The Big Picture:

• Separate want from need. Only purchase what you need to live.
• Think about each choice you make and how it affects our world. Every choice has consequences. Try to minimize your footprint on the earth.
• Set an example for your children, friends, and neighbors. Be a model: learn about what you should do and then adopt the better and sustainable behaviors.

Use less energy.

• Change every incandescent light bulb you can to a compact fluorescent one. Just replacing the three most-used ones will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide and about $60 a year.
• Dust your light bulbs for increased illumination.
• Turn on only as many lights as you really need.
• Turn off lights and fans when you leave a room.
• Don’t put up holiday lights. If feel you must, use the new LED lights that use dramatically less energy.
• Unplug appliances and electronics that use stand-by mode, or turn them off from a power strip or “Smart Strip.”
• Use ceiling fans to both bring down the warmer air from the ceiling in winter, and give you a breeze in summer. Make sure to have the blades running in the correct direction for each season.
• Turn down the thermostat and bundle up in the winter—“heat with wool.” Turn up the thermostat and strip down in summer—“cool with cotton.” Or,…
• Open the windows at night to bring in the cool air, and shut windows and curtains in the morning to keep the cool air cool. You don’t have to use air conditioning at all.
• Sign up for renewable energy through your utility company.

Improve energy efficiency.

• Have a blower door test to see where the leaks are in your home, and then fix the leaks by weatherstripping and caulking around windows and doors.
• Insulate the attic, basement sills, and exterior walls.
• Install a programmable thermostat and turn the heat down at night and while you’re gone for the day. Program the heat to go down by 10°F when you are gone for the day, and by 5°F to 10°F at night. Bedrooms are healthier when cooler.
• If you have radiant heat, place reflective panels behind them to increase their efficiency.
• Replace aging, inefficient appliances with high-efficiency Energy Star ones.
• Buy a front-loading high-efficiency washer with the Energy Star label. Don’t wait to replace an older one. You’ll save money and the environment by replacing an older washer now.
• Wash your clothes in cold water.
• Run your washing machine only when you have a full load.
• Dry clothes outside on a line.
• Install low-flow shower heads.
• Lower your water heater to 120°F.
• Read The Not So Big House before building or remodeling.

Rethink getting around.

• Walk, bike, carpool, and take public transportation. Reduce congestion and pollution, and save fuel by using your car less, and less, and less.
• Send your kids to school on the bus, or accompany them on foot or by bicycle. In 1964, 50% of kids rode bikes to school and the obesity rate was 12%. In 2004, 3% of kids rode their bikes to school and the obesity rate was 45%. Obesity isn’t sustainable, either!
• Keep the proper amount of air in your tires. More than one billion gallons of fuel were wasted in 2005 because of under-inflated tires on passenger cars and light trucks.
• Have your engine regularly serviced and tuned by a professional. (Refer to your service manual.) This can reduce your polluting emissions by 20% and save up to 10% on fuel.
• Shop closer to home and run errands all at once.
• Buy a more fuel-efficient car—one that gets much better mileage and puts out fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Get rid of the gas-guzzler and consider a hybrid or electric vehicle.
• Avoid the car for short trips. Vehicles are more polluting when they are cold, and catalytic converters aren’t fully efficient until they reach a certain temperature, making short trips the most environmentally unfriendly.
• Don’t “warm up” the car. Drive gently for a few miles and the car will warm up fine.
• Don’t idle the engine. Turn off your car when you are waiting. Idling causes needless fuel usage and pollution.
• Live as close to work as possible.
• Drive more slowly and smoothly. The optimum speed for fuel efficiency for most passenger vehicles is 30 to 35 miles per hour, so don’t speed. Avoid fuel-wasting “jack rabbit” starts. Pay attention to what’s ahead and glide to that red stop light rather than race to it. Aggressive driving can increase fuel consumption by 40%.
• See our previous blog entry “With the High Cost of Gasoline…(Part One)” for more fuel-efficient driving tips.

Think about the source and packaging of purchases.

• Buy locally-produced goods and foods. Stimulate your local economy. Reduce the resource use, pollution, and climate-changing effects caused by cargo aircraft and container shipping by avoiding products made from around the world.
• Buy products with little or no packaging. If you don’t have a choice, pick the brand with the least packaging and most recyclable packaging, or consider not buying the product at all.
• Take a reusable bag when shopping.
• Don’t buy bottled water. Install a filter at home, or use a filtering pitcher, and then use a reusable water bottle.
• Buy organic. Spare the earth and groundwater resources from the degradation of pesticides and fertilizers.
• Buy used goods. Sell used goods.
• Buy recycled aluminum foil. The bauxite mining from which aluminum is made causes deforestation and destroys ecosystems. The processing pollutes water and air, and consumes vast amounts of energy. Recycled aluminum saves 90% to 95% of the energy needed to produce new aluminum.
• Buy a box or two of men’s handkerchiefs and cut down on using tissue.
• Don’t buy cotton swabs with a plastic stick. Buy the kind with a paper stick and compost them if they weren’t used with something non-compostable.
• Buy recycled paper products. There is no need to cut down virgin wood for paper. If your local copy or print shop doesn’t stock recycled paper, ask them to start stocking it. In the meantime, either use a merchant that does use recycled paper or take your own to your regular print shop.
• Buy (or repurpose from old clothing) washable, reusable rags instead of paper towels.
• Buy higher-quality locally-made goods, even if they are more expensive. Cheap products of poor quality will break or wear out sooner and have to be replaced. You may save money in the long run—and contribute less to a land-fill—if the product lasts a long time.
• Don’t use over-night or 48-hour delivery services unless you really need them. Distributors with flexible delivery times can make better use of their trucking capacity or use slower, less polluting methods of transport.

Garden greenly.

• Replace lawn with perennials, native plants, fruits, and vegetables.
• Don’t use chemical herbicides or pesticides on your lawn or garden. Man-made chemicals are complex and numerous and nature has no mechanisms to break them down. Therefore they hang around. We continue to create more of these substances and nature cannot keep up. These chemicals increase in concentration and eventually become toxic to living creatures, including us. Think DDT and PCBs, but also know that there are nearly 85,000 synthetic chemicals in use today. Only a tiny fraction of them have ever been tested for their health effects. And we know even less about how these enormous numbers of chemicals interact in combination.Use a push mower instead of a fossil-fueled one. Expand
• Grow your own vegetables and fruits. What better way to make sure your food is safe.
• Use a rain barrel. Make your own, or buy one from Sustain Dane. Rain barrels divert rainwater from downspouts, capturing it for use in the garden or for car washing. This lessens runoff and helps us use less of our highly-treated drinking water for outdoor use.
• Plant a tree… or two, or three.
• Compost yard waste, kitchen scraps and non-recyclable tissue.

Giving Well:

• Rethink gift-giving and holiday traditions.
• Consider giving environmentally-friendly, “non-thing” presents—tickets to a theater production, a gift certificate for a massage, a home-cooked meal, or a gift of time and/or labor.
• Don’t use wrapping paper.
• Consider alternatives to a Christmas tree—a potted living tree, a decorated mantle, or no tree at all—creating a new tradition for your family.

Home

• If you are going to build a new home or remodel, use LEED standards. And read The Not So Big House by Suzanne Susanka before you begin the process.
• Choose natural gas appliances over electric ones. A gas stove uses half the energy of an electric one.
• Choose low-VOC or no-VOC paints. Fewer harmful solvents, metals, and binders are in these products, making them better for the earth and for your health.

Lifestyle

• If you live alone, get a roommate. 40% of energy use in the U.S. is for our homes. Share your home and you’ll save a home from needing to be built.
• Live as close to your workplace as possible.
• Write to the Direct Marketing Association to be removed from junk mail lists. (www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing)  Less mail, less paper wasted, fewer trees cut down.
• Turn off the television. Not only does it use lots of energy (some huge TVs use upwards of 200 watts per hour) the television makes you hungry for more and more “stuff,” even if you think you are immune to the marketing.
• Read magazines online or at the library, or give your recently-bought magazines a second life. Offer them for the waiting room of your local laundromat, doctor, or hairdresser, with the request that they be recycled when no longer needed.
• If you don’t use your telephone book, refuse to accept one the next time they are delivered. While the phone book may be recyclable, only 15% are put in recycling bins. Also, while recycling is better than not, it still requires resources and energy to recycle.

In the Kitchen

• Compost your kitchen waste. About 16% of Dane County’s landfill is kitchen waste.
• Recycle everything you can. If your bin is full and you need more space, ask a neighbor to “borrow” some space in theirs. If you have extra recycling due to an event or party and don’t have room, corral it in a container and add the extras to your regular recycling every two weeks until the container is empty. If you consistently need more space, get a bigger bin.
• Use one glass a day, instead of needing to wash multiples.
• Don’t use plastic or paper cups.
• Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season, not those flown or shipped in from far away places.
• Run your dishwasher only when you have a full load.
• Set your refrigerator to 40°F and your freezer to 5°F. Lower settings don’t affect how well your food keeps, but do increase energy consumption.
• When using the stove, use the burner that is sized to your pot. Too big a burner wastes heat.
• When cooking on a gas stove, don’t turn the flame so high that it is wider than the pot. This wastes heat.
• When heating water, put on the lid. The water will heat faster, saving energy.
• Turn off the gas or electricity under a pot a few minutes before cooking is done. Residual heat will finish the job and energy will be saved.
• Don’t use paper coffee filters. Invest in a reusable filter. Save money—and save the grounds for the compost pile.
• Don’t leave the coffee pot on all day. Make as much coffee as you will consume in one stretch of time. If you need more coffee later, make another pot. Also consider using the type of coffee-maker that has a thermal pot and automatic shut-off at the end of the brewing cycle.
• Replace disposable paper towels with reusable, washable ones.

In the Bath

• After brushing your teeth, run the hot water for about five seconds, or flush the drain with boiling water once a week. The heated water help to keep your drain free of clogs and can eliminate the need for drain-clearing chemicals.
• Bathe more quickly, shutting off the water while soaping up, and turning it on only while rinsing.
• Don’t use chemicals to clear a stopped-up toilet. Use a plunger, and, if necessary, some boiling water and baking soda.

Cleaning Up

• Replace toxic household cleansers with environmentally-friendly (and often less expensive) or homemade ones.
• Use vinegar to remove hard water stains.
• Don’t use air fresheners. Most are toxic, flammable, and produce waste. Use citrus peels, oranges studded with cloves, fragrant plants, potpourris, or fresh air.

Looking Good

• When you are tempted to buy another item of clothing, ask yourself that first “big picture” question, “Do I really need this to live?”
• Donate old clothes (and other household items) to charities like Goodwill or St. Vincent De Paul.
• Have a clothing-trading party with a group of friends.
• Turn your worn-out clothes into rags.
• Return your worn Patagonia Capilene items to Patagonia’s Common Threads Recycling program to be recycled into new Capilene.
• Recycle worn athletic shoes through the local Athletic Shoe Recycling Project. Information can be found at www.ci.madison.wi.us/streets/recyclingShoe.cfm.

Eating Well

• Eat a vegetarian diet, or at least cut way back on eating beef, poultry, pork, and fish. A meat-eating diet contributes to vast depletions of multiple resources. Lowering or eliminating meat consumption may be your most important step toward sustainability. Your body will be thankful, too!
• When you shop, take your own mesh or cloth bags, or, at the very least, reuse the bags from your previous visit.
• Buy at farmer’s markets, supporting local agriculture and eating fresher foods.
• Buy minimally packaged foods.
• Don’t eat over-harvested seafood and fish.

Doing Good

• Speak up! Make your voice heard about issues of sustainability! Write letters to your senators and representatives, your governor and department heads, municipal leaders, and local newspapers and television stations. March in rallies, sign petitions, go to city council meetings, and go door-to-door to educate your neighbors.
• Write or call businesses that produce non-recyclable packaging, that over-package their products, and that behave in ways that are harmful to the planet or its people. You have to be responsible for creating the world, the nation, the state, the city, and the neighborhood you want.
• Learn about the decisions of your local authorities and circulate the information. To break down the barriers between the different layers and players in the development process—the elected representatives, boards, businesses, citizens, and other organizations—the people must know what is happening.
• Vote early and “often.” Voting is one of the main powers you have as a citizen. Find out the environmental policies and records of the candidates and vote for the one who best promotes sustainability. You also “vote” every day with your choices of what you buy. Make those votes count, too, by choosing products that contribute to positive steps toward sustainability.
• Join a study circle on The Natural Step. Learn about the framework for environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
• Donate your old eyeglasses to organizations that distribute them to developing countries.  Most optical shops do this.

Giving Well

• Consider giving environmentally friendly gifts—tickets to a theater production, a gift certificate for a massage, a home-cooked meal, or a gift of your time and/or labor.
• Don’t use wrapping paper. Use the funnies from the newspaper, or a reusable bag or piece of fabric.
• Use a piece of twine (compostable) or a reusable ribbon instead of tape to fasten the wrapping.

Personal Care

• Don’t leave the water running while brushing your teeth, shaving, or doing dishes.
• Ladies–invest in a menstrual cup, or sea sponge, and quit using tampons. Invest in reusable cloth menstrual pads and quit using disposable paper pads. Save the planet from about 120 pounds of garbage, while saving approximately $4,800.00 on roughly 13,000 disposable hygiene products over your lifetime. $4,800.00!

Baby Care

• Don’t use disposable diapers. The average baby needs 4,600 diaper changes. If disposable diapers are used, so are 4.5 trees and 4,600 glassfuls of crude oil in the process. Disposable diapers take 400 years to decompose in the landfill.
• Buy and sell used baby clothes, or trade among other families.

In the Office

• Encourage your company to invest in an environmental audit. Become a more sustainable company and save on the bottom line.
• Turn off your computer. One computer left on all day for a year releases 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere. Turn off your power strip, too, and you’ll stop the “vampire” power loss.
• Print in draft or fast mode for all but the most important documents. And choose the light ink option.(Look in printer properties.) Save ink.
• Recycle ink cartridges.
• Put a box next to the printer for scrap paper that can be used for drafts.
• Use recycled paper, files, folders, envelopes, and toilet paper.
• Use both sides of a sheet of paper.
• Use your computer for as long as possible, and then recycle it. Combine its intensive manufacturing process and its short lifespan, and the computer’s energy impact is equivalent to that of a refrigerator. There are yearly collections and companies in the business of recycling computer goods.
• Encourage everyone to bring their own ceramic cup to work. Save on paper and/or plastic (or Styrofoam, egads!) cups, and have a positive effect on the company’s bottom line.

Waste

• Use the Clean Sweep program to dispose of hazardous materials, left-over paints, etc.
• Petition the county to keep Clean Sweep open year round.
• Don’t throw out old furniture, books, or household appliances. There are charitable organizations eager to repair and sell them.

And if you missed the Sustainability Committee piece in the Monona Fall/Winter 2008 Guide, here it is in its entirety.

SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE

The mission of the Ad Hoc Sustainability Committee is to guide and assist Monona’s government, residents, and businesses in becoming a community that meets the needs of the present without compromising the resources available for future generations. The Committee’s vision is that Monona will share a culture that embraces, is vested in, and uses best practices for sustainable living.

With increasing population and escalating demand for finite resources, the world’s ecosystems are stressed beyond what they can repair or absorb. Today, human demands on natural systems exceed sustainable yield capacity by an estimated 25 percent. Instead of living off the interest of the planet, we are now eating away at her capital.

Our planet cannot meet escalating human demands indefinitely. Working toward sustainability is necessary for global civilization to succeed. With leadership, innovation, and creative solutions we can do so, while also shaping vibrant, desirable, and more united communities. The challenge for Monona, then, is to tap into these abilities in our citizenry, and through communication and connections, challenge ourselves to use the aforementioned best practices for sustainable living.

What are they? Best practices are those that use resources in ways that preserve natural cycles—we don’t extract so many materials from the earth that they cannot be reabsorbed; we don’t pollute our environment with things that don’t naturally break down or harmlessly assimilate; and we don’t outstrip resources to the point of exhausting them. We also see that people are treated fairly and efficiently so their needs don’t conflict with these practices for preserving the natural cycles.

At the end of this article is a list of steps we can take to be more sustainable. The steps are helpful, but checking steps off a laundry list isn’t enough. We need to think critically about the things we do and how we can change those that are harmful.

Critical Thinking

We so often do things because it is the way we were taught or the way everyone else does them. We don’t stop to question why or assess other methods. But simple behaviors can have far-reaching effects.

For instance, consider this simple step: Put garbage and recycling containers out for pick up only when full. With fewer stops, it saves the Green Valley worker’s time and the company’s labor costs. It saves the fuel consumed while the truck idles. It saves the health and environmental costs of the pollutants created while idling. Our effort of moving containers curbside occurs less often. Overall, by not putting containers out unless full, we lessen: costs, pollution, negative health effects, chores, and the greenhouse gases causing climate change. If everyone were to take this extremely simple step, a “non-step” actually, this could eventually save the city a great deal of money.

How? If we can lower Green Valley’s expenses now by everyone in the city putting out trash/recycling only when necessary, then when the city gets bids for a new contract, we will have proven our community is an efficient and less costly place for waste haulers and recyclers to operate than if every household needlessly put out their containers whether full or not.

Want to make this an even better scenario? If Monona’s citizens were to compost all their food scraps, we would lessen the garbage load by about 16%. Trucks would have to make fewer trips to the landfill and we’d have even more of the benefits listed above. We would also have great compost for our plants and more nutrients in our soil.

Want even more? If we reduce the quantity of packaged goods and processed foods we purchase, we reduce the quantity of both trash and recyclables needing disposal. Every step that reduces waste reduces the negative consequences of it. It is an effective, efficient way to move toward sustainability. This is just one example of how examining our ways leads us to question our whys.

Learn the common language

Sustainability is a complex mix of environmental, economic, and social issues. Rocket science it isn’t, but sound bites aren’t enough to grasp its breadth. Learn the language of sustainability. The Natural Step (TNS) framework has been adopted by more than twenty Wisconsin communities to help guide them to a sustainable future and is being used by Monona’s Sustainability Committee, too. Learn about TNS alongside neighbors and friends in a TNS study circle (offered by The Natural Step Monona, www.tnsmonona.org), or gain some understanding by reading about it online or in print.

Use the resources in the Monona Public Library’s Sustainability Section to learn about TNS and to find out about chemical-free cleaning, renewable energy, green building, composting, rain gardens, peak oil…the offerings are many. Not only are there books and DVDs on topics related to sustainability, more than 30 free brochures are available, too.

Also at the library, Green Tuesdays: Films & Lectures on Sustainability, the enlightening and entertaining series of lectures, films, and conversations on sustainable living, continues every other Tuesday through December 2. See www.mononalibrary.org. (The October 7th presentation relates directly to the waste issue discussed above. Learn the strategies that help John Reindl, recently retired Recycling Manager for Dane County, reduce his trash output to only two to three pickups per year!)

Get involved

The Sustainability Committee invites you to work with us and the rest of the city to make Monona’s future environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. Attend Sustainability Committee meetings at the library the fourth Tuesday of the month. Check the city’s website for the agenda and other supporting materials. Read up on what we’re doing and jump in where you can help.

The Sustainability Committee is committed to a participatory process, as citizen involvement is fundamental to the process toward change. The Committee will call upon the citizens of Monona to participate in community visioning sessions—meetings or workshops to share ideas and hopes for our city. We need your input on goals, actions, and targets—all based on a clear vision of sustainability. “Nobody can look into the future,” Einstein said, “But you can invent it.” Please join us in inventing Monona’s sustainable future.

Take some steps

• Use less energy. Change incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent ones. Unplug appliances and electronics that use stand-by mode, or turn them off from a power strip or “Smart Strip.”
• Improve energy efficiency. Insulate the attic, basement sills, and exterior walls. Install a programmable thermostat and turn it down in winter and up in summer. Replace aging, inefficient appliances with high-efficiency Energy Star ones. Read The Not So Big House before building or remodeling.
• Rethink getting around. Walk, bike, carpool, and take public transportation. Shop closer to home and run errands all at once. Buy a more fuel-efficient car. Avoid the car for short trips. Don’t “warm up” the car. Don’t idle the engine. Live as close to work as possible. Drive more slowly and smoothly.
• Think about the source and packaging of purchases. Buy locally-produced goods and foods. Buy products with little or no packaging. Take a reusable bag when shopping. Don’t buy bottled water.
• Garden greenly. Replace lawn with perennials, native plants, fruits, and vegetables. Don’t use chemical herbicides or pesticides. Use a push mower instead of a fossil-fueled one. Plant a tree, or two, or three. Compost kitchen scraps and garden waste.
• Rethink gift-giving. Consider giving environmentally-friendly, “non-thing” presents—tickets to a theater production, a gift certificate for a massage, a home-cooked meal, or a gift of time and/or labor. Don’t use wrapping paper.
• Finally, consider the values of sustainability.  Separate want from need. Think over each choice and how it affects our world. Set an example for family, friends, and neighbors by learning and adopting more sustainable behaviors.

Read more in-depth explanations of why these actions make a difference by going to The Natural Step Monona website at www.tnsmonona.org.

Please become involved in making our city more sustainable. There are no tasks more important than these: thinking about our actions, learning about sustainability, getting involved in charting our city’s future, and taking steps to put what we learn into practice. With your participation, a sustainable future is possible.