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The word on the street is green so what are you doing to pump up your eco-cred? You know, keeping it real...real green. No greenwashing and no green posing. An eco-tattoo is one thing but you could also start an urban farm, if you felt so inclined. It's all good...as the kids say.
As the more radical kids say: Reclaim the streets (RTS). As a collective, RTS shares the ideal of community ownership of public spaces. In other words: get more green and get more street. Now.
10 Ways to Make Your Street More Green and Your Green More Street
1. Green shoes
What better way to start greening the street you walk on than by wearing earth-friendly shoes? This means recycled and it means vegan and it even means soy based ink on the friggin' shoebox. Oh yeah, keeping the soul on your soles also includes organic and Fair Trade varieties. Our favorite men's and women's casual sneakers.
Graffiti has been a vital form of artistic expression since the age of cave drawings. Since those spray paint cans are a toxic nightmare, how about using grass and moss to leave your tag? Get the recipe and get busy.
Brian Merchant calls it "a vandalistic act of subversion--using flowers and plants instead of rocks or spray paint as weapons." Hey, what's wrong with rocks? Anyway, guerilla gardening is a way to take back your street from all that asphalt. Follow the twelve basic steps to get started on your first foray behind enemy lines.
4. Seed bombs
Brian Merchant calls it "a vandalistic act of subversion--using flowers and plants instead of rocks or spray paint as weapons." Hey, what's wrong with rocks? Anyway, guerilla gardening is a way to take back your street from all that asphalt. Follow the twelve basic steps to get started on your first foray behind enemy lines.
4. Seed bombs
Once again, despite the military-sounding name, we're talking creation, not destruction. Seed bombs, says Jasmin Malik Chua, are "compressed balls of soil and compost that have been impregnated with wildflower seeds. Jettisoned onto barren, abandoned, or otherwise inhospitable land, including construction sites and abandoned lots." For some folks, it's an art form. For many others, it can be a way to feed a family. For environmentalists, seed bombing is a powerful form of political expression. Whatever your individual motivation might be, seed bombing is a form of non-violent direct action in which just about anyone can participate.
The Billboard Liberation Front states its ultimate goal as "nothing short of a personal and singular Billboard for each citizen." So ask yourself if the billboards on your street are green and if not, how soon can they be liberated?
6. Eco-poetry
Walt Whitman wrote eco-poems so why not you? And why stop there? There's eco-music and eco-art to fill your local streets with inspirational and passionate green magic...while still keeping it real, of course.
7. De-lawn
The single most irrigated crop in the United States is lawn. Yep, 40 million acres of it for which Americans collectively spend about $40 billion annually on seed, sod, and chemicals. Imagine, as Food Not Lawns does, each house not with a lawn but instead with a small organic "Victory" garden from which their family is fed.
Embrace the dark side and learn to once again appreciate the night sky. A "perpetual twilight" negatively affects the lives of birds and other animals along with humans, of course. "America's public spaces and commercial centers are purposely lit all night: rationalized as a weapon in the "war on crime", but showing, really, a rigid child-like fear of darkness," writes John Laumer at TreeHugger.com. Dark is green and dark is street.
9. Green alley
Don't forget to check the alleyways. Green alleys incorporate characteristics like permeable pavements (asphalt, concrete or pavers), open bottom catch basins, high-albedo pavement (to reflect sunlight instead of absorbing it), and recycled materials, such as concrete aggregate, slag and recycled tire rubber. If your alley's not green, write someone about it.
The mother of all street greening tactics, the community garden creates both greenness and solidarity. The American Community Gardening Association lists some of the benefits of community gardens: improves the quality of life for people in the garden, stimulates social interaction, encourages self-reliance, beautifies neighborhoods, produces nutritious food, preserves green space, reduces city heat from streets and parking lots, and provides opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural connections
