Hello, Potatoes! Happy fall! ???? We hope you are having a great fall so far!

This month we’re starting the three Cs: Conserving, Cleaning up, Chiming in! These are three important categories of how we can make an impact! We’ll start with Conserving — a collection of habits to prevent waste and preserve our planet’s vanishing resources. Then we’ll look at Cleaning up — fixing what we’ve already done — and Chiming in — spreading the word so we can all work together! Once we’ve concluded our first year with these three things, we’ll move on to smaller, more concrete goals. Thank you for joining us for the final season of 2020!

This month we’ll be focusing on five main areas: electricity, air conditioning/heating, food, water, and purchases.

Electricity: 

• Turn lights off when you leave a room or leave the house

• Use energy-efficient light bulbs 

• Use solar lights when possible

• Plug devices and appliances into a powerstrip, or unplug them when you’re not using them. This saves phantom energy, the energy consumed when a device is off but plugged in

• Take colder showers

• Do your laundry with cold water. This saves energy by not using the heating element

• Air Conditioning/Heating:

• Turn it down or off when you leave the house or go to bed

• Turn the heat a couple degrees down and wear warmer clothes such as sweaters, cardigans, beanies, socks, long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, and blankets

• Make sure all the windows, doors, walls, and attic have good insulation. Energy.gov estimates that 20% of your winter electricity bill is made up of heat loss from your attic

Food:

• Plan meals so that you only get what you need

• Freeze extra food that you won’t use before it goes bad

• Store food the right way. You can look at this 3 Ways to Store Food to see how to properly store your food so it won’t go to waste

Water:

• Turn off the water when you’re brushing teeth

• Take shorter showers. Pick your favorite song and try to finish your shower before it’s over

 • Buy a water-saving toilet handle and shower head. You will save hundreds of dollars a year, and save thousands of gallons of water in the process

• Make sure you don’t have leaks

Purchases: 

• Be aware of what you are buying, and consider whether you really need it

• Borrow things from friends — you can borrow lots of things from friends that you would usually need to buy like, clothes/shoes, hot tools, and reusable water bottles just to mention a few. Your library may also lend out tools and musical instruments in addition to books and movies!

• Go thrifting. Thrifting is a great way to get really nice items at a low price, and it’s also really fun to go with friends! 

• Pets don’t need excessive numbers of toys to be happy — you can buy a few, but if they’re not worn out you don’t have to buy more. You can also make your own out of old T-shirts and scraps!

• Again, just be aware. A large part of going zero-waste is just about being aware of how your actions affect the environment, so just be aware of what you’re buying, and if you’re not happy with it, then you have the power to change it!

Best of luck with the final season of 2020, and thank you for conserving! ????