5 Sustainable, Achievable Resolutions for the Busy and Cash-Strapped

11th January, 2012 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

Austin Climate Protection Program sent me an email today with “5 Sustainable, Achievable Resolutions for the Busy and Cash-Strapped,” which offers some great ideas to try for 2012 to be a little kinder to the environment.  It’s a really thoughtful list with links to resources, so I thought I would share it here:

  1. Leave the car at home one day a week. If you rode public transportation or carpooled (or walked, or biked, or skateboarded…) to work once a week, you’d reduce your CO2 emissions by almost 2,000 pounds per year, save hundreds of dollars in gas annually, and feel great about your contribution to reduced traffic and improved air quality across Central Texas. Visit the Commute Solutions website for ideas and resources.
  2. Learn to compost. Take a first step toward becoming a Zero Waste household by attending one of Austin Resource Recovery’s free composting classes. The classes are part of the City department’s composting rebate program, which challenges Austinites to complete a free composting class, downsize to a 32-gallon trash cart and purchase a home composting system. Austin Resource Recovery curbside customers who do these three things are eligible for a rebate of 75 percent off the cost of their new home composting system, up to $75. Visit Austin Resource Recovery’s website for details.
  3. Adjust the indoor temperature this winter. Turn your thermostat to 68 degrees or below. Reduce the setting to 55 degrees before going to sleep or when leaving for the day. For each 1 degree you turn down the thermostat in the winter, you’ll save up to 5% on your heating costs!
  4. Replace a patch of thirsty turf grass. Commit too stop watering your stressed lawn. The drought continues, yet Austin is still dumping a lot of our precious water onto turf grass lawns. This year, take a fresh look at the area around your home and imagine how your new landscape will look with plants that are more likely to survive without extra water on your part. City of Austin Water Conservation has other drought survival tools at its website.
  5. Join a CSA. A CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture program, is an arrangement you make with a local farm: You subscribe up front, they provide you with local produce for a week, a month, or a season through a convenient pickup or dropoff system. It’s a delicious way to reduce the distance from the farm to your plate. Edible Austin has a list.

My husband and I are already members of a CSA (Johnson’s Backyard Garden) and we compost, plus we keep our house pretty cold (56 when we’re not there and 63 at night) but our front and side yard are all grass (the back yard is woods),  and I stopped riding the bus in the fall as I had several appointments in the middle of the day that I needed to drive to from work, and then I got busy during the holidays and needed to run errands during my lunch hour.  I’ve mentioned before on this blog that the cost of riding the Express bus in Austin is similar to the cost of paying to drive into work each day, which is unfortunate, but their suggestion to just try to leave your car at home one day a week is more manageable and I’m going to try and incorporate that into my routine.

Learn more about the Austin Climate Protection Program here!

Posted on: January 11, 2012

Filed under: green tips

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