight, but I'm not a pro. Let's start a collection of water pitcher pi'tures and a list of local businesses that do NOT buy bottled water, and another list of local restaurants that do NOT sell bottled water.

Please add comments, circulate, forward, and link to this post, and let's just stop buying bottled water in Rhode Island. Somehow the beverage industry will survive without us. I don't usually recommend particular courses of action (volcano mulch around trees is another thing that gets me), but not buying water in bottles just seems so obvious. Excuse my gushing!

For further reading and listening:

• Plastic Bottles Pile Up as Mountains of Waste ~ MSNBC, March 3, 2005
• Why Not Drink Local? Jim Hightower on Upscale Restaurants and Tap Water ~ Drink Local! ~ June 29, 2007
• Fighting the Tide: A Few Restaurants Tilt to Tap Water ~ New York Times, May  30, 2007 [link might not work unless you are in your New York Times account.]
• NRDC: Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
• Wikipedia article on Bottled Water

Some Rhode Island Water Resources:

• Rhode Island Health Department ~ Office of Drinking Water Quality
• Rhode Island Water Resources Board
• Water for Rhode Island ~ Today and Tomorrow (2006)

Central Landfill News ~ Make a Date with Eco-Depot!

If you are like me, one of these days ~ sometime ~ you intend to take household hazardous waste to the Central Landfill. Many Rhode Islanders have been doing this, but many of us still have a lot of stuff hanging around the house in those garages and basements we, if truth be told, are going to leave for somebody else to clean up after we're gone. 

It's hard to work this chore into our busy schedules, and that's why I'm building a union Calendar of all sorts of environment-related events for Rhode Islanders called What Grows On in Rhode Island. The Calendar is full of useful features ~ for instance, it can send you reminders, and you can add events to your own Outlook or other electronic calendar. Maybe this is the year all those poisons get to Eco-Depot!

On March 5, 2008, I transferred the What Grows On in Rhode Island Calendar to new, more powerful software, and you'll see you can now sort by event type such as Cleanups and Workdays. And just this afternoon I've added to the Calendar all the Eco-Depots, some of which are not at the Central Landfill, but are rather in outlying regions of the state. It's important to call ahead and make an appointment so you (and everyone else) doesn't have to wait forever in line.

Can you guess what Rhode Islanders have lugged to the Eco-Depots? According to Joe Rotella at RI Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), we've brought more than 5 million pounds of household hazardous waste since 2001. Just last year, 2007, we carted 1,069,939 million pounds. Seventy percent of it is oil-based paint, which is actually recycled by Clean Harbors for use on bridges and such. Last year's (2007) paint haul converts to 748,960 pounds, or 78,838 gallons of paint.

When the Spring Cleaning bug bites soon, make a date with the Eco-Depot guys. Check the Eco-Depot website for what you can (and should!) bring. It's free!

You may have heard that the Central Landfill is filling up fast (you can see it in the distance from Prospect Park in Providence), and Rhode Islanders could do a much better job of recycling. Sarah Kite, Recycling Manager for the RIRRC, reports that we're not really increasing our recycling rate. The national average rate of household recycling is 35%. North Kingstown has the best rate in RI currently at 32%, and Portsmouth has the worst, at 5%. Our state average is 15%. This isn't a good thing, folks.

Some recycling bills are coming up in the General Assembly, and again, if you're like me, you find it difficult to track these things. The dates and times of hearings are on the General Assembly's website. You could check the environmental committees' agendas:

• House Committee: http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/CommitteeMeetings/Henvmet.htm
• Senate Committee: http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/CommitteeMeetings/senvmet.htm

But that's a lot of work, and most of us don't have the time. That's why these hearings are being integrated into What Grows On in Rhode Island Calendar. See the "Hearings ~ Legislative ~ Regulatory ~ Public Comment ~ Surveys" sub-calendar for announcements. Right now, there is one upcoming hearing about RIRRC on Wednesday, March 12. Look for it on the What Grows On in Rhode Island Calendar.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING TO TRACK HEARINGS and ENTER INFO INTO THE CALENDAR, LET ME KNOW! - Sue Korte ~ email

Giving Thanks & Buy Nothing Day ~ How to Spend Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving Day is perhaps The Providential Gardener's favorite holiday. It centers in the awesome recognition of how fortunate we are to have food that sustains our lives. It's hard for us today to realize how close to death the first European settlers in New England were ~ how utterly dependent they were on a decent harvest to make it through the long winters. We are not aware how dependent we are on farmers for our own lives ~ we take their hard work for granted. But as a bumper sticker from the Rhode Island Farm Bureau puts it in big red letters:

NO FARMERS ~ NO FOOD

I am a native New Englander, and Thanksgiving Day has always been an important family time. But my most memorable Thanksgiving Day was spent in France a few years ago. We went to Normandy for the day, and we walked through fields of white crosses on a sunny, warm afternoon, within sight of a sparkling sea. We walked on the beaches that once were scenes of unspeakable horror, and we saw some of the remaining bunkers and guns that fired on the beaches. Today I'm thinking about our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who are serving far from their families ~ hoping they have a special meal and some joy in their lives before they turn back to their work. They also live close to death in ways we don't imagine.

Enjoy dinner on T-Day, and then do yourself a favor ~ deepen your awareness of exactly how food gets to your plate, remember how fortunate many of us are to have the basic things that sustain life, and make the whole weekend a time for Thanksgiving. Some ways to do this include

• Make sure everybody in the state has the basics ~ for instance, donate warm coats to Buy Nothing Day.
• Audubon, the RI Wild Plant Society, and others have planned some great outdoor and indoor activities for everybody. Instead of the mall, you could be on seal watches or bird caravans ~ All of this is listed on The Providential Gardener Calendar.
• And plenty of folks could use some cheering up in ways that don't have to include spending money.

If you can't get outside (which is preferred!) and have some time to spend online, explore The Providential Gardener and learn about What Grows On all around you in Rhode Island. I'm sure you'll find something you didn't know about our great little state, and I hope you'll find how to get together with other Rhode Islanders who enjoy and care for our beautiful bit of earth in so many different ways.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The RIght Way Great Green Shoot Off Winner ~ 2007

The Apeiron Institute chose a winner from several short films submitted in the 2007 spring RIght Way Great Green Shoot Off. It's called VOICES, it's on You Tube, and it's about 3 minutes long. Short and Sweet. Hope you enjoy it.  

Rhode Island can be the first "Sustainable State" ~ Let's make this happen soon!

A quote from VOICES: " Sure, our state is small, but we're proud of it."