Pacifica Riptide

Shorter Showers Save Salmon

BY BILL COLLINS, RIPTIDE CORRESPONDENT

With water bills going up and salmon populations in serious decline, this is a good time to consider simple water-saving measures that can save money as well as the salmon, which want us to take less water from the rivers. 

If you have a lawn you don’t use, consider replacing it with native plants. (In this economy, it’s not difficult to find workers to dig and haul your lawn.) Natives, once established, need hardly any supplemental water, provide habitat for birds and pollinators, and make the yard far more interesting than a lawn ever can. Consider your lawn as an empty palette, where you can add walkways, native trees, shrubs, and flowers.  

Collect shower water to flush the toilet (pour a bucket of rinse water briskly in the toilet bowl). The pure water going down the drain while the shower is warming up is good for plants. Of course, shorter showers help save energy as well as water. On-demand water heaters save energy, space, and water.  

Put large garbage bins under your downspouts to collect rainwater for your yard. I fill two or three barrels each rainy season, which keeps my plants watered until the fall without any water from the hose. Rainwater is probably better for plants than treated tap water, anyway. 

Kitchen sink rinse water can be collected in a bowl and used for a toilet flush or in the yard. A little soapy water generally is fine, especially during the rainy season if not always put on the same plants.  

A more ambitious project is to replace a concrete driveway with driveway blocks that allow water to seep through to the soil, rather than via the sewer to the sea.  

If your clothes washer is an old model, check out rebates for low-water units.   

Someday, we may have gray-water plumbing that collects rinse water, but in the meantime, a bit of low-tech work does the job.  
 
Bill Collins chairs the Sierra Club's Loma Prieta Chapter Water Committee.

Don't Pour Fats, Oils, or Grease Down the Drain

Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (BACWA) is encouraging residents not to pour fats, oils, and grease (FOG) down the drain. This poses a potentially severe threat to Bay Area sewer collection systems. When poured down the drain, FOG solidifies and can clog pipes, costing cities and sewer agencies tens of millions of dollars every year for clean-up, as well as from fines resulting from sewer overflows into a creek or the Bay. The dollars add up for residents too: clogs in sewer lines can result in sewage backups and overflows into the home, causing costly repairs to the pipes and your property. The Bay Area Pollution Prevention Group is asking residents to enjoy all holidays by not pouring grease and other cooking byproducts, such as gravy or sauces, down the drain. An even better reason to recycle: In many cities around the Bay, recycling cooking oil not only reduces waste and unclogs sewers, it also serves as an alternative fuel source that powers many city-owned and operated vehicles. What should you do with fats, oils, and grease? Follow these simple step-by-step disposal instructions: Use food strainers in kitchen sinks to catch food particles and scrape leftover food waste into the garbage or compost container, not the garbage disposal. Pour cooking oil into a clean, sealable container. Check http://www.BayWise.org for free drop-off locations near you.

 

SCRAP: Scroungers' Center for Reusable Art Parts

CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON CREATIVE REUSE

Eco Travel: Green Traveler Guides

We don't guide you anywhere we haven't been. Named BEST ECO TRAVEL WEBSITE by Tripbase.com. GREEN TRAVELER GUIDES' HAWAI`I

Winner of BEST GREEN E-BOOK at the 2009 Green Book Festival
http://www.greentravelerguides.com/
Twitter: greentravlguide

Opinion: Pooches Pollute More Than SUVs

"Green" dog owners will be stunned by this carbon-footprint factoid: owning a dog is twice as polluting as owning an SUV, including the energy it took to manufacture the car. To confirm this, New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett of the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, England, to calculate eco-prints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same: READ IT AND WEEP. The market for "green" pet food surely will (and should) ramp up over this one. Is this going to affect cap-and-trade for the United States when Third World countries beat us over the head about how many pets we have? Whatever the outcome, this is going to upset a lot of people, including my family, which is very "green" and has pets.

DYER CROUCH

Annie Leonard: What's Wrong with Cap & Trade?

Annie Leonard’s (Story of Stuff)  NEW film CAP AND TRADE:

http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/

Recycle Your Discs: CD, DVD, etc.

Local recycling programs typically don’t accept CDs for recycling, but at least one Bay Area company and several others around the country do. They will grind up your unwanted discs, including audio CDs, CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, and DVDs, and sell the results for manufacturing into other plastic products. You can mail your discs, but you pay the postage. Here are two places:

M-Cubed LLC, 270 E. Caribbean Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. Phone 408-752-1560 or 800-377-9933. Open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Plastic Recycling Inc., 2015 S. Pennsylvania, Indianapolis, IN 46625. Phone 317-780-6100.

Consider contributing your unwanted discs to a solar-power experiment. Ray Calkins of Veguita, New Mexico, is building a CD-based solar concentrator that increases the output of a conventional solar panel by focusing more energy on it. Send your discs to him at 201 Dolores, Veguita, NM 87026.

[from NATURE NEWS: free subscription from JAKE SIGG]

Burn, Baby, Burn: Trash Hauler Makes Its Own Fuel

Very cool news about Waste Management of San Francisco installing a system at Altamont landfill to capture escaping methane gas from rotting garbage and turn it into liquid gas to run garbage trucks. This has the double benefit of keeping greenhouse gas out of the environment while powering the fleet with cheap, clean, locally produced fuel. Let's hope Pacifica's new trash hauler goes green, too!

Styrofoam Ban: Pacifica Pooh-Poohs Polystyrene

On October 26, 2009, Pacifica City Council unanimously approved a comprehensive polystyrene foodware ordinance, which goes into effect January 1, 2010, requiring all Pacifica restaurants to use biodegradable or recyclable containers and utensils for to-go (takeout) food orders. It also requires the city to practice what it preaches in all of its own purchasing, meaning no more Styrofoam cups at City Hall. The ordinance is the result of several years of lobbying and research. In the end, Millbrae's ordinance was used as the model this ordinance was based on. The final vote was 5-0, with several citizens speaking in favor of the ban, and no one speaking against it.

(Ian Butler reporting)

Straight Flush: Eco-Toilet Rebate Debate

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The Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency (BAWSCA) is partnering with member agencies to offer rebates of up to $150 per toilet to residential and commercial customers who purchase and install high-efficiency toilets (HET) this year. HETs are modern, water-efficient toilets designed to use 1.3 gallons per flush (GPF) or less. Although they use up to 62% less water than older toilets, they perform well and remove waste efficiently. Qualifying toilets must be purchased between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010. Other restrictions apply. All of the BAWSCA HET rebate program details and a List of Qualifying HETs are available at BAWSCA or by calling 650-349-3000. Rebate applications are also available at local retail stores and from participating member agencies.

(Unfortunately, Pacifica's local water company, North Coast County Water District (NCCWD), offers only a $50 rebate for any new toilet that uses less water than the old ones. It will also rebate the cost of recycling the old toilet. Nevertheless, it is worth it to get a new HET toilet. We love ours. --Linda Corwin)