Last year I wrote a series of columns in Grid about several ways the City of Philadelphia could expand composting. While I have had some productive conversations with City officials over the last year, I have seen no indication that they are prepared to begin any large scale residential composting pilot program in the near
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The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddington neighborhood of West Philadelphia is getting back to its roots. After sitting abandoned, accumulating trash, construction debris and dumped car parts for over a decade, a new project is in progress to restore the space to a new iteration of its past life as a
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The air in the Delaware Valley’s industrial corridor doesn’t always smell nice. Major odor events assaulted the noses of Delaware County residents in 2019, 2020 and, most recently, last fall. During the 2019 event, Clean Air Council director of programs Eve Miari tried to check air quality readings from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
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Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups, plastic bottles and sodden cardboard that decorate the sewer inlets underneath Philadelphia, filmmaker Melissa Langer’s 2025 documentary, “In Excess,” probes into the unseen places where the city’s litter ends up. Spoiler alert: When it comes to the city’s trash, there is no throwing it “away.” “Every object
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A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants. These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia. But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the
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At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end. That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise
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Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment. After graduating from Temple University with
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Will you find yourself alone again for Valentine’s Day? It can be hard to find the right someone, but you’re not alone. Female oriental cockroaches can also have a hard time finding a mate. But when one gives up on finding a male to settle down with, she moves on to plan B: The female
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It was going to be transformational. A place for neighbors to shelter during extreme heat or cold. To receive relief and support after natural disasters. To learn about large forces like climate change and environmental justice and understand how they intersect in this corner of South Philly called Grays Ferry. The building would host teach-ins
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On Feb. 11, 2025, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz released a database of 3,483 National Science Foundation grants that the Senate Commerce Committee, headed by Cruz, described in a press release as “woke DEI grants.” Cruz had previously used the list of grants to prepare an October 2024 report claiming that the Biden administration had politicized
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