The Keep This Handbook

RECYCLING

All six towns have the same rules for what can and can’t be recycled.

CAN

METAL CANS

• Primarily food and beverage cans • Empty and clean wash

PLASTIC CONTAINERS

• Bottles, jars, jugs and tubs • Empty, wash clean • NO caps or lids

GLASS CONTAINERS

• Bottles and jars • Empty, wash clean • NO caps or lids • NO ceramics, NO window panes

PAPER AND PAPERBOARD

• Office paper, junk mail, newspaper, magazine, paperboard boxes • Empty and flatten, NO shredded paper • NO pizza boxes • NO books with bindings

CORRUGATED CARDBOARD

• Empty and flatten • Remove packing tape • NO pizza boxes • NO waxed boxes

TRANSFER STATION RULES • Aquinnah, Chilmark, Edgartown, West Tisbury

• Dual sorting system • Cardboard and paper go together • Plastic containers, tin cans, aluminum cans and glass go together

• Oak Bluffs (local drop-off)

• Dual sorting system • Cardboard, newspaper and paper go together • Everything else single stream

• Tisbury (local drop-off)

• Dual sorting system • Cardboard and newspaper together • Everything else single stream

• Oak Bluffs Bruno’s Drop-Off

• Dual sorting system • Separate cardboard • Everything else single stream

Bruno’s and ABC’s Pick-Up Recycling Rules:

• Single bin, don’t need to separate materials

Aspirational Recycling

• If you’re unsure about whether some thing is or is not recyclable, it’s better to throw it out. If recycling bins are contaminated with too many non-recyclable materials, the entire bin will be thrown out. “When in doubt, throw it out.” • ABC’s & Bruno’s • No-waste policy: if there is any nonrecyclable material, bin is thrown out • MVRD • Similar, but more materials-dependent. Food waste and oil contamination are more no-tolerance, whereas materials like plastic bags and styrofoam are more tolerated. • The biggest mistake Don Hatch of MVRD sees: • Putting plastic bags, plastic wrap or cellophane plastic in recycling

COMPOSTING

CAN NOT

• Recyclables in a garbage bag • Garbage • Plastic bags or plastic wrap • Food or liquid • tyrofoam items or packaging materials • Clothing or linens • Tanglers (hoses, wires, chains) • Electronics

HOW-TO • ACCEPTED ITEMS

• All meat and fish (including bones, lobster shells and egg shells) • All dairy • Grains, nuts, seeds, flour products • Fruits and vegetables • Tea bags (staples removed) • Coffee grounds and coffee filters Recycle, compost, volunteer, • All flowers • Paper napkins and paper towels • Unless they have toxic products write your rep, that will not break down with high buy secondhand. heat on them • UNACCEPTABLE ITEMS • Large amounts of oyster, clam, The • little neck, mussel shells. Contact the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group to recycle these! Fat/oil/grease

‘Keep-This’

Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook

• Small amounts in the form of leftover prepared foods is fine • Compostable serviceware • IGI piloting this in August • Plastic or trash of any kind • Compost buckets available for free at IGI’s offices in West Tisbury or at town transfer stations. To request a bucket, email office@igimv.org or call 508-687-9062 • Drop-off locations (currently all free) • Transfer stations in all towns except Aquinnah • Chappy ferry dock • IGI’s farm • Best way to reduce food waste is still to shop and cook mindfully, repurpose foods that are close to expiring (smoothies! soup!), and even reorganize your fridge to be more aware of perishable items

VOLUNTEERING

• Polly Hill Arboretum grounds volunteer Volunteers are welcomed to work with staff staff at the 70-acre West Tisbury public garden on activities like planting, pruning, weeding and mulching. Volunteers can learn more about gardening and apply their new skills to their own landscape. PHA will provide tools, but volunteers should bring gloves and wear outdoor attire. Volunteers welcome from 9 am - 12 pm on June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2 and October 7. Contact Ian Jochems for more information at ian@pollyhillarboretum.org. Have fun getting in touch with your green thumb! • Glean with Island Grown Initiative Located in West Tisbury, Island Grown Initiative is a non-profit organization that works to build a regenerative and equitable food system on Martha’s Vineyard. Volunteers can help Island Grown Initiative harvest fresh local produce for Islanders in need. No experience is needed as your field captain will provide a harvest demonstration and tools. Gleaning lasts for around two hours and volunteers may even keep a share of the harvest for themselves. To sign up, go to igimvg. org/volunteer.php. Happy harvesting! • Great Pond Foundation The Great Pond Foundation is a nonprofit organization focuses on enhancing the health of the Edgartown Great Pond. While volunteer opportunities are currently limited due to COVID-19, future volunteers are encouraged to assist with their Ecosystem Monitoring Program and educational outreach events. Potential volunteer opportunities include aiding in water quality and biodiversity data collection, conducting surveys of pond species, helping staff with demonstrations of scientific concepts and assisting with science communication. These opportunities are especially perfect for anyone with an interest or background in STEM! For updates on volunteer opportunities, email science@ greatpondfoundation.org. • Community Greenhouse of Martha’s Vineyard Community Greenhouse of MV is a community organization in Oak Bluffs to gather and grow food and plants and learn together. They have a range of year-round volunteer opportunities for all mobilities and level of expertise. On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am - 12 pm, volunteers can work inside and outside to help with weeding, pruning, seeding, planting and beautifying plants - really any activity that nurtures thousands of beautiful plants and vegetables. Members have the added benefit of picking fresh produce! There is no need to sign up for these days, one can simply show up. Toni Kauffman, who helps with volunteers, has described this opportunity as “soil therapy,” so make sure to check it out!

REPRESENTATIVES

Got something to say about pending legislation? Want your voice heard?

STATE

• Governor Charlie Baker

617-725-4005; Twitter: @MassGovernor; Instagram: massgovernor

• State Senator Julian Andre Cyr

617-722-1570; Julian. Cyr@masenate.gov; Tw: @JulianCyr;

• State Representative Dylan A. Fernandes

617-722-2013; dylan.fernandes@mahouse.gov; Tw: @RepDylan; Insta: dylan1fernandes

FEDERAL

• Senator Ed Markey

617-565-8519; Tw: @EdMarkey; Insta: edmarkey

• Senator Elizabeth Warren

617-565-3170; Tw: @SenWarren; Insta: elizabethwarren

• Representative William R. Keating

508-771-6868; Tw: USRepKeating

SECOND-HAND STORES

Reuse, repurpose, refashion.

Chicken Alley Thrift Shop

38 Lagoon Pond Rd, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 Hours: Sunday - Monday, closed; Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm Sells, nearly everything! Clothing, furniture, dishware, glasses, decor, knickknacks, etc.

Martha’s Closet

79 Beach Rd #9, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 Hours: Sunday - Monday, closed; Tuesday - Friday, 11 am - 5 pm (Sat. to 6) Sells women’s clothing

Second Treasures MV

61 Beach Rd, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568

Hours: Sunday, 12 pm - 5 pm; Monday, 10 am - 5 pm; Tuesday - Wednesday, closed; Thursday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm

Sells antiques, collectibles, jewelry and artwork

Want something else included? Email us at editor@bluedotliving.com

Continued from page 48 with no discharges to land, water, or air, that threaten the environment or human health.”

While most of the products I was using were “clean,” they were not good for the planet. Many of my favorite creams were packaged in plastics such as highdensity polyethylene (HDPE No. 2), which is the most commonly recycled plastic (think shampoo bottles), and low-density polyethylene (LDPE No. 4), which is much harder to recycle, and is used in things like squeeze bottles. As most know, even if plastics can be recycled, chances are they are not, even if you put it in your recycling bin. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, only 8.7 percent of U.S. plastics are recycled. Furthermore, all plastics break down, pollute our land and water systems, and release harmful greenhouse gases, including ethylene, carbon, and methane, which all add to our climate change problem.

Before you freak out and say, “I can’t possibly give up this or that,” please know that moving toward less waste is the goal here. But so is having great hair and skin! So the motto is: Progress, not perfection.

For instance, I tried bar shampoo. Too many kinds to name here, but some left my hair feeling like I’d stripped it with turpentine, while others felt like I’d put a gallon of coconut oil in for some kind of deep-conditioning project. I’m sorry to say that I have not found a single bar that works, at least for my very straight, very fine, very flat hair. But I did find a shampoo I love that is clean, and is manufactured by a company that is dedicated to being carbon-negative. I also tried jar deodorant and deodorant in a cardboard tube, fighting pollution in two ways. And I checked out dental hygiene products that include charcoal or Eco-Dent floss, toothpaste tablets, and natural toothbrushes. No plastic in my mouth! The tablets had sugar alternatives and flavors that were overwhelmingly sweet. The natural toothbrushes and floss both left bits between my teeth. Yuck. I did find some face oils that smell lovely, come in glass, and give me dewy rather than greasy skin. But the one I loved most, which was given to me, costs a whopping $185. All in all, the process included a lot of trial and error, and some dollars spent.

As I was sorting and sampling, the final and maybe best beauty philosophy emerged: Use less. There is now much scientific evidence that argues that all of our skin cleansing, polishing, and layering of products is actually harmful to our skin, breaking down our body’s own protective acid mantle. The skin, which is our body’s largest organ, accounts for about 8 pounds of an average person’s weight, and is about 22 square feet. Our skin is our shield, our sensor, our factory for transferring vitamin D, converting calcium into healthy bones, and it literally holds us together. Just like our guts, the skin has its own ecosystem. And if we disrupt it with all this scrubbing, swabbing, slathering, we dismantle the skin’s ability to find balance, and we just make things worse. James Hamblin’s book Clean: The New Science of Skin talks about this in fantastic, and entertaining, detail. Hamblin has not showered in more than five years. I’m not ready to go this far, but the fundamental idea of letting my skin be makes sense. I do not futz around with my other organs — can you imagine exfoliating your lungs? — so why am I messing with my skin?

My grandmother did little to interfere with her skin’s microbiology. She splashed her face with cold water in the morning, and wiped her face with a warm washcloth at the end of the day. That’s it. And she was, by anyone’s standards, a knockout. My mom, who is 74 and is also gorgeous, uses maybe one cream and some nondescript soap. So maybe less really is more?

Beyond shutting down my birthday plans, the pandemic also arrested my 25 years of dedicated blondifiying hair dyeing. Talk about harmful chemicals! Until recently, many hair dye products had lead acetates in them. Yes, that lead. Many still contain ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, and paraphenylenediamine (PPDA), which is a common allergen, and found in both cheap and expensive salon products. Researchers at the North Carolina State’s College of Textiles and Department of Chemistry worked with their Max Weaver Dye Library to create a database of more than 300 substances found in hair dye and to look at ways to make hair color safer and more sustainable. So it might be worth asking your hair person about what kind of chemicals they are dumping on your skin and scalp and into your body every six to eight weeks (if you are on a root maintenance program). The most unexpected thing happened to me when I stopped the dye addiction: People started telling me I look younger.

of that? Try this instead

When one begins to think about new ways of living, there is such a pull to replace the bad with something that might be better. Believe me, I know! And while that is not the general tack we are espousing, there are times when it is completely and utterly necessary. For instance, in the bathroom, toilet paper. It really is a must-have, mustuse situation. Here are a few brands we like that are a bit gentler on the planet:

Seventh Generation toilet paper is made from 100 percent recycled paper and whitened without chemical bleach.

Who Gives a Crap toilet paper:

Beyond its amazing packaging, which somehow makes the purchase of toilet paper an event, it gives 50 percent of profits away toward supporting sanitation efforts — a.k.a. toilets — to communities that need them around the world.

Marcal: While a lot less snazzy than Who Gives a Crap, Marcal is also made with 100 percent recycled paper, and nonchemical bleach, and does the job.

Or, you can invest in a bidet attachment for your toilet! Most attachments cost between $250 and $300, and are easy to install. We like the Tushy.

Continued from page 25 pollution and algae blooms, Earle Barnhart and Hilde Maingay are mainstays. Pioneers of urine diversion toilets, Barnhart and Maingay learned in 2005 that Falmouth was planning to spend $900 million on sewers over roughly the next half-century. They teamed up with State Representative Matt Patrick, who urged the town to adopt urine diversion systems as a much cheaper way to address the nitrogen pollution that was ravaging the Cape ponds. Barnhart and Maingay operated the nonprofit Green Center. Their Eco-Toilet Summits highlighted current technology and best practices. “We calculated that the cheapest and best solution to the Cape’s wastewater nitrogen problem was for 50 percent of the population — primarily the men — to adopt urine-diverting urinals,” explains Barnhart. “That alone would completely solve the nitrogen problems in many of the Cape’s towns that were otherwise planning several billion dollars in sewers.”

Eventually, the town ran a twoyear program testing roughly a dozen eco-toilets. The conclusion was clear. Urine-diverting toilets were extremely effective at reducing nitrogen in the Cape’s groundwater. Urine contains most of the nitrogen and phosphorus in human waste. By diverting it into a separate holding tank, where it’s stored for pickup and potential use as fertilizer, it’s kept out of the groundwater and, therefore, the bodies of water. What’s more, eco-toilets dramatically reduce the amount of water required for flushing, require little energy, and eliminate the costs and disruption of infrastructure associated with sewer systems.

Ultimately, though the project itself did what it intended — showed that the use of eco-toilets could remedy much of the pollution problems on the Cape and could also work on the Vineyard — as a report later noted, “Very few Falmouth homeowners agreed to participate in the program.”

This finding doesn’t surprise Bradley Kennedy, research associate at the Rich Earth Institute in Battleboro, Vt., which Barnhart and Maingay set up to continue their research.

“I think the biggest hurdle is just people’s awareness that it’s an option,” says Kennedy. “And people’s resistance to trying new things or just being uncomfortable with something unfamiliar. Most people when they try it just say, Oh, that was pretty normal. Not a big deal.”

A good entry point, she says, would be for people to install urinals, which already separate out urine from solid waste, though plumbing would have to send the urine to a separate holding tank where it can be removed. At the Rich Earth Institute, they have a lineup of farmers eager for the urine, which they use as fertilizer.

But, she admits, it’s a tough sell, and there are regulatory barriers too. But, she says, “If you’re willing to think outside the box, you can make it happen.” (Want to try it? You can read more about the process on the Rich Earth Institute site, richearthinstitute.org.)

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission reports that ‘about 64 percent of the Vineyard’s land area is made up of watersheds that drain into nitrogen-sensitive coastal ponds, either through runoff or groundwater flow.’

The way we live on land is harming the health of our water. By controlling nitrogen, we can vastly protect aquaculture.

SO NOW WHAT?

Continued from page 63

Vicious cycle: Excess nitrogen can lead to water acidification, making it harder for mollusks to build their shells, which can dissolve in too acidic water. While all these efforts are to be lauded, Doug Cooper points to things that get in the way, including the impact of waterfowl and their nitrogen-saturated poop.

“I have heard scientists say the contribution by waterfowl, especially with the climate warmer, we have geese and ducks and cormorants overwintering here, where in the old days things would freeze up and these birds would go South,” says Cooper. “There’s probably a larger contribution than ever before just from waterfowl.”

“We can do an awful lot managing wastewater and septic systems, and at the end of the day may not get the full value of water quality improvement in the estuaries,” he says. “That’s my own guess, but I might be wrong.”

Green-Beach, for one, thinks he is. “We’re not going to see it right away, because the groundwater takes a while to travel through the sediment into the pond,” she says. “So we might not see benefits for 15 to 20 years.” But, she feels confident, they’re coming.

Sheri Caseau with the commission believes the efforts “show a lot of promise.” She hopes each of us will do what we can: Eschew fertilizer, update our septic systems, support the work being done by others. She points to the Cape’s severely polluted ponds as a cautionary tale if we don’t continue to fight hard for our coastal waters. “We can still save them,” she says. “We’re not to the point we can’t recover.”

Continued from page 17 energy, which we then take in and, ultimately, we will give back out. Somehow, everything we do next is affected by that bliss we are experiencing now. So I believe it’s actually canceling out any negative effects the wood is doing to us and to the planet.

Joel: I know what you’re saying.

Me: Good. So if you take away that pleasure, which I know you call indulgence, then you’ve got robots — unfeeling, emotionally inaccessible, unevolved, hollowed-out automatons walking around in rarified and purified air.

Joel: But pollution is pollution.

Me: I’m not talking about hedonistic living — only-forour-own-gratification pleasure. I mean being responsible, loving beings, but having some soul food should not be that wrong.

Joel: I’m not saying it’s wrong. I love the fire, too. It’s just that if everyone cut back, which I know they never will, on meat because of the methane; on water waste, on driving stupid, big vehicles …

Me: Easy there, big fella. You can’t take people’s big cars away from them till they know what harm they are doing. And you can’t call the vehicles stupid, because then you’re calling the people driving them stupid. You’re just frustrated because you’ve been watching the beautiful blue ball die for all the years I’ve known you, and you’ve had it. So instead of insulting people, educate them.

Joel: That’s the thing. It’s too late. I’m afraid it’s too late.

The man sounds like a one-issue ogre. He’s not. Last week a friend of ours came over with her broken toaster. He worked on it for two hours. She could buy the Westinghouse company, but he fixed her toaster for her. He volunteers with kids at a school near where he works. Anyone who has questions about their ideas for inventions and patents, he spends time with. He’s the best, most loving grandfather. Plus, I leave my Christmas lights on day and night all year long, and I drive a Volvo, not a Prius. But whenever anyone announces their plans to fly somewhere, he is quick to tell them there are close to a hundred thousand flights in the air every day. And then he gently looks away.

A plane overhead interrupts our conversation. My husband looks up and says, with despair in his voice, “Do you realize there are close to a hundred thousand flights in the air every day? Every day, Nance. A Boeing 747 uses one gallon of fuel every second. A flight from Logan to LAX puts out about 400,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide!”

His head is in his hands now. “It’s too late. It’s just too late.”

I love this man who cares so much about the planet, and I don’t like myself for needing to travel to this fancy-schmancy celebration.

I look at my poor man. Now is obviously not the right time. I take the gorgeous invitation and slip it inside last week’s newspaper. I can’t throw it out. Not yet, anyway.