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[part 1 of 4]

Show # 5 Air Date: December 2007

“Our town is greener than your town!” Connie and Greg visit the township of Montclair, NJ to see how they have become one of the most sustainable towns in the Garden State. Our hosts make a few adjustments of their own and Connie attends Whole Foods in West Orange NJ for their first ever night of Eco-Fashion.

Episode 5 – Part 1 of 4

Greg and Connie meet with Montclair’s environmental coordinator, Gray Russell to discuss the past and current refinements that the town of Montclair, New Jersey is making in order to ensure that their town reaches the highest level of sustainable living. Here are some of the things the town of Montclair and our hosts are doing to live more sustainably…

Montclair changed the routine of garbage disposal to one stop per house every garbage day, opposed to the previous three-stop routine. This dramatically increased the participation in recycling.

Montclair switched the weekly paper collection for recycling from different categories such as magazines, junk mail, newspapers, etc. into just one category for all recyclable papers. This also dramatically increased participation in paper recycling by residents and earns the township $100 per ton!

Green Tip!

You can save trees and save your town money by getting off junk mail lists completely. Just go to the website catalogchoice.org . Answer a few questions about the catalogs that you no longer want to receive, and they handle the cancellations for you.

Host Transformation!

Greg and Connie invest in a paper shredder for their home office. This enables them to recycle far more paper than they could before. The paper shredder is a good green tool to own.

Want to learn more about the Essex County incinerator discussed in Gray’s interview? Visit Covanta Energy, NJ’s largest waste to energy facility: covantaholding.com