Carpooling Saves Energy

Multiply the fuel efficiency of the trolley by the number of passengers

8 MPG X 30 People = 240 MPG/Person

Things you can do to be sustainable

Change 1 Light

If 500 people in the Community will replace 1 standard light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, they would collectively save enough energy every year to light 13 homes and keep 39,499 lbs of Carbon Dioxide out of the air.

By replacing your home's five most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them with Energy Star qualified models, you can save more than $65 a year.

Water in Bottles?

The energy used each year making the bottles for bottled water in the US is equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil.

If water and soft drink bottlers had used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved 72 million gallons of gasoline.

Dennis Muchmore, Michigan United Conservation Clubs Executive Director says, “Although our citizens now return 97 percent of the 5 and half-billion bottles and cans for which they pay a deposit, they recycle only 20 percent of the bottled water containers because no deposit is required.

Eighty percent of those empty containers end up in landfills or critical wildlife habitats. It's a terrible waste.”  Sources: Earth Policy Institute, As You Sow, Container Recycling Institute. Mucc.org

To Be Sustainable

Nature's resources must only be used at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. The Great Law of the Iroquois describes it in this way. “In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation . . . even if it requires having skin as think as the bark of a pine.”

As applied to the human community, sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Robert Gillman, editor of In Context magazine, restates a very old and simple concept – The Golden Rule - “. . . do unto future generations as you would have them do unto you.”

“Libraries are already green and always have been. We buy something and thousands of people use it.” Phoenix City Librarian Toni Garvey

In 1998 the community of Hastings began an unprecedented effort to raise $5.4 million dollars needed to build a new Library building. In June of 2007 the Hastings Public Library moved into its new certified LEED Gold green building. The most obvious feature that sets a green building apart from a conventional building is that efficiency is considered in every deliberation. Efficiency save both energy and money by shrinking utility bills. However, even energy efficient fixtures pollute by using electricity that is made by burning coal. The pollution that a building generates is called its carbon footprint. In order to further shrink its carbon footprint and utility bill, the Library is currently installing 7.1 kW of photovoltaic solar panes to provide pollution-free renewable energy to the facility The system will prevent the burning of 2.75 tons of coal, keeping nearly 8 tons of Carbon Dioxide out of the air EVERY year.