Green Team

About the Green Team

The Green Team focuses on reaching out and working with all the groups in town who want to green our environment – The Borough Council, Departments, Commissions, Committees, clubs and schools – to help Mountain Lakes become more environmentally sustainable. Using the program Sustainable Jersey, we complete actions for certification.

Sustainable Jersey is a municipal certification program open to all New Jersey communities that want to go green, save money and take steps to sustain their quality of life over the long term. The program identifies concrete actions that municipalities can implement to become certified and provides clear “how to” guidance and tools to enable communities to make progress.

In 2017, 76% of the participating New Jersey municipalities had completed certification. Mountain Lakes achieved Bronze Certification in 2011, Silver Certification in 2014, and again in 2017. There are only 46 other Municipalities that have Silver. Be Proud!

The actions we focus on are dependent on what the groups wants to do. Everything from protecting the natural environment, trees, water, energy use, conservation, recycling, health and safety. For example, the DPW does all the actions related to solid waste and maintenance – over 100 points; the Shade Tree Commission has achieved all the tree related actions – 60 points.

These are all the actions Sustainable Jersey gave point toward the 2017 Silver Certification…

Grants for projects are available through Sustainable Jersey. We got a grant in 2012 for the “Green Reels” environmental Movie Nights, and used it to educate the residents and students on sustainability issues. In 2016 we got another $2000 grant to help buy the rainbarrels for the Rainbarrel Workshop and the CFL recycling container now in the Recycling Center. We have also gotten two Grants from The Town Club to assist with expenses toward the Silver Certification. Other grants are also available, so if funding is what is keeping you from being more sustainable, please contact us.

Silver Certification: We are on a three year certification cycle and have achieved Certification in 2011, 2014, and 2017. Sustainable Jersey also has Gold Stars now in Energy and Recycling that we would like to try to achieve. If your group is working on a green project or would like to, please contact us. You may be doing something that can earn us points for the next cycle.

Green Team Members