Sustainability

“For a sustainable future, we have to understand that the structure and design of our planet require that we operate within natural ‘laws’ and principles, rather than attempt to overcome them. We have to see that ‘it’s all connected’, and that systems thinking requires us to think about our choices and actions over time. We need to understand that the pursuit of self-interest is best served through the development of mutually beneficial relationships. And we have to believe we are all responsible, and that intergenerational leadership and collective action are required. Everything we do and everything we don’t do makes a difference.

Jamie Cloud
The Cloud Institute

PEEC's Sustainable Efforts

Vernal Equinox

March

Now may be the time to begin looking at your home appliances and how much energy they use
- The Kill-A-Watt© home energy meter can be used to project the cost of running your appliances for the year
- Energy star appliances are good but are not always the best option, do the research before buying new appliances and if an appliance has to be "sold" to you it probably isn't worth getting
- Look also for how long the appliance will last you, spending a little bit more now for a durable model will save much money and resources in the future because you won't have to replace it for a longer time
If you have not yet replaced your old fashioned incandescent light bulbs, with the new fashionable compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL), what the heck are you waiting for? Replace and smash those old inefficient things to ensure they will never be used again, even if they have not yet burnt out.
- CFL's use a quarter of the energy that incandescent bulbs use
- They produce far less waste heat, making them less of a fire hazard
- CFL technology is always improving and new bulbs for dimmer switches are now available
- CFL's do contain mercury, a toxic substance, but if bulbs are recycled it can be removed and reused in new bulbs
- If every house in the US replaced just one old bulb with a CFL, the carbon savings would be like taking 1,000,000 cars off the road.

April

Wash clothes using cold water instead of using up all of your hot water unnecessarily
- Cold water cleans clothes just as well as hot water does
- Heating water is expensive and uses a high amounts of energy
Turn down your water heater to 120° to save on how much it runs during the day
- 120° is plenty hot for all your hot water needs
- Every 10° you reduce on your water heater translates to 500lbs of carbon savings a year

May

Installing a low flow toilet will save the amount of water wasted to flush away our business
- The water the fills our toilet is the same water that fills our glasses, so we need to conserve it as much as we can
- If a new toilet isn't quite possible at this time it is simple enough to place a plastic bottle filled with sand in the toilet tank, however you must take care to place it so it doesn't interfere with the mechanisms inside (this can be difficult)
Repair leaky faucets, one drop per second wastes 20 gallons of water each day and the sound of dripping water has been proven to cause insanity and bladder problems
Using transportation alternatives gives good karma
- Rising fuel prices are being felt by everyone as public transport rates rise, school bus routes are redrawn, and private owners cry when they drive up to the pump
- Carpool, walk, or ride a bike to where you need to go — we will meet more people, get more exercise, and breath cleaner air if we begin really taking transportation alternatives seriously
- Who wants to sit in traffic? Not me!

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Summer Solstice

June

Support local farmers
- Reducing how far your food must travel saves dwindling fuel supplies and reduces the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere (on average our food travels 1000 miles from farm to plate)
- Farmers receive more money for their goods as you are buying directly from them and not retailers, who take a cut
- The money you spend remains in the local economy, strengthening the area you live and not some other area far away
- Food grown by small farmers is higher quality being; more nutritious, fresher, containing less chemicals (if any at all), more variety is available, and better tasting
Spend more time outside instead of sitting inside watching TV or using the computer
- Indoor air pollution is a cause of asthma
- Everyone could use more exercise
- Unplugging electronics while they are not in use can reduce your CO2 emissions by 1000lbs each year
Try using fans and opening windows instead of using air conditioners
- Fans use much less energy than air conditioning
- Air conditioners require much more resources to manufacture, including dangerous chemicals that can damage the O-zone layer

July

Continue supporting local farmers
Saving water during the hot summer months is important, especially during drought conditions
- Take shorter showers as showers use between five and ten gallons of water per minute
- Don't run the water while washing dishes or brushing your teeth
- Only water plants during the cooler parts of the day and when it isn't very windy to reduce how much water is lost to evaporation
- Save greywater (dishwater, sink water, NOT toilet water) and give it to your plants instead of using clean water that is fit for people to use
- Install "low flow" fixtures to shower heads and faucets to reduce water consumption
Get out and collect some berries
- Getting out to gather food is a fun and rewarding experience
- Berries are expensive and usually are shipped clear across the country from the west coast where berries grow very well — but guess what, berries grow great here as well
- Be sure that pesticides have not been applied in the area that you are gathering and be sure that it is allowed to gather wherever you go, the national parks allow gathering but place limits on how much can be take (bears like berries to and need them to survive)

August

Local farmers still need your support and you still need delicious food
Composting is important to reduce the amount of waste we generate, so compost everything you can
- Americans generate 31 million tons of food waste every year and most of it goes to the landfill where it will never decompose and become nutrient rich soil
- Composting kitchen scraps along with yard wastes and recycling everything you can will drastically reduce how much garbage you produce and could translate into money saved if you can cancel your pick-up service
Recycling is the easiest thing we can do to reduce our impact on our planet, so do it already
- Currently, only 24% of our municipal solid waste is recycled but 58.5% of it is recyclable
- In 2006, 170,000,000,000 pounds of municipal solid waste was recycled, saving the energy equivalent of 10 billion gallons of gasoline

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Autumnal Equinox

September

Local farmers would love you to come visit them and buy their delicious goodies
Begin replacing plants used in your yard with native varieties (especially your lawn)
- Native plants use half the amount of water as non-natives, as they are adapted to the local environment
- Native plants serve as habitat for native wildlife which can be beneficial to combating invasive or pest species
Check your toilet for leaks by putting 10 drops of food coloring in the tank, if the color starts to show up in the toilet bowl after about 20 minutes without flushing you have a leak that could be wasting up to 200 gallons of water each day
- If John leaks, let's fix him, repair parts are cheap and easy to install, no plumber needed

October

Support local farmers
Look for your local Household Hazardous Waste drop-off location and time to keep nasty chemicals and heavy metals from leaching into our groundwater
- Many things can be taken to the drop-off, including; spent batteries, electronics, old paint, cell phones, fluorescent bulbs, cleaning product, pesticides and used motor oil.
- Unfortunately, these drop-off times are limited and usually only occur a couple times a year in some counties so it is important to save the date so that you can get those wastes where they need to go to be taken care of, as many of them can be recycled.
Begin preserving food for the winter months
- Home canning is easy, inexpensive, fun to do, and becoming more and more popular each year
- Preserving your own food allows you to be absolutely sure what is in your food — no Frankenstein preservatives or strange artificial flavors and dyes

November

Support local farmers as they will be trying to sell their final crops of the year, canning these or baking delicious treats would be a great idea at this time as Thanksgiving and the winter holidays are coming up
Winter is coming, so it is time to begin preparing for extreme weather
- Get an energy audit done on your house to identify areas where energy is being wasted, these are normally done for free by utility companies
- Making sure walls and ceilings are well insulated and replacing old windows may be expensive and time consuming, but the decrease in heating bills will offset the cost — especially with rapidly rising fuel prices — and can reduce your carbon footprint by about 2000 pounds over the course of the year
- Use shrinkable plastic sheets to cover windows for extra insulation

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Winter Solstice

December

When shopping for presents, look for those with less packaging or are made from recycled materials and bring your own reusable bags
- About 250,000,000 pounds of plastic packaging is sent to landfills each holiday season
- This doesn't only apply to the holidays as we should be reducing how much packaging we use all year – 33% of municipal solid waste is packaging materials
Wrap presents in old newspaper instead of buying expensive wrapping paper
- Wrapping paper cannot be recycled because of its glossy covering
- At least buy wrapping paper that can be recycled or is made from recycled material
Use a real Christmas tree instead of artificial plastic ones
- Artificial trees require ridiculous amounts of energy and resources to produce
- Real trees can be decomposed or ground into mulch whereas plastic trees end up in landfills because they are non-recyclable
Plan holiday meals so that you do not generate too much food waste and compost everything that you can
- If they don't have one a home composting unit would be a terrific present for an eco-conscious relative/friend/anyone
Realize that this is the time of year when consumption is highest, remember that there are many people in this world that are perfectly happy with less
- Studies of other cultures have shown that people who have less material goods are actually happier than those of us who have more than we know what to do with

January

Don't make a New Year's resolution to consume less resources and live more sustainably — we want you to actually live a more sustainable life and few people keep to their resolutions
Avoid using disposable products such as paper/plastic plates, cups, napkins, utensils
- Using reusable/washable products saves money and resources and are more durable so you are far less likely to spill your picnic lunch all over your brand new pants
Buy rechargeable batteries and a recharger to power all those fun new toys you got during the holidays
- These can be reused many times before they will no longer hold a charge, they can then be recycled. How's that for the perfect gift?
- Money is saved as disposable batteries are very expensive
- Batteries are a source of toxic chemicals in our landfills and could contaminate groundwater, reducing the amount we use or need to manufacture will decrease the amount of toxic chemicals we are allowing to enter our environment

February

As you go shopping for groceries, or anything really, bring your own reusable bag instead of taking the disposable bags at the store
- Canvas bags are cheap, use less resources than both plastic and paper bags, won't tear and spill your goods all over the ground, and sometimes can even save you a little at the register
On Valentine's Day, show your sweetheart how much you care by taking the time to make your own valentines from reused materials rather than buying the same, non-recyclable, cards as everyone else
Instead of cranking up the thermostat to keep warm, try wearing a wool sweater or cover yourself with a blanket
- Keeping the thermostat at 68 will save on heating bills and drastically reduce your carbon footprint
- Money saved on heating can be used to buy more sweaters or maybe some hot chocolate — comfortable alternatives to things like oil or coal

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