Sustainability in my home

In the past year, to be more sustainable I have been volunteering as a member of the City's Waste Reduction Advisory Committee and in that role I have supported our efforts to have some of the City's events be zero waste. I have also coordinated a food rescue program where 150-400 packaged food items are collected every week from two Lafayette Starbucks and donated to low-income members of our community. Food waste is a top contributor to climate change, so keeping this methane-generating stuff out of our landfills is really helpful.

In my home we continue to be enthusiastic users of our three-bin waste system; we have the largest compost and recycling bins and the smallest trash bin available and fill them accordingly. We installed solar panels in 2018 and continue to meet 100% of our electricity needs with renewable energy. By the end of this year we will have replaced our old, inefficient water heater with a new high efficiency water heater (and may convert it to electric so it's powered by solar instead of gas).

This year one of our two cars died and so we are experimenting with trying to adjust to life with just one car. We continue to take advantage of the walkability and public transportation available to us. My kids walk/bike/skateboard to and from school every day and my husband commutes by bus to Denver every day. (I work from home.)

We try to patronize Isabelle Farm frequently and love eating food grown lovingly and healthily just a couple miles from our home. I have been vegetarian for most of my life and this year made a pledge to have 1/3 of my meals be vegan. Industrial animal agriculture is another really big contributor to climate change and reducing my consumption of meat products also helps with water issues.

We avoid shopping just for shopping's sake, and we are big supporters of our local second-hand stores. Avoiding buying brand new stuff is a huge way to keep our environmental footprint down.

These are among the sustainable choices my family and I are making. And I want to share that it is pretty easy, natural and pleasurable to live our lives this way. We don't feel like we are making sacrifices and it feels really good to know that I'm not compromising the ability of future generations to have my same quality of life.