I had a fantastic time in Boston over Labor Day weekend. Great food, great friends... it was a wonderful all around experience. There was a lot to take in, and our hosts showed us around many of the different neighborhoods of good old Beantown.
Seeing as how Boston is such a progressive and well-established area, I was interested to see what sort of strides the city has taken to become more sustainable. Obviously the first huge thing was the public transportation. The MBTA is a really great system of rail, subway, bus... and boat! Yep. They have boats that take passengers from one side of the bay to the other. It's pretty awesome.
view from the ferry
They are also installing solar trash receptacles around the city center. We saw them over by Fenway park. They look kind of like green mailboxes, but they have icons of people throwing stuff away on them, so there wasn't too much confusion. They hold up to 150 gallons of trash, and the solar panels run a compactor. Hopefully they can also do this with recycling - cans, maybe?
too bad it's not a recycling bin!
My friends and I ended up spending an afternoon at Harvard, and I noticed that the campus has been making efforts to "green" their facilities. They had signs around the grounds inviting people to "sit down, it's organic!" The sign didn't elaborate on how the groundskeeping was organic, exactly. I didn't see any goats mowing the lawn, so I assume that they are no longer using chemicals to treat the grass.
cool public art installation on the very "green" grass
The good folks at Harvard have also "greened up" their bathrooms. While using their facilities at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (I highly recommend visiting, and not just for the bathrooms!), I noticed that they had installed low-flow toilets and solar powered, motion sensored faucets! Not only that, but even their foamy soap was eco-friendly.
My only disappointment was, even with all the fancy new equipment... the only means available to dry one's hands after washing up was with paper towels. Seriously? All this new fangled equipment and you couldn't install an air dryer?
So Harvard's Eco-Score Card gets a B from me. Good effort, but it doesn't make sense to have equipment that's been around for years (i.e. air dryers) in your bathrooms.
Overall, I had an amazing time. I highly recommend visiting. The whole time I was there, I couldn't help but wonder if someday Cincinnati could aspire to be as awesome as Boston. I think we are on our way!
