Philly

Not ready to bite the bullet and purchase a bike yet? You can now give it a spin by renting one in Fairmount Park! Today, Mayor Nutter, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and Fairmount Park Conservancy welcomed Wheel Fun Rentals to Fairmount Park at 3 locations: Lloyd Hall (Boathouse Row), Love Park & Bathey House/Trolley Car Cafe in East Falls. These bike rentals won't be strictly benefiting (Find out more about these new wheels after the jump!)

'Twas the night before Philly Beer Week... And all through the town... We woke up from our dream and got psyched to drink locally! Woohoo! OK, so Philly Beer Week  starts today, June 1st.  This glorious week (and a few days...) is a 10 day celebration of our amazing beer-drinking city... Rather than importing brews, let's stay on our love all things local tangent and enjoy just a few of the local & sustainable beverages of the week:

Mayor Michael Nutter & the Philadelphia Streets Department announced a new program, "Clean Kitchen, Green Community" campaign today. The goal is to "assess how food waste disposers can help the city work towards its goal of becoming the greenest city of America." Residents in Point Breeze and West Oak Lane are going to participate in a test campaign to measure the amount of waste diverted from landfills by using a garbage disposal. InSinkErator, the world's "leading manufacturer of food waste disposals" is partnering with the city to provide 100 homeowners in each neighborhood with a free disposal & installation by a local plumber. I call Bullshit. Find out why this program isn't as green as advertised after the jump!

With so many cell phone upgrade options available every 2 years or so, it's easy to go through cell phones like wildfire. According to eRecyclingCorps’ co-founder & CEO, David Edmondson, 1.2 billion devices will be sold around the world in 2012, but only 1 percent will be recycled. It's important to recycle Cell & smart phones since they're made from precious metals, copper, and plastics which are energy-heavy to mine & manufacture. Trying to clean out your old cell-phone closet? Here's some of the places you can recycle those old Nokia's & iPhone 3's in the 215:

Is your city garden a complete urban oasis? The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) is now accepting applications for the 2012 City Gardens Contest. You can enter in either

May 12th -19th is Philly Love Your Park Week - a week dedicated to celebrating Philadelphia's park system. Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, the Fairmount Park Conservancy, and Pennslyvania Horticulture Society have joined forces to bring Philadelphians eight days of diverse park events. Out-of-towners may think of Philly as an urban jungle, but we're lucky to have over 100 area parks to meet and exceed our "great outdoors" quota. There's a laundry list of park events happening over the next week, read on for some of the highlights...

Dear Mayor Nutter, Yesterday was a great day. I woke up at 6 AM to run with 39,999 of my closest friends down Broad Street. It made up for missing the Supermoon thanks to a bunch of clouds on Saturday evening. Given that this was my fourth time for the Broad Street Run, I was pretty calm awaiting the start gun. But I heard your proclamation that you wanted to make Broad Street the biggest 10 miler in the WORLD. Kudos, Mayor.  I appreciate trying to get Philly on the map. I even high-fived you after I crossed the start line in support of your ambition, Greenworks and more. Yet running yesterday reminded me of how much waste is created from one (average) 1:40 minute run. Especially when 40K people run.  Since you've already proclaimed we want to make Philadelphia America's Greenest City by 2015, why can't we combine the two ideas and make Broad Street Run the Biggest Environmentally-friendly Philly Race?!? Here are a few observations of the Broad Street Run and suggestions on how we can green-i-fy both the expo & race:

Stop hating on SEPTA... Philadelphia's public transit has just been given props! Walk Score, a website that rates the walkability score (to rank where you can drive less & live more), ranked Philadelphia 5th for residents' access to public transit with a transit score of (Find out why we ranked & what this means, after the jump!)

Looks like the city is continuing to "Unlitter Us!" - this time with damaged bikes clogging up the racks. The Philadelphia Streets Department announced that they're removing "abandoned' bicycles throughout Center City & surrounding areas starting in early summer.  "Abandoned bikes" are classified as: (find out more, after the jump!)