Swing by Tavin today for 15% off your purchase of anything in the store. Located at 1543 Echo Park Ave, Tavin is open until 7:00 pm today.
Tag Archive for: Earth Day
Today, April 22, marks the first day of the CA Cash for Appliances rebate program. If you buy an eligible appliance during the rebate period, recycle your old appliance with a certified recycler, and fill out the rebate form, you get $200 for refrigerators, $100 for clothes washers, and $50 for air conditioners. If you’re interested in the program, get started soon – it continues through May 23, or until the rebate funds run out. Just about anyone is eligible, just be sure to check out the website for details to make sure you’re one of them.
The LADWP also offers rebates through the Residential Drought Resistant Landscape Incentive Program when you apply online. The rebates will help you get high efficiency clothes washer units, residential drought resistant landscaping, high efficiency toilets, weather-based irrigation controllers, rotating sprinkler nozzles, and synthetic turf. Click here for more information on what the rebate offers.
We figured that Earth Day week would be a good time to address the subject of community gardens and urban farming in and around Echo Park.
First, if you are interested in finding a community garden near you, I suggest consulting the Los Angeles Community Garden Council website. There aren’t any LACGC-affiliated gardens in Echo Park itself, but there are a few located pretty close to us. The closest one is Jarden del Rio located in Elysian Heights.
The LA Community Garden Council also uses a site called GrowFriend that helps link up growers who need land with those who have land and don’t garden. If you go to the website and create a profile, you can view a map of what and who’s available in your area.
Second, some exciting news just came to us from Tara over at Silver Lake Farms. Since 2003, Tara has been growing flowers, herbs and vegetables in her backyard and selling them at local farmer’s markets. In 2009 L.A. City’s Department of Building and Safety told her that she would have to stop or pay a fine/serve six months in jail. They told her that what she was doing was illegal because it wasn’t “Truck Gardening.” This means that it’s illegal to sell anything grown in residential gardens unless it’s a vegetable. Read more
When I first moved to Echo Park a few years ago, one of my primary questions had to do with recycling in the neighborhood. I was concerned about some pretty basic stuff, like what to recycle in the blue bin, but I also wanted to make sure I wasn’t throwing away items that didn’t belong in either bin.
General Recycling in your blue bin:
- Styrofoam: This was my biggest surprise about L.A. County recycling. The Styrofoam containers and cups you get to-go from a restaurant are recyclable – just rinse it out so it’s nice and clean and you’re good to go.
- Clean, dry paper
- Cardboard Boxes and Chipboard (even your frozen food boxes that aren’t heavily coated in wax.)
- Flattened metals such as aluminum, tin, cans, etc. Rinse them out or clean them off. Empty paint and aerosol cans are also recyclable when you remove the caps.
- Glass bottles and jars
- Clean plastics 1 through 7
- Plastic bags and film bags such as grocery bags and clean film plastic.
- Miscellaneous plastics like coat hangers and even plastic swimming pools.
Click here to view the Bureau of Sanitation’s full list of do’s and dont’s for blue bin recycling.
Celebrate Earth Day with L.A. Works with a revitalization project at Elysian Park on Thursday, April 22 from 8:00 am – 12 noon.
“We are honored to restore and preserve the beauty of this park for our city,” says the website. “Project activities will include: weeding, mulching, raking, trimming, trail maintenance, trash pick up, graffiti removal and park bench refinishing.”
So far, 29 people of 150 spots are signed up to volunteer, and you can register here (you’ll receive specific directions once you sign up).
In honor of Earth Day, the Echo Park Film Center will be presenting the film Earth by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. Earth is a 1930 Soviet film about an insurrection by a community of farmers, following a hostile takeover by affluent landowners. “One of the undisputed masterpieces of the cinema, no single viewing of Earth will ever reveal all of its poetic brilliance… The story itself is secondary to the visually stunning and incredibly moving images that Dovzhenko creates.” Thursday, April 22 @ 8:00 pm
Also playing soon at the Echo Park Film Center:
Saturday, April 24 @ 8:00 pm – FLORESTINE COLLECTION FUNDRAISER
Helen Hill was an experimental filmmaker and film teacher who made many fun, inspiring, and original short films. At the time of her murder in New Orleans in January 2007, Helen was working on The Florestine Collection, a thirty-minute animation and live action documentary about 100 hand-sewn dresses she found in the trash on the side of the road. Her husband Paul Gailiunas decided to finish the movie as a 16 mm film and needs to raise funds for the last steps in the filmmaking process. Please join us to see a ten-minute preview of The Florestine Collection, as well as other short experimental films by Helen, and several of her filmmaking friends. Treats provided! Admission is $5.
Thursday, April 29 @ 8:00 pm – GIRLS N’ GHOULS
Feminism isn’t dead – it’s undead! EPFC, along with EdibleBrains Productions, presents an evening of female voices in zombie film, zombie music and zombie art. “The Dead Walk in Brooklyn” zombie film trilogy will be presented with live musical accompaniment by local Echo Park band PioneerShips. EdibleBrains is a bicoastal, female centric production company dedicated to pieces written and produced by women in the science fiction and horror genres for film, theater and multimedia art. Go here for more info.
For this post, we’ll momentarily drift away from Echo Park and into nearby Silver Lake. Sustainable Silver Lake is throwing an Earth Day event at Spaceland on Thursday, April 22 from 12 noon – 5:00 pm.
The event focuses on getting everyone to adopt just one more eco-friendly practice in our daily lives – from using re-usable grocery bags to turning off the water tap while brushing your teeth. Those pledges will be broadcast live on the web by Dublab during the event. KCRW’s Anthea Raymod, KPCC’s Alex Cohen and actor Ross Marquand will MC, and renowned photographer Doug Hill will document the event. Eco experts will also be present to share tips on how to green our lives, with local vendors providing green snacks.
To participate in this event, please contact Sustainable Silver Lake: info@sustainablesilverlake.org
To volunteer with Sustainable Silver Lake to help with this event and help make Silver Lake Sustainable, beautiful, and green, email membership@sustainablesilverlake.org
The group also hosts a free series called “Sustainable Saturdays” at the Silver Lake Library. The program provides guidance to residents about sustainable living, including talks and workshops by sustainable experts and documentary films about sustainable practices. Learn more here.
This Thursday, April 22 is Earth Day – so what are you doing to support a cleaner, healthier environment this year?
There are a lot of ways the community of Echo Park can make it easier for you to contribute to a cleaner environment, from recycling facilities, to community gardening and eco-friendly shopping and services. Throughout the week, we’ll be exploring all the ways Echo Park can make a difference in big and small ways.
If you have any tips for Earth Day activities going on in Echo Park, or would like to share your favorite ways that support a healthy environment and community, feel free to write us at info@echoparknow.com or fill out our online contact form.