Massachusetts Beautification Bulletin | September 2022
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Act now while tickets are still available for our 4th annual Massachusetts Clean Community Awards on October 20 in Waltham. Please scroll down for details and other updates, including our recent Plant Something Bee-eautiful grants and our first Next-Gen Environmental Scholarship grantee.
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Join the fun on October 20!
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Punch Your Ticket To The Massachusetts Clean Community Awards Gala
P.S., It’s not too late for your company to sign up as a sponsor. Contact us for more details.
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Congratulations to Our 2022 Plant Something Bee-eautiful Grantees!
Our annual Plant Something Bee-eautiful grants support pollinator-friendly plantings in public spaces. This program not only beautifies public spaces, but also restores natural habitats for pollinators.
We are pleased to announce this year’s grantees, each of whom will be reimbursed for up to $500 for expenses related to the following projects:
Keep Attleboro Beautiful, in collaboration with the Thomas E. Willett Elementary School, will expand the pollinator garden located adjacent to the Willett Garden. The garden grows organic vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers.
Keep Gardner Beautiful will establish a pollinator-friendly garden on the property of the Gardner Civil Defense Agency on Main Street. A “bee bath” will be installed to collect rainwater and allow for many different kinds of pollinating insects to hydrate.
Keep Melrose Beautiful, in collaboration with Grow Natives – Melrose, will use its grant to return urban habitat back to New England native plants for local birds, bees, and other pollinators. They plan to restore an existing Adopt-a-Spot site within Milano Park into a thriving pollinator habitat with a variety of native pollinator plants.
Keep Stoneham Beautiful, in partnership with the Stoneham Garden Club, will transform an existing grassy meadow into a Pollinator Meadow on the Whip Hill Estate. Educational materials and signage will educate visitors and youth about native plants, pollinators, and the stress our environment is facing.
Sabrina Pilet-Ones of Sabrina's Garden will beautify two open space gardens on Woodrow Avenue in Mattapan with perennial pollinator plants. The new gardens will help the bees thrive while providing beauty for the local residents.
Medford Community Gardens will create a new native pollinator garden in one of the medians along Governor’s Avenue. The plants will help native pollinators by creating habitat, food sources, pollen, and nectar used by native insects.
Congratulations to our 2022 Plant Something Bee-eautiful grantees!
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Hot Off The Presses: The KMB Annual Report!
Despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, Keep Massachusetts Beautiful had a very successful fiscal-year 2022 (July 1, 2021—June 30, 2022).
It is our hope that you will come away inspired to do even more to keep Massachusetts clean, green, and litter-free.
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Join a COASTSWEEP event near you!
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It's Baaack: COASTSWEEP 2022
COASTSWEEP, the annual statewide beach cleanup sponsored by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM), is underway now. Sign up now to clean your favorite beach, marsh, dive site, or riverbank.
These events are part of an international campaign organized by the Ocean Conservancy. Participants from all over the world collect trash and other marine debris and record what they find. This information is then used to help reduce future marine debris problems. Cleanups are taking place from now into November.
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Congratulations to Our Inaugural Scholarship Grantee!
This scholarship supports a high school senior student who will be pursuing a degree or certificate in environmental studies or a related field at an accredited institution of higher learning. After all, our state, nation, and world are all going to need talented young people to solve the many environmental challenges we’re all facing!
Sean Riley of Stoneham High School is the first recipient of our scholarship. Sean helped found a Green Club at his school during his senior year. He is now attending the University of Vermont and pursuing a degree in environmental engineering with a minor in forestry. Congratulations, Sean, and we look forward to your future success!
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KMB Chapter Spotlight:
Welcome Keep Brookline Beautiful!
We’re excited to welcome our newest local chapter: Keep Brookline Beautiful. This chapter is just getting off the ground and has scheduled monthly litter cleanups. To join a Brookline cleanup, please visit our events calendar for more details.
If you would like to organize volunteers in your town or city to clean up litter, visit our website to learn more about the benefits of launching a local chapter of Keep Massachusetts Beautiful or contact us to schedule a phone call.
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Zero-Waste Zone: Textiles and Mattresses Banned from Disposal
In 1990, Massachusetts was one of the first states to implement a waste ban on easy-to-recycle and/or toxic materials. The first item banned from our waste stream was lead acid batteries.
Since then, many additional items have been added to the waste ban list, including recyclables (paper, glass, metal, and plastic containers), leaves and yard waste, large appliances, tires, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), automotive batteries, construction materials, and food waste.
Starting this November, textiles and mattresses will no longer be allowed to be dumped in landfills or incinerated. It’s all part of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s 2030 Solid Waste Master Plan, which aims to foster a circular economy by keeping materials with the potential for reuse and recycling out of our trash.
Starting November 1, instead of putting your mattress out with the trash, your city or town may be collecting them for recycling, either as curbside pick-ups or drop-offs at recycling centers. Many communities already have mattress recycling programs set up and many more will be starting soon.
While waste bans are designed with the best intentions in mind, they have not been as effective as they could be. Consider that in 2019, banned materials accounted for about 40% of the waste burned or landfilled in Massachusetts, according to a report from Zero Waste Massachusetts. The report said that of 5.5 million tons of waste in Massachusetts in 2019, more than 2 million tons of waste could have been recycled instead.
So how do we ensure that materials that are banned from the waste stream don’t end up in landfills and incinerators? As with many environmental challenges, the solution requires enforcement and education.
MassDEP simply does not have sufficient staffing levels to perform as many inspections as are required. And despite the success of its RecycleSmartMA campaign, the vast majority of Massachusetts residents remain confused (or apathetic) about what goes in their trash and what goes in their recycling bin. It is our hope that our next governor will give these challenges the attention and financial resources they deserve.
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Enviro-Newsworthy Updates...
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Thank you for reading our newsletter and please contact me if I can answer any questions you may have about our programs, launching a local KMB chapter in your community, or sponsorship opportunities.
Sincerely,
Neil Rhein, Founder & Executive Director
Keep Massachusetts Beautiful
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