Why the City Is Promoting Conservation With 100,000 Paper Doorhangers
Plenty of folks at this point (hat tips: Scott's Take, DCist) have pointed out that the Mayor's Conservation Corps---part of the city summer jobs program---have spent their first days on the job handing out paper doorhangers.
Many of them have ended up on the street and sidewalks, and then there's the obvious irony of promoting a green initiative by distributing tons of thick paperstock around town.
LL called up the D.C. Department of the Environment, which runs the Green Summer Jobs Program, and asked spokesperson Alan Heymann about the doorhangers and the ironical elements at play.
The point of the doorhangers, Heymann says, is "to announce to the community that the conservation corps is going to be out doing this type of work" and to solicit project suggestions from residents.
But why use dead trees to do so?
"Not every resident of the District of Columbia is on a listserve or a blog," he explains.
In any case, they're printed on 100 percent recycled paper with vegetable inks, 100,000 of them have been printed, and they're being distributed everywhere the corps operates---which is pretty much everywhere but Ward 3. (Not as much work there, Heymann notes, but if you have a suggestion for a project there, call 535-2325.)
Soon the kids will move on to more substantial work---some have already started tree box inspections. "This is kind of by way of introduction," Heymann says. "It's a long summer."
And in any case, Heymann says, kids shouldn't be tossing the hangers on the ground. "When we get a report [of littering], we send the kids back out to fix it," he says. "We certainly don't want any litter on the ground."
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Linked From: September 22nd, 2009Something Wrong With This Picture? - Housing Complex - Washington City Paper
12:05 pm[...] The District Department of the Environment doesn’t exactly have the best track record on environmentally friendly advertising. Back in June, DDOE printed up 100,000 doorhangers to publicisize the launch of the Mayor’s Conservation Corp. summer program. [...]
4:00 pm
The kids papering our doors are all wearing matching blue T-shirts with Mayor Fenty's name on them. That conserves the Mayor's campaign funds.
4:08 pm
The second phase is knocking on doors, and asking residents if they have ideas about how to improve their neighborhoods. This happened to me today. We had the door hanger yesterday (and Mike D. you beat me to writing about it) and the follow up visit today. Since I work at home, the poor kids were then subject to all my various ideas. But I didn't embarrass them by asking to see what they wrote down from what I said, ranging from urban agriculture policies to interdicting materials from the waste stream including composting, historic preservation trades training as a "green collar" initiative, etc.
4:45 pm
Richard, if you're not already presenting at Mary Cheh's "Policy Greenhouse" next month, sounds like you should: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=94943040915
5:10 pm
I ran into a crowd of the kids in the blue t-shirts this morning on my way to the Metro. When one of the doorhangers was offered to me, I politely said "no thanks", and the kid threw it on the sidewalk in front of me. As I walked up the street, I noticed that there were dozens of the hangers littering the sidewalk. Perhaps Mayor Fenty is starting an urban compost program?