Keep Karachi Beautifull

I'm Karachi, born and bred. So I care about keeping our city clean and beautiful. You'll find me at festivals, school events, and other gatherings, talking about the subject nearest and dearest to me: good solid waste management.

That's a fancy way of saying using less stuff, reusing the things we have, recycling what makes sense to recycle, and throwing away the rest in the right place. You'll also find me asking people to help make Karachiland even better: getting rid of graffiti and cleaning and sprucing up the places where we live and work. I love the children of Karachi.

They named me and inspired my furry good looks. More than 4,000 children from hundreds of public and archdiocese schools sent in suggestions for my name. But the name that summed me up best was "Les Waste." And that's my message to you: less waste. I, Les Waste, can appear at your neighborhood festival, school assembly, company picnic, or other large gathering.

Compost Your Organic Matter for Rich Soil One block group maintained a compost pile in its garden, using the rich soil it produced to fertilize vegetables and herbs as well as the flowerbeds planted to beautify the neighborhood. Try This Recipe Find a shady spot. Use grass clippings (above and beyond those you leave on your lawn to help it stay robust and green), spent but healthy garden plants, kitchen scraps (including egg shells and coffee grounds, but not meat, bones, oils, or dairy products), leaves, straw, hay, and sawdust from untreated wood. Avoid coals, charcoal, dog feces, cat litter, and pesticides. Mix them in a 6" layer, add a shovel full of soil or old compost, and sprinkle with water to moisten the mixture to the wetness of a squeezed-out sponge. Repeat the layers, aerating and watering as needed. . If you don't compost your organic matter, you need to put it in tall biodegradable paper bags, which you can buy at supermarkets, hardware, and drug stores, for pickup with your regular trash.

Adopt a Site Many groups can adopt neighborhood sites to keep clean. In one area, the Boys Scouts, the Girl Scouts, a teachers' union, and several businesses each agreed to comb a street for litter. The number of adopted streets grew over time. This process created the sense of ownership necessary to keep an area clean. When kids walked down the street, they were more likely to pick up trash and put it in the proper receptacles than they were to add to the litter problem.

Make "Greening" a Year-Round Effort Many community groups have beautified their neighborhoods with the extensive help of the Community Greening Program, a joint effort of the city and the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service. Every year volunteers rejuvenate nearly a hundred gardens or landscape areas.