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~By Margie Suozzo Keshav on wash duty. On October 14, GreenTown collected 100 bicycles for kids in need! A great group of volunteers washed, filled tires and repaired more than 50 gently-used bicycles, which were delivered to low-income students at Los Altos High School, Castro Elementary and Graham Middle Schools, where need is significant.The remaining 50 bikes collected went to Hope Services “Cycles of Hope” program to support disabled adults. Mark on bike repair. Community activist, Kathleen Santora, started the bike drive 21 years ago at St. Nicholas School. In 2012, Santora approached GreenTown about partnering on the bike drive and we haven’t looked back! Now in its 6th year hosting the Recycle Bike Drive, GreenTown has joined with Los Altos High School (LAHS) and the LAHS Green Team. LAHS generously provides the site for the bicycles as well as storage for the bicycles after the event. LAHS Green Team kicks in with help. And many volunteers from the community come out for this heartwarming event! The washing station. Many thanks to Performance Bicycle for providing a 25% discount on purchases of helmets and locks to accompany the kids’ bicycles.

– By Margie Suozzo Honorees: Sybil Cramer and Kathleen Santora. It’s a wrap! GreenTown supporters enjoyed a magical evening of connecting with environmentally-minded community members while enjoying family-style dining and bidding on a creative array of silent and live auction items. The event was held in the beautiful History Museum Courtyard on Saturday, October 20. It featured a delicious, sustainable, locally-sourced meal, along with local wine from Portola Vineyards and beer from Lagunitas. Many local businesses supported the event through sponsorships and in-kind donations. And County Supervisor, Joe Simitian, engaged the crowd as auctioneer. Thanks to our sponsors, in-kind donors, and attendees, we met our fundraising goal of $20,000! Two community Environmental Heroes were honored at this year’s event: Kathleen Santora has worked with GreenTown on water conservation issues and in 2012 partnered with GreenTown on an event that she started started 21 years ago – the ReCycle Bike Drive – which GreenTown continues to manage! Sybil Kramer founded the Go Green Committee of Los Altos High School (LAHS), part of the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), with the goal of getting the high school Green Certified – which she did! She has also been a stalwart promoter of all things green at LAHS and the parent liasion for the student Green Team. Michael Hanna Band. Thank you Kathleen and Sybil for all you do to make our community greener. In addition, Jana Schlansker, GTLA Board Member, was honored with an Environmental Hero Award for her incredible dedication to the mission of GreenTown, managing our database, keeping us organized, and making sure we cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s. Thank you Jana. We would limp without you! Thanks to our sponsors, donors and attendees for making the event spectacular! #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

By Gary Hedden From “Gee Whiz to Global Impact!” — that’s what Lindsay Hower with Nature Conservancy entitled a recent panel discussion. Held on the Google Campus, it featured the use of ‘big data’ to understand and help solve complicated real-world problems. Panelist Rebecca Moore, Executive Director of Google Earth Engine, showed us the power of maps. Rebecca Moore from Google, speaking on the panel, Oct. 10, 2018 For her, it started with a logging proposal near Lexington Reservoir, by Highway 17 on the road to Santa Cruz. The maps she created showed the true scope and impact of the project, and although it took years of effort by concerned citizens, the project was stopped and the land protected as a park. Monitoring Marine Fisheries Maps have also been put to work to protect our marine fisheries. Ships communicate to satellite for safety reasons, and this allows the tracking of fishing vessels. A recent proposal to set aside 4% of the Pacific Ocean fishing area off Costa Rica was met with an outcry from the fishing industry. Maps that showed where vessels actually fish made it possible to visualize the minimal impact of the restricted zone and this changed their opinion. Now fish in this protected zone are reproducing and adding to the fish stock along the entire coast. Tracking fishing vessels, monitoring the catch in real-time and sharing that information allows fishing vessels to target appropriate fish and avoid ‘bycatch’ loss. The use of AI (artificial intelligence) to assist in this analysis is increasingly helpful. The goal is to fish at sustainable levels. Animating our Landscapes Another effort by Google Earth was downloading the data collected by surveillance satellites since 1972. The Landsat images contain so much data that it was impossible for earlier generations of computers to manage. Now, using 66,000 powerful computers, all of the images have been merged into a timeline that shows in dramatic animation the changes to our global landscape – melting glaciers, expanding cities, loss of the rain forest and more. It’s a real call to action. Check out the work of the Nature Conservancy here.

By Gary Hedden You have seen them. A lot of them – Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler minivans. Waymo is an independent company under the Google umbrella that started testing in 2009 and became Waymo in 2016. They have completed 5 million miles of self-driven operation and billions of miles of simulated driving. Sydnee Journel at the Grant Park presentation. Their goal is safety. The bar is pretty low actually, as 94% of US crashes involve human error. The cars you see in Los Altos are usually self-driven; the operator is there in case of emergency as required by California law. Waymo has applied for a permit to begin self-driving operations here just like the operation in Phoenix, where Waymo is accident-free. They intend to provide a ride-hailing service similar to Lyft and Uber. In a presentation at Grant Park, October 17, Sydnee Journel, Local Policy & Community Manager, explained all of this and took questions. For example: What if the painted street lines are worn out and obscure? Waymo has mapped everything to very high precision and already knows the roads very well. What if there is a sudden unexpected move by a bicyclist? Their cars track objects far in advance, the length of three football fields, and they anticipate unexpected moves and are ready for them. Who covers the cost if there is an accident? Liability is being actively discussed with the insurance companies. Admiring the Waymo car. If an accident is about to happen, will Waymo make an ethical judgment about what to hit – for example, a baby buggy or a brick wall? Tough question, but Waymo expects far fewer accidents and will base such decisions on what/who is more vulnerable, not what/who is more valuable. We also got a chance to see, but not sit in or ride, the Waymo cars. #Google #selfdriving #Waymo #EVs #electricvehicles

~by Margie Suozzo On Wednesday, September 12, GreenTown hosted a screening of the documentary film, A Plastic Ocean, at the Los Altos Library with over 50 people in attendance. Tim Giacomini of Mission Trail Waste System also presented on the state of recycling, given changes in China’s recyclable materials import requirements. The film painted a bleak picture, indeed. In the end, much of the hope for getting ourselves out of this mess comes down to changes in our personal behavior and habits. Below are a few resources that may prove useful to you both for shifting your own behavior and for helping others shift theirs. GreenTown’s Waste Cheat Sheet – This handy reference guide is designed to help Los Altos residents know where their waste goes. Tim Giacomini of Mission Trail Waste System helped inform our interns to make the Cheat Sheet as current as possible. The front indicates which materials can be recycled, composted and trashed. The back provides an overview of how to re-think disposables. Feel free to print out copies and give them to your friends! A key takeaway: recyclables need to be CLEAN and DRY! Plastic Oceans Foundation – The makers of the film provide some useful resources on their website. My favorite are the research papers. You can find them here. A Plastic Free Life – Beth Terry, an unassuming and not particularly environmentally-inclined accountant, started a blog and then wrote a book about how to live without plastic. Her decision to do so was motivated by images, similar to those presented in the movie, of baby albatrosses with stomachs full of plastic. Least Waste – This is a store that features environmentally-friendly products. What I love is their Instagram page, which I recently discovered. It offers great tips on how to live a life with less waste. If you are an IG user, check it out. If you would like to borrow a copy of the movie or have any other resources you can recommend on waste reduction or reducing plastic, please email us at info@greentownlosaltos.org!

~by Kim Jelfs California has become the first state in the nation to address the issue of single-use plastic pollution with its straws on request policy [1].  Beginning January 1, 2019, dine-in, full-service restaurants can provide straws only when requested by customers. (Fast food restaurants are exempt). In his signing statement for Assembly Bill 1884, Gov. Brown drew attention to the devastating effects of plastic pollution on marine life. But some cities are taking even tougher measures – Santa Cruz, Seattle, Fort Myers, Vancouver, and San Francisco have all approved bans on plastic straws. Malibu has expanded the ban to include other plasticware like stirrers and cutlery [2] and our neighbors in Sunnyvale are considering a study issue to ban single-use plastics. These efforts are essential if we wish to reduce the estimated 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans every year [3]. References: https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-straws-california-2606762227.html https://www.malibucity.org/861/Plastic-Bans https://www.plastic-pollution.org

~by Margie Suozzo GreenTown Los Altos’ next ReCycle Bike Drive is coming Sunday, October 14! We are seeking YOUR donations. Please donate gently used bikes so that we can clean, repair and distribute them to kids in need. We will be collecting bikes from 10AM-2PM at Los Altos High School. Community activist, Kathleen Santora, started the bike drive 21 years ago at St. Nicholas School. In total, Santora and friends collected and distributed more than 600 bikes to Sacred Heart Community Services in San Jose for families in need! In 2012, Santora approached GreenTown about partnering on the bike drive and we haven’t looked back! Now in its 6th year hosting the Recycle Bike Drive, GreenTown is partnering with Los Altos High School (LAHS) and the LAHS Green Team. LAHS generously provides the site for the bike drive and both the Green Team and LAHS administration help us get the word out. Last year, we refurbished 80 bikes for kids in local schools. Many were distributed to low-income students at Castro School in Mountain View and at Los Altos High School. The rest went to Hope Services to help provide gainful employment for disabled adults. So clean out your garage and consider donating a gently used bike. Volunteers will be on hand at LAHS (near the U) Sunday, October 14, from 10AM to 2PM to accept donations. Stop by during that time with your underutilized bike. And make a student in need smile! Gently Used Bike Intake Guidelines* Was your bike stored outside? Dirty/dusty (some grease/dirt is OK) Bent wheels or damage to rims? Rust spots on a frame? (larger than a dime)? Is the chain/cogs rusty? Has the bike been in a crash? Are the tires cracked? Check sidewalls? Is the cable housing cracked or broken? Are the derailleurs bent or damaged? Can you move the seat post up/down? If “Yes” for any of the above questions, we cannot refurbish or repurpose your bike. You have the following options: We can collect it for Hope Services. You can have your waste hauler (Mission Trail Waste Systems or Recology South Bay) to collect the bike through their bulky items collection program. Or you can recycle the bike at: San Jose Metals Recycling, 1032 N. 10th Street Ranch Town Recycling, 775 Lincoln Ave Recycle Bike Drive-Repair Station Recycle Bike Drive-Margie and friends

~by Gary Hedden Started six years ago, GreenTown led another bike tour of historic homes and places in Los Altos Sept. 23. With almost thirty riders, many of them kids, this family-friendly bike ride of eight miles visited over twenty spots. We started at the History Museum, stopped at the grand Marini Estate, saw the homes of both Guy and Paul Shoup, visited Redwood Grove and the Winchester-Merriman house and so much more. Several homeowners came out to talk to us and offer their thoughts about living in such special places. We ended up back at the Museum for lunch and a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The bike group at the Museum. Margie Rauch speaking of her cottage nestled in a grove of redwoods. Jerry Behar telling us some tales of life in historic places. #historicbiketour #LosAltosHistory

By Eric Warmoth Lately, straws have dominated the national conversation surrounding plastic pollution in the media. While many people absentmindedly place them in their sodas, coffee, and smoothies without a second thought, they pose a grave danger to marine life and are among the top ten items found in beach cleanups every year. Across the world, cities, states, countries, and businesses are considering different types of legislation or actions in hopes of reducing or eliminating plastic straw and other single-use plastic consumption. An Impressive Worldwide Movement Major companies like Marriott hotels, Disney, and Starbucks have agreed to phase out plastic straws in their businesses, while California looks to adopt an “on request only” policy. England hopes to implement limiting straws and plastic stirrers across the whole United Kingdom in the future, while Malibu, California and Seattle, Washington have fully implemented plastic straw bans. Individuals and powerful organizations worldwide have begun realizing the simplicity and ease of eliminating plastic straws and taken action. Lonely Whale, described as an “ideas incubator” by Director of Strategic Partnerships Emma Riley, took ownership of this movement on social media as part of its overall goal to create a healthy, plastic-free ocean. Riley explained that she hopes to utilize entertainment media and a coalition of influential people to change the current conversation and set the stage for future action. They were the organizers behind the first-of-its-kind citywide campaign called “Strawless in Seattle” that led to the city’s ban, and have been strong supporters of similar legislation in San Francisco and New York City, establishing heavy presences in both cities to support rallies and give supporters a voice. But while major businesses and cities are pledging against plastic straws, how do we reach our local towns and restaurants? GreenTown’s Skip the Straw Campaign GreenTown Los Altos’ “Skip the Straw” campaign has aimed at doing just that. To date, we have connected with 11 businesses to discuss their current policies and query them about their support for decreasing plastic straw use. Several businesses, such as Bumble, Morsey’s Farmhouse, Pompeii Ristorante, The Post, and The Sweet Shop, already offer straws on request or paper straws for certain applications (e.g., water glasses). Concerns over Customer Service and Price But many others feel that a switch to an “on request only” straws policy  will be viewed as a decrease in their level of customer service. Other concerns include price: paper straws do cost more money than their plastic counterparts; and longevity: some restaurant managers were concerned that paper straws get soggy too quickly. GreenTown addressed the latter concern through research into straws that are long-lasting, which we share with the businesses we visit. Among the best products, Aardvark Straws has several excellent options that are long-lasting and come in form factors that businesses desire. Consumers Have a Key Role to Play But how can we address business concerns about service and price? It’s up to consumers. If we can’t change the supply, then we have to change the demand. If every person who agrees with the goals of our Skip the Straw campaign–reducing plastic pollution–could talk to a waiter or waitress at just one restaurant, we would begin to see a difference. Restaurant owners are very responsive to their customers. If customers demand no straw or paper alternatives to plastic straws, change is possible. Concerned that age will prevent you from being able to have these conversations with restaurants and business owners? Will business owners listen to kids who aren’t their main paying customers? Here are some examples of kids who have helped orchestrate major impacts and real change: 17-year-old Shelby O’Neil is the girl who made it her mission to get Alaskan Airlines to ban plastic straws and stirrers. Through her creation of the company Junior Ocean Guardians, she helped them to move towards a solution. The airline agreed to switch to eco-friendly straws and wooden stirring sticks by the end of 2018, starting a trend that spread to American Airlines and has the potential to convert other major airlines to the same environmental cause. 9-year-old Molly Steer in Australia started the Straw No More Project, convincing 16 schools across Queensland, starting with her own, to join her campaign and pledge to stop using plastic straws. She also had the chance to give a TEDx talk at James Cook University, which has amassed over 42 thousand views, spreading the no straw message far and wide. As consumers of any age, we have the power to change the course of our environment for future generations. Please join GreenTown and Skip the Straw! Email us for more info or if you’d like to get involved in our local movement.

With all this talk about the perils of plastic straws, you might want to consider purchasing a reusable straw. Epicurious did the work to review those they found were best. Check out their reviews here.

by Gary Hedden GreenTown Los Altos hosted another successful Energy Day on the Green August 19. The highlight was the give-away of 20 electric chargers to some very happy electric car owners. GreenTown wants your next car to be electric and this is one way to promote the idea. Thank you PowerFlex, a Los Altos company, for the generous donation. We also had HomeIntel telling us about their energy saving program that can save 10-12% on your gas and electricity bill. They gave smart power strips to people who signed up for an audit of their energy use. Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE), our provider of fossil-fuel-free electricity, was there to answer questions and tell us about some new programs heading our way next year. We had solar panel installers SunWork, Slingshot, and Clean Solar, Acterra with information on smart energy and water use, electric cars, electric bikes and more. We also had the always popular solar cooker baking some fresh cookies and coffee cake. It all made for a very fun day! Derek Lee with PowerFlex giving away some chargers. James Tuleya talking about home energy audits. SVCE representatives Julia and Joanna. Gary with summer interns Lia and Gillian.

If you were anywhere near the Los Altos Library Sunday afternoon on June 24, you’d have seen a group of about 50 people walking around talking about trees and the food they produce as part of GreenTown’s Second Annual Edible Tree Walk. Greentown’s executive director, Kris Jensen, was joined by local food historian and policy expert Peter Ruddock and “Silicon Valley’s Favorite Personal Chef” Joni Sare for an in-depth walk and talk about the abundant food growing all around us. We started with a history lesson by Los Altos Park Maintenance Supervisor Chris Costanzo who spoke about Los Altos’ Heritage Apricot Orchard and then walked across San Antonio Rd. to begin our walk. We stopped at trees along the way to talk about their edible parts—from the expected apricots, pears, citrus and so much more, to the unexpected—syrup made from birch sap and maple leaves cured and made into tempura in a traditional Japanese manner. What made the walk especially fun was the expertise among our walkers. We learned a lot from these friendly folks. Our walk ended in front of DeMartini’s Fruit Stand with an encouragement to purchase some of the incredible Blenheim apricots grown in our very own orchard! Here’s some information we talked about along the way: For those interested in purchasing organic, heirloom fruit trees for your garden, consider purchasing them online from Trees of Antiquity Be sure to check out Jam for Good, a fun local group that makes jam to benefit kids in Nicaragua If you’re interested in learning more about the slow food movement, check out our co-sponsor Slow Food South Bay and their upcoming Tour de Coupa bike-ride that visits backyard chicken coops If you’re interested in taking some incredible cooking classes, Joni Sare offers classes That include Italian, Spanish, French, Thai. Check out Slow Food’s Ark of Taste, especially the Blenheim Apricot, which was boarded locally. Transition Palo Alto holds a range of events including films and lectures on 4th Fridays, quarterly Share Faires – Goods, Skills and More – and many others.  You can sign up for the monthly newsletter by e-mail. Transition Palo Alto also sponsors 3 regular Garden Shares: 1st Saturdays, 12-1, Soil & Water Garden, Heritage Park, Mountain View 2nd Saturdays, 10-11, Mar-Oct, Portola Valley Town Hall 4th Sundays, 11-12, except Dec, Charles Street Gardens, Sunnyvale You can get more information and/or sign up for Garden Share listservs by e-mail. Peter Ruddock will be leading a private group to pick a prolific grapefruit tree in Menlo Park at 10:00 AM on July 5.  There is room for others to join. Please e-mail him for more information – PeterRuddock@yahoo.com And don’t forget Joni’s amazing recipe: Valencia-Orange-Cake.pdf