Making the Green Shift, Away from Carbon Dependence.
Safe Harbor is sharing ideas about easy ways to reduce your carbon impact. Using Carbon has been like using a credit card to get our civilization to where we are now. The bills are beginning to show up! We believe that even the smallest efforts, enacted together will inspire others and honor the power of collective action. The energy field of our future will be a hybrid of existing and innovative technology, such as vertical axis wind turbines, geo-thermal, photo voltaic and passive solar. Click here to share your ideas with us.. gordonsafeharbor@yahoo.com
Dennis Minsky, ecologist and educator, introduces our workshop.
Gordon Peabody, Safe Harbor, presents innovative concepts in carbon reduction.
Joy Cuming of Aline Architects in Orleans MA, presents passive solar home designs.
Liz Argo of Solar Wrights, presents solar hot water systems.
Atlantic Plumbing and Well Drilling engineer, Ron Peterson discusses geothermal heating principles and installation.
Tom Wineman of Wind Wrights, presents wind power options.
What can you do today ?
Recycle. One of the easiest ways to make a small change is to support multiple uses of our resource materials. Recycled paper saves more than trees, it conserves biomass, reduces landfills and provides new jobs in collection and processing. Aluminum can recycling not only saves aluminum but offsets the tremendous amount of electricity necessary to process raw aluminum.
Recycling of glass bottles almost failed in one Cape Cod town because residents didn’t want their neighbors to see what brands or how much alcohol they might be drinking. This unforeseen glitch was solved by a quick thinking town official who reminded residents their bottles could be placed in ANY recycling container in town. Residents began putting empty bottles in their neighbor’s recycling containers and things moved ahead smoothly.
Air drying your clothing, either indoors or out, utilizes ambient heat and reduces wear on fabric. Energy consuming artificial dryers reduce the useful life span of our clothing . That lint in your dryer’s filter used to be your clothing.
Petrochemical plastic bags waste resources and decorate our landscape
Find, buy or make cloth bags for shopping. Creative bags made from clothing or fabrics are unique and should be sold everywhere to support fund raising projects.. Even one reusable bag can make a difference. Our food is often double packaged to begin with. Make a point of going “bag free” If you’re just getting two or three items. Even if you need additional plastic bags, you are already making a difference. When you share this idea is share this idea with your friends, you are multiplying the difference you can make. Safe Harbor believes in the power of collective action.
Vote with your dollars. Buy Local. The less distance an item has traveled, the greener it may be. This is especially true of local produce in season.
Avoid multi processed multi packaged foods. Keep it simple. Organic foods are pesticide free, this conserves petro chemicals.
Keep the damper closed in unused fireplaces.
Use switched outlets to save energy with “sleeping” appliances such as televisions and computers.
Insulate hot water hearer pipes.
Remove or seal air conditioners in winter.
Install programable thermostats to reduce energy use when spaces are empty.
Open south facing shades and curtains to create solar gain.
Vote with your feet. Support local business who have a commitment to reducing their carbon foot print.
Car pooling and ride sharing cut fuel use in half or more.
Share your ideas. Collaboration is a core component of Sustainability.
Home heating systems are heavily carbon dependent. We need to consider past as well as future alternatives. The home heating system of the future may be a hybrid of solar, wind and geothermal, relying on petroleum fuel only as a back up.
Bio Mass fuels can utilize waste for energy. When construction waste is landfilled, it costs up to 13 cents per pound.
This truckload of building scraps was separated by the contractors for recycling pick up. Safe Harbor recycles over twenty truckloads of burnable wood to local residents each winter.
A truckload of wood scraps kept this fire going for 7 hours.
With the fireplace going, the thermostat can be dropped ten degrees and only used as a back up.
A study of two roofs on adjacent lots: They both have similar tree cover/ sun exposure and face the same direction. Snow melting on one roof and not another is a sure sign of heat loss due to lack of insulation.
A properly insulated roof will keep it’s snow intact but melting areas will point to heat leaks.
Reuse of petrochemical plastics through recycling reduces unnecessary waste. These tubes are full of expanded pellets from recycled computer and electronic shells.
These light weight, easy to handle components are being used to replace tons of heavy stone in septic system leaching fields.
Longer Term Goals
In natural systems, there are NO waste products, everything gets recycled.
Outer Cape waste streams are jammed up by multi-material items that can’t be recycled. This results in expensive disposal costs from handling and landfilling. The key to solving environmental problems can often be found within the problem itself.When items such as bedding are taken apart, they can be 100% recycled. Recycling creates local jobs, makes proper disposal more affordable and keeps our limited financial resources in the community.
A BIG CHALLENGE FOR THE FUTURE
What would be a good solution for Cape Cod’s expensive waste disposal challenge?
Each day, Outer Cape municipalities have to pay to transport six hundred thousand pounds of waste off Cape. Each day, hundreds of tractor trailer delivery trucks arrive on Cape Cod, unload products generating this waste, then turn around and leave empty.
Municipalities also pay an off Cape company for disposal of their waste. The company utilizes the waste as fuel to generate electricity, which it then sells. Cape Codders are actually paying this company to accept fuel. Municipal waste disposal costs may double or triple over the next ten years.
What Would be a Good Idea for Water Use?
One of the ideas we have been working on with our inter disciplinary “Green Team” would create a “second source” system for flushing household toilets. The system would work using rainwater, shower, sink or bath tub water. This water would be filtered and re used to flush toilets, instead of wasting drinking water to do the same job.
