by TRC_Admin | Jan 23, 2023 | Environmental, Highway Beautification, Litter, Trash
Photo: Dirk Shadd, Tampa Times
“Pockets of open space dot Gandy Beach. Each one is an opening to the blue waters of Tampa Bay, canopied by billowing mangroves. It’s picturesque — just don’t look too close.
If you did, then you might see the beer can peeking out of the sand like a burrowed crab. Or the plastic bag swaying from a mangrove branch.
The empty gallon of water sitting squarely near the shore? Well, that’s a little harder to miss.
But the Florida Department of Transportation is hoping a new project will stop people from littering and parking in the mangroves at Gandy Beach in St. Petersburg. The agency is spending about $70,000 to install bollards — large wooden posts — in front of mangroves lining the beach, Kristen Carson, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email Wednesday.
Gandy Beach averages about 8,000 pounds of trash a day that’s picked up as both litter and from trash cans, according to Carson.
Dana Paganelli, a frequent visitor to the beach, says she’s happy about the bollards. She floated near the shore Wednesday in a pastel-colored pool float. Usually, she said, she’ll bring her own bag and fill it with the garbage she finds at the beach and throw it out later…
The Florida Department of Transportation began installing the posts last week, and the entire project will wrap up in about two weeks. Carson said the agency expects to install about 880 posts.
After the bollards are installed and cars can no longer reach the shore, the agency’s maintenance contractor will begin planting small mangroves in the open areas where the plant could not grow previously due to car traffic…”
— Michaela Mulligan, Times
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by TRC_Admin | Jan 23, 2023 | Advertising Industry, Billboards, Environmental
Photo: Rareform
Image: Rareform
“What happens to billboards at the end of their advertising lives? One company in Los Angeles makes eco-friendly bags from billboards. Alec and Aric Avedissian, co-founders of Rareform, saw the need to recycle the vinyl from billboards into something more useful.
“Upcycling is going full speed ahead. From lending products a new lease of life to creating new, quality items starting from used materials, the approach affords multiple opportunities. And it is appealing to consumers. With this in mind, Californian brothers Alec and Aric Avedissian created Rarerform, in 2012. Formerly an analyst, Alec Avedissian began by manufacturing surfboard bags from vinyl advertising billboards.”
— Fashionnetwork.com News
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by TRC_Admin | Jan 23, 2023 | Codes, Trees
Photo: Tony Giberson, PNJ.com
“Pensacola has won the battle to preserve a ‘heritage’ oak tree on Spring Street in North Hill.
The city and property owners Larry and Ellen Vickery signed an agreement that guarantees the 61-inch diameter tree will not be cut down in exchange for the city paying the Vickerys’ legal fees in the case.
Since 2019, the city and the Vickerys have been in a legal battle over the tree after the Vickerys sought to cut it down to build a new home on the vacant property.
The Vickerys complied with a new state law that allowed them to get an arborist’s opinion that a tree was unhealthy or posed a risk to people or property and could be removed without having to pay the city’s mitigation cost for cutting down a protected tree.
A 61-inch tree on Spring Street in North Hill has been the center of a legal battle between a property owner who wanted to cut it down to build a new home and the city, which sought to preserve it. The city won an initial legal challenge of the tree’s removal but lost two subsequent appeals, with the final ruling agreeing that the Vickerys had followed a state law as written and could remove the tree…
A city arborist inspection of the tree conducted in September found the tree to be in ‘good health,’ and while there were several dead branches in the crown, it posed a low risk to people or property…
The state law surrounding the case was changed this year to require the same standards for arborists to be used to determine the health of trees. The updated law strengthens the city’s position in enforcing its local tree ordinance, but the courts said the new law couldn’t be applied to retroactively to Vickerys’ case.”
— Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal
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