Fresh AIRE

41pounds.org says “Reclaim your mailbox!”

How many of you are simply “done” with all that junk mail?  And how many of you actually read the multiple reminders and offers from unknown vendors for every product and service within a 100+ mile radius of your home?  Well, did you know that “the average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year?”  41pounds.org knows this all too well and provides a service to stop most of that junk from arriving in your mailbox, to include catalogs and general junk mail.  41pounds.org is a nonprofit organization working to reduce this nuisance that truly is an environmental waste.  Stopping the junk mail helps to reduce the strain on natural resources.  So, go out there and get your mailbox back!

National Public Health Week is April 7-13

More and more people are ‘taking their green to work’.  People refuse to check their morals and beliefs at the door and are helping business take the lead on climate change. 

Also, businesses are finding that incorporating sustainability practices can save them money, reduce liability, increase the health and wellbeing of occupants, and raise employee performance.

National Public Health Week is April 7-13 and it is the perfect time to look at the connection between climate change, health, and your place of employment.  We spend 90% of our time indoors, and 40% of Greenhouse Gas emissions result from commercial office buildings.  That is the largest segment of emissions in Arlington, not transportation surprisingly. 

Sometimes greenhouse gas reduction, office greening, and occupant heath can be a rather nebulous idea.  We don’t walk behind buildings and cough from their emissions like you might behind an idling truck.  Rather, your air quality is directly impacted by your energy use in your office through your airshed.  That means that coal fired power plants upwind from you actually cause degraded living conditions and cause increased extraction of natural resources for fuel due to your offices consumption.

Here are a few tips for your office to get you moving in the right direction to do your part!

1. Form a green team and set organizational goals
2. Evaluate your current practices (bulk purchasing, recycling, energy conservation, water conservation, etc).  These can save you money!
3. Create an action plan.
4. Dive in!

To learn about the Fresh AIRE business partner program please email:  climate@arlingtonva.us

Turn out the Lights!

It’s just four days away…Earth Hour 2008.  As part of Fresh AIRE, Arlington is urging employees, local businesses and residents to participate in Earth Hour – a worldwide initiative to combat global warming – on Saturday, March 29th at 8 PM.  Individuals, businesses, and entire cities around the world will turn out the lights for one hour from 8 PM to 9PM to take action against global warming.  You can be part of the solution by turning off your lights - wherever you are – on Saturday, March 29th at 8 PM for just one hour.  Together, we make an even greater impact! When Earth Hour was unveiled last year in Sydney, Australia, the city reduced its energy consumption by a whopping 10.2% - that’s equivalent to taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year. Tens of thousands have already committed!  Learn more and make your commitment to turn out the lights today at www.earthhour.org. 

Arlington County -=- we are 'Anti-Carbon'

In an interview between Jeffery Swartz, CEO of Timberland and Steven Colbert, Mr. Colbert berated Jeffery Swartz for being "Carbon Neutral".  Colbert Said:

Carbon neutral sounds wishy-washy. You should be pro-carbon or anti-carbon. Carbon neutral sounds like Switzerland. Take a stand!

While it's easy to joke about, this is a serious issue.  If you are reading this blog then you are using some form of power for your computer.  It's a reality we all live in.  From dusk till dawn, morning to night, we use lights, drive, fly, talk on cell phones, use computers, and reside indoors 90% of our lives in air conditioned or heated spaces. 

The question more and more residents and businesses are asking is how do we reduce our carbon footprint?  Personally, I can tell you that despite all of my carbon savings from not owning a car, I do indeed fly with unabashed frequency. I just took a week of leave and flew to Nicaragua.  While I was feeling rather guilty about the lengthy journey, I thought perhaps carbon offsets might be a solution. 

This is the first flight I have offset and it was a very simple process. Carbon offsets and green power are a critical component to reduce your carbon footprint for your home or at work. If you are interested to learn more about carbon offsets and how to buy 'green power' just follow these two easy steps to demystify all this carbon mumbo-jumbo.

1.   Visit the Arlington Green It event on April 3rd to learn more about Carbon Offsets and Green Power.

2.   Take Action, and let us know your experience on the blog

Upgrades, Retrofits Save Energy & Dollars at Home

It’s been a busy few weeks in our house. After two consecutive months of shockingly high energy bills - even after replacing nearly all of our incandescent light bulbs with CFLs - we decided to take the next step in making our home more energy efficient. We installed an insulating blanket around our hot water heater tank and invested in a new ENERGY STAR rated dishwasher and refrigerator.

With the water heater on the first floor of our three-story town home, the water in our upstairs bathrooms is almost always bone-chilling cold on those frosty winter mornings. This led to a big water conservation no-no in our house - running the water to warm up the shower. So we purchased the blanket from our local home improvement store and installed it in roughly 20 minutes. We already had all of the necessary tools and it was an easy fix. I’ve already noticed a difference in how quickly the water warms up.

In the kitchen, our 18-year old dishwasher and refrigerator were starting to show their age. Though it had yet to truly breakdown, the old dishwasher had become known affectionately as the dish dirtier since nearly all of the dishes required a pre- and post-rinse to come out clean. However, it did last well beyond its 10-year life expectancy according to the technician who installed our new Kenmore ENERGY STAR rated dishwasher.

With the promise of energy cost savings and the great deal we got at the Sears’ appliance sale, I don’t feel so bad about the money spent. I’ll keep you posted and let you know how these upgrades translate into energy cost savings on next month’s bill.

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Myllisa Kennedy

Green It Arlington! Event Series Begins Next Week

Green It Arlington! is a series of workshops to help you make environmentally friendly choices for home, work, and community. The series starts next week!

Eco-Friendly Remodeling on a Budget

Monday, March 24th, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Would you like to make your next home remodel green? Not a millionaire? Don’t despair! Many green building and design choices are available within a fixed remodeling budget. Paybacks include improved health, operating savings, and a safer environment. Join green architect Marta Layseca and homeowner Rob Drucker as they talk about smart tradeoffs and healthy choices they made for a successful green remodel in Arlington. Information about Arlington County’s Green Home Choice program will be provided.

Arlington Central Library

1015 N. Quincy Street, Arlington

*Virginia Square Stop on Metro Orange line

Free. No reservations required.

For more information contact Stella Tarnay, Manager, Arlington County Green Home Choice Program, Starnay@arlingtonva.us or 703-228-4792.

DailyCandy on the Environment (Films!)

I admit it, I do subscribe to DailyCandy. Most days I don't have time to even open the email -- really. But this day, I did open the DailyCandy Weekend Guide and hit an environmental goldmine. The first thing they list is the upcoming D.C. Environmental Film Festival. On the website, you can view green short films online, find out about green filmaking, join forums and more -- it's way cool. Here are the festival details, from DailyCandy:

What: The annual screening of enviro flicks on topics ranging from melting ice caps to dwindling resources to endangered animals.
Why: Monkey see, monkey do.
When: Now through March 22.
Where: Various locations. Schedule online at dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org.

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--Jennifer K. Smith
Arlington County

Free Trees for the Community

This is way cool! Each year, Arlington County  gives away more than 1,000 trees through civic associations. The trees are given away in conjunction with Neighborhood Day, for people to plant on private property. Read more details.

The available trees this year:

• Yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), a large canopy tree
• Allegheny serviceberry (Amenlanchier laevis), a small flowering tree are this year’s two selections.

These tree 'whips' will be approximately three to five feet in height and potted in one or two-gallon plastic containers. 

I'm So Proud!

Although my family has always been supportive of my career choice, they have never really understood my interest and motivation in working to “protect the environment.”  But, after more than 14 years of studying and working in the field, I think they’re starting to come around and I’m just so proud! 

I’ve long been deemed the “tree-hugger” in my family and quite frankly, very proud of that.  I wear it like a badge of honor.  Wearing this badge means that I often have to remind my mom to “turn off the faucet” when she cleans up the kitchen counters, tell my dad to “turn off the light” when he leaves a room, or urge my brother to “recycle that bottle” when he’s about to throw one in the trash can.  I try not to nag, but I do look for these instances where an opportunity presents itself and I jump right on in with my two cents.  The best part of wearing this badge is that it has actually rubbed off in some way. 

The best example of this is the decision my parents made in 2003 to buy a Honda Civic Hybrid.  Now, we can’t forget one of the major factors in this decision – the allowance to use the HOV lanes!  Nor can we forget the bottom line benefit of money saved at the pump (the car averages about 40 mpg).  But, we should focus on the fact that by owning this car, my parents are continuing to prevent an enormous amount of harmful emissions that would have otherwise gone into our air.  The decision, as my parents like to say, was a “no brainer.” 

Another example is the fact that my mom now not only looks for CFLs instead of traditional incandescent bulbs, which is a huge leap in itself, she even knows to look for the ENERGY STAR label on the package.  For those not familiar, ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.  You can now find the ENERGY STAR label on over 50 product categories as well as buildings (commercial, institutional, and industrial) and homes.  Now, my mom may not know the details of ENERGY STAR, but she recognizes that the cyan blue label means something important.  She understands that it means it will save her money and allow her to one way to “do her part.” 

First Green (UMC) Church in Arlington

On January 26, the church council of Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church voted to become part of the Green Church Initiative of the Virginia Conference of The United Methodist Church. Mt. Olivet UMC is the first United Methodist Church in Arlington to make this declaration and the second in the state of Virginia -- a state with more than 1,200 UMCs. The church spent more than a year discerning how it would meet the requirements in the areas of worship, education, church/individual lifestyle, and outreach.

As a member of Mt. Olivet myself, and an active member on the environmental stewardship committee, I was thrilled and proud. And it's an exciting decision, too, because the annoucement aligns with the County's goal (through the FreshAIRE program) of having businesses and organizations to commit to making “green” progress in the areas of energy efficiency, green building, transit use, and recycling.

Here’s just a sampling of what Mt. Olivet did in different areas:

CHURCH LIFESTYLE: Conducted an audit of energy use of the church’s facilities; conducted an audit of water use; replaced many of church bulbs with CFLs or other energy efficient fixtures; installed automatic switches on lights in bathrooms and some rooms; achieved Wildlife Habitat Certification; used biodegradable paper cups (Ecotainers) for coffee; promoted members bringing their own coffee cups; used fair-trade, shade-grown, organic coffee for coffee; surveyed how members come to church and promoted walking, public transit, riding the church bus to church and carpooling; hosted our first-ever Bike to Church Day (see photo).

WORSHIP: Included prayers for the environment in the weekly prayer bulletin; promoted electronic giving as a way of reducing paper; printed bulletin on 30% recycled paper;  recycled all bulletins and paper, and included bulletin “blurbs” on how to become more ecologically responsible.

CHURCH EDUCATION: Used an environmental theme for children’s vacation bible school; developed material for mission teams on links between global warming and hurricane strength; held Sunday School lessons on mountain top removal, not using water bottles, using public transit, and buying fair trade/organic cocoa

CHURCH OUTREACH: Showed “Inconvenient Truth” to church and community; developed a partnership with Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment; identified environmental activities to be a part of church youth outreach; developed a process to promote “non-partisan” letter writing or petitions to government officials on the environment; hosted women’s retreat on “Greening the Church “and provided a meatless meal using mostly locally produced organic products; and sold compact fluorescent bulbs and canvas bags at alternative gifts fair.

--Jennifer K. Smith
Arlington County