Reuse and Renovation in an Oakland Garden

Grant Minix and Michael Geltz are such good recyclers that their garbage company, Waste Management, gave them a $60 credit and six months' free service. Minix and Geltz take out a single bag of garbage once a month.

The waste-not ethic so evident inside the house has also been put to work outside it, where Minix and Geltz have built a happy, opportunistic garden from reclaimed materials. They estimate that 60 percent of their garden—plants, benches, ornaments, and so on—is material they personally recovered or recycled. The cost to renovate their entire lot, which is just under 6,000 square feet, was less than $5,000.

Energy Saving Tips in the Garden

Saving energy may not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking about your garden, but it is one of the many benefits of being a Bay-Friendly gardener. There are several ways to conserve energy in the garden including:

Compost Bins: Building A Bay-Friendly Teaching Tool at Ocean View Elementary!

With the support of StopWaste.Org’s 4Rs Student Action Project Program, which rolled out this 2010-2011 school year, 5^th graders throughout Alameda County are taking action to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot at school. Teachers are using the theme, “The 4Rs & My Foodshed” to address the role of food scraps in our waste stream, the consequences of sending organics to the landfill and the importance of closing the food production loop by composting. The curriculum follows CA State Standards to teach 5^th graders about