Baltimore City votes on 1+1 recycling and trash pickup schedule: if you live in the city, tell your council representative to vote yes!
Baltimore county resident gardeners, don't forget that you can get free compost and mulch at the Days Cove Road landfill. I'm getting some this very week. Call ahead to 410-887-2000 to check supplies)
With Earth Day coming up this week, there are lots of green activities going on in the Baltimore area!
Baltimore Green Week kicked off with the Eco-festival this past Saturday at Druid Hill Park. Check out their schedule for more events as the week progresses.
Today I visited Maryland Presbyterian Church to hear Joan Norman of One Straw Farm speak about their organic farming operations and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, then drove up to the farm for a tour. Saw the infamous chard in baby plant form, and looking forward to getting my first vegetables come June!
This Saturday, millions of people around the world will be turning off their lights at 8:30pm local time in a call to action against global warming. This event was started by the World Wildlife Federation in Australia, and has been growing since 2007. WWF estimates that more than 27,000 companies and organizations in 84 countries will take part this year.
I recently had a home energy audit done on my house, which I will be blogging about in installments because it taught me so much! In this first part, let me tell you what an energy hog my old refrigerator is...
It took a bit of detective work to track down the model and serial numbers, but Whirlpool customer service was able to tell me that my fridge was born in 1982 - almost thirty years old. A quick check on the Energy Star "recycle my old fridge" website showed that this appliance uses more than 1800 kWh per year. That's about 42% of the total kWh my entire house uses in a year! If I replaced it with a newer Energy Star model that uses 470 kWh per year, I'd save about $160 a year on electric bills, which means it would pay for itself in about six years.
Other things I learned about refrigerators and energy efficiency from the Energy Star website:
Position your refrigerator away from a heat source such as an oven, a dishwasher, or direct sunlight from a window.
To allow air to circulate around the condenser coils, leave a space between the wall or cabinets and the refrigerator or freezer and keep the coils clean.
Make sure the door seals are airtight.
Keep your refrigerator between 35 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit and your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
Minimize the amount of time the refrigerator door is open.
In most households, the refrigerator consumes more energy than any other kitchen appliance.
Spring is coming... and with it, a bunch of green events in the Baltimore area. Mark your calendars! Environmental Film Festival in Washington DC, March 11-22.
The Chesapeake Sustainable Building Alliance usually holds a happy hour on the first Monday of each month: this month it was postponed to 3/9 due to snow. Will be held at Earth Alley, a groovy little green gift shop in Hampden.
Our local USGBC chapter (formerly known as the Baltimore chapter, now the Maryland chapter) is hosting the first annual Chesapeake Green Building Expo on March 25-26.
Baltimore AIA's 2009 spring lecture series promises to be another good one. Catch the first lecture on March 18: architect Stefan Behnisch of Germany will discuss sustainable building design.
Also, the Baltimore Ethical Society is hosting speakers on the topic of sustainability this year. I've been invited to speak on March 29 about how you can take action here in Baltimore to shrink your environmental footprint.
Back in September 2008, Google and GE announced a partnership to explore a smart electricity grid.Yesterday they held a public event at Google’s DC office to discuss their progress and future plans.Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.org, and Bob Gilligan, Vice President at GE, moderated two panel discussions about energy policy and developing technologies.
The first panel included representatives from a traditional power company, a solar power company, GE’s Ecomagination group, Tendril/Zigbee, Google, and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.As they discussed their visions for a smart power grid in America and took questions from the audience, the ideas of informing consumers and providing incentives for smarter energy use came up time and again.Google’s marketing video depicted a number of PowerMeter testers declaring that their energy usage was much easier to manage now that they could see the high points and change their behavior accordingly.To paraphrase a famous quote from Lord Kelvin that has been mentioned many times in the context of Bentley’s carbon footprint data collection, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
Historically, the flow of electricity from generation sites to consumers has been a one-way street controlled exclusively by utility companies.However, with the rise of solar and other renewable energy generation technologies, panelists suggested that this model must change to accommodate two-way flow from other generation sites:Jeff Renaud from GE’s Ecomagination used the term “energy internet” to describe the concept.There should be public API and data compatibility standards to allow for entrepreneurial development, yet enough security measures to maintain data integrity and consumer privacy.
The idea of informing and empowering consumers to be better managers of their household energy usage is certainly attractive from an economical standpoint:homeowners stand to save quite a bit of money by running certain appliances only during off-peak hours, unplugging devices that draw unnecessary trickle current (Americans waste $5 billion a year on parasitic power), and investing in more energy-efficient appliances (like Energy Star).But what about the environment?Off-peak energy usage saves money, but in order to save the planet, we also need to curb our overall energy usage.As the tide turns from blissful ignorance to awareness of energy consequences, we should all be keeping an eye on the big picture, not just on our own checkbooks.
The second group of panelists (utility policy experts) agreed that consumer education and utility company outreach programs could and should be improved.People should know the distribution of power sources in their regional mix:what percentage of electricity comes from coal, nuclear, solar, etc.State and federal policies should require more transparency and disclosure in the utility industry, and not in the format of the pesky “fine print” disclosure documents we all receive from our credit card companies every time rates change.Consumer awareness of home energy performance should be the new normal, especially considering that a house is most consumers’ biggest investment.Panelist Andy Karsner, former Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, praised the Department of Energy for its research and development efforts, but criticized its implementation.
Throughout the discussions, the new stimulus package being signed by Obama that day was mentioned many times.Carol Browner, assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama Administration, made a brief appearance before the second panel discussion and spoke about using the stimulus package to invest in bigger, better, and smarter energy technologies.
Let’s hope that this new Smart Grid venture turns out to be just that.
Are you itching to get your spring vegetable garden started? Me too. So I've been collecting tips to make this year's garden better than ever...
Green tip for starting seeds: save your empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls to use instead of buying those little peat pots from the garden center. It's green and cheap!
Mapping out your garden but not sure what to plant where? Read about companion planting in Carrots Love Tomatoes, a book recommended by my gardening pal in Vermont.
Check out the latest Maryland Home & Garden newsletter and their new Grow it! Eat it! campaign. They also post a monthly calendar with recommended dates for planting and other timely garden tasks.
Are you a Baltimore County resident? If so, then you're in luck: I received the following email about free stuff from the Baltimore County Department of Public Works. Check out their webpage and sign up for e-newsletters here.
Email as follows:
Looking to do some landscaping around your yard? We can help! Baltimore County residents can get free compost and mulch at the Eastern Sanitary Landfill and Solid Waste Management Facility (ESL) in White Marsh. Residents must bring and fill their own containers.
Mulch is mainly comprised of ground and shredded tree limbs. Residents and the Bureau of Highways bring the tree limbs to ESL, and then landfill employees use a tubgrinder to process the wood into mulch.
Compost is comprised mainly of grass, leaves, bush trims, plants and small branches that residents have set out, generally in plastic bags for collection in the County's yard materials recycling program or brought to ESL. These materials (contents and bags) are placed in "windrows" and processed. Finished materials are screened to remove unwanted and large pieces of material. However, small pieces of plastic may still be present in the compost.
The County makes no guarantees about the quality or composition of either product. The individual user assumes all risks and responsibilities associated with the use of these materials.
Compost and mulch are available on a "First Come First Served" basis. Please call our customer service line, 410-887-2000 (M-F, 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.) before going to ESL to check on the supply of these materials. The directions and hours of operation for ESL are available at http://www.baltimorecountymd.gov/Agencies/publicworks/solid_waste/facilities.html .
The best line I've heard yet this year about the new Obama administration is this: "It's not that we have a President who's black; it's that for the first time we have a President who's green." - by Van Jones, quoted by green blogger Joel Makower.
I'm too young to remember much about the Carter administration, but from what I hear, Jimmy was fairly green... what with his cardigan sweaters and putting solar panels on the White House roof and all.
But if the proof is in the political actions, then Obama seems to be making some progress: already he has taken action with the EPA and Department of Transportation to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. And actions like this are coming none too soon for the leaders of Europe, who have been calling for the USA to get serious about reducing emissions and join the Kyoto Protocol for some time now.
Let's hope he keeps moving in the right direction.
