A Downtown Celebration of Earth Day on April 22nd
Posted by Ana Gramling | Visited 2186 times, 4 so far today | Currently 2 Comments »
Earth Day was founded in 1970 and focuses on environmental awareness. It is celebrated annually on April 22. The grassroots efforts now proudly boasts an international audience and has made a permanent change in our national priorities.
As a downtown condo homeowner and an active homeowner’s association board of director, I wanted to participate in Earth Day to make a difference in our condo community in East Village. Besides, I thought any cost savings from energy conservation to an individual homeowner or to our homeowners association would be great! I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to save a little cash right now!!!
My mission was to look to our local community for help and to make awareness of “going green” and education of Earth Day our focus. SDG&E kindly donated recycle/reusable shopping bags and the Center for Sustainable Energy provided collateral material and several of our maintenance vendors/suppliers for our building have also agreed to participate by contributing recyclable products. Our homeowners association has posted flyers notifying our residents of our celebration which will take place in our community room (we call it our “Living Room”…you know the urban lingo) and our property management company is going to do a “meet and greet”. So, all-in-all, I think we’re off to a pretty good start of observing and celebrating Earth Day! I’m proud to be a part of this celebration and hope we can make a difference in our neighborhood with the vision that other downtown communities will follow our lead. By the way, our community has already made strides in going green by installing a drip watering system to our exterior landscaping and we have reduced our common area lighting by 50%!!!
I’m not only a Realtor who farms and lives in the downtown San Diego market, I’m a native San Diegan and I care about our community and love to share it with others. If you have considered buying in the downtown San Diego area…let’s spend a little time touring the neighborhoods (“districts”). I’m just a phone call away at (858) 688-3363. Click here to check out my previous blog articles to see what neighborhood choices downtown has to offer you. You too, might just fall in love with the lifestyle and culture of downtown San Diego and can also call yourself an “urbanite”.
EARTH DAY TIPS:
Save Energy
- Open refrigerator door only long enough to get the food items you need.
- Organize refrigerator shelves for easy access to foods you use the most.
- Use the Energy Star program to find energy efficient products for your home. The right choices can save families about 30% ($400 a year) while reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases. Whether you are looking to replace old appliances, remodel, or buy a new house, Energy Star can help and is the government backed symbol for energy efficiency.
- Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
- Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven).
- Have leaky air conditioning and refrigeration systems repaired.
- Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
- Replace incandescent light bulbs with qualified Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL). If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with a CFL, it would prevent enough pollution to equal removing one million cars from the road.
Use Less Water
- Don’t let the water run while shaving or brushing your teeth.
- Install water-savings showerheads and ultra-low-flush toilets.
- Take short showers instead of tub baths.
- Scrape, rather than rise dishes before loading into the dishwasher and only wash full loads.
- Wash only full loads of laundry or use the appropriate water level or load size selection on your washing machine.
- Don’t forget to clean the dryer lint filter after each load.
- Buy high-efficient plumbing fixtures and appliances.
- Check all faucets, pipes and toilets for leaks…did you know a leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons a day!!!
- Water your lawn or garden during the coolest part of the day (early morning is best).
- Sweep outside instead of using a hose.
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
Practice the three R’s: First reduce how much you use, then reuse what you can and then recycle the rest. Dispose of what’s left in the most environmentally friendly way.
Reduce
- Buy permanent items instead of disposables.
- Buy and use only what you need
- Buy products with less packaging.
- Buy products that use less toxic chemicals.
Reuse
- Repair items as much as possible.
- Use durable coffee mugs.
- Reuse boxes.
- Purchase refillable pens and pencils.
- Donate extras to people you know or to charity instead of throwing them away.
- Reuse grocery bags as trash bags.
Recycle
- Recycle paper, plastic, glass bottles, cardboard and aluminum cans.
- Recycle electronics.
- Close the loop and buy recycled products and products that use recycled packaging.
Going Green??? Check out the following websites for additional tips:
www.energycenter.org
www.energystar.gov
www.sandiego.gov/environmental-services
www.sandiego.gov/wateremergency
www.sdge.com
Ana, it’s awesome that you are contributing to Earth Day and your community. Windermere is lucky to have an “expert” Realtor downtown!
Thanks for spending the time to explain the terminlogy towards the newbies!