Sustainable Arlington
Events:
Sustainable Arlington holds monthly meetings and we invite you to attend. Please visit our events calendar on the main web page to find out when the next meeting is and where it will be held. The calendar is actively managed and also lists other sustainability and environmental events in Arlington and nearby communities.
- HeatSmart 2019 -- program expected to launch in April with assistance from Sustainable Arlington
- Arlington EcoFest -- annual free public event held at Arlington Town Hall in the March. Sustainable Arlington has been one of the event organizers since 2011.
- Solarize Arlington 2012 -- 157 signed contracts for residential solar pv installations in town
- Arlington became a Massahcusetts Green Community, 2010, with support from Sustainable Arlington
Arlington team co-captain Laurel Kayne takes the team torch at the Energy Smackdown launch event at the McGlynn Middle School in Medford on May 4. For a report on the kick-off event, see this article from the Arlington Advocate.
Dick Rubinstein and Eric Kurtz, wearing CFL hats that they designed and created. They were handing out free CFLs to Town Day attendees who were willing to take the lightbulb pledge - that is to replace an incandescent bulb with a CFL.
- Replacing the lights in the Robbins Library Reading Room with compact fluorescents (CFL).
- Replacing traffic lights with LEDs.
- Replacing the aging mercury-vapor streetlights with high-pressure sodium lights.
- Town Meeting passed a bylaw requiring new Town vehicles to be the most energy efficient model suitable for a given purpose. Board of Health inspectors now make their rounds around town in a hybrid car that gets 48 mpg.
- Town Meeting also passed a bylaw making the “silver” level of national energy efficiency standards known as LEED the goal for new municipal buildings such as schools.
- THINK. Energy-wasting habits can be replaced with energy- and money-saving habits.
- Keep the 3 Rs in mind: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Use only the amount necessary to get the job done, from cleaning agents to watering your lawn. Buy reusables, or re-use disposables whenever possible. In both cases you save on the energy used in making and transporting the stuff and dealing with the waste or runoff generated, which means saving money including taxes. Also, it takes less energy to make things like paper and glass from recycled materials than from fresh raw materials, so please recycle and buy recycled.
- Be thrifty with the use of cars. Combine errands. When feasible, walk or bike (healthy exercise!), carpool, use public transportation. If your car gets low mileage, make your next one more fuel-efficient. Do the arithmetic: cost of gas, tolls, and parking for a month of commuting vs. the cost of a monthly MBTA pass.
- Insulate your home. Heat and cool it to a reasonable degree so that you don’t need long sleeves in summer or short sleeves in winter. Use energy-efficient appliances and lighting. Use a push mower (more healthy exercise) instead of a power mower.
- Watch the Arlington Advocate and other publications you read, and/or surf the Web, for any energy-saving tips. E.g., see the “Home Eco Checklist” on www.sustainablearlington.org.
- Clip or note some tips that you can work into your lifestyle and post them on your refrigerator as a reminder to start using them. And if you come up with a bright idea, please share it via a letter to the Advocate. An individual action may be only a drop in the bucket, but many drops will fill the bucket.
- Watch out for the announcement of the coming public forum on the ASAP. Take part if you can or read about the results in the Advocate.