Welcome to the Eco-City Alexandria Blog – a place where members of the Alexandria community (youth and adult residents, employees and employers, businesses, organizations, associations and city government) can share ideas about how to make the City of Alexandria, Virginia an ecologically sustainable city. Before using this blog (using includes: reading, commenting on, downloading, copying, reproducing, altering materials of any kind, subscribing to, and linking to), please read the Eco-City Alexandria Blog Terms of Use. Using this blog indicates that you accept these terms of use. If you do not accept these terms of use, please do not use this blog.

Got a great idea about ecological sustainability? Want to connect with other individuals, businesses or organizations interested in sustainability? Want to engage in a conversation with others in the Alexandria community about the Eco-City Charter or the Environmental Action Plan? Want to shape environmental, economic and social policy in the City of Alexandria? This blog is for you!

We want to know your ideas and thoughts about the Eco-City Charter and the Environmental Action Plan. We want to know about projects, programs, policies, best practices and other initiatives you’ve run across related to ecological sustainability (environmental, economic & social sustainability). We want to know what you do (as individuals, businesses or organizations) to be more sustainable or environmentally responsible.

This blog is organized by audience (all posts are tagged by the following tags: citizen, business, organization, government or world) and by topic (all posts are categorized by the following categories: air, water, solid waste, land use, open space, green buildings, transportation, climate change, energy, health or implementation).

Share your ideas, comments and questions! Your input is very valuable. Check out our calendar to see what is going on in Alexandria and the greater Washington area!

“The climate crisis will not be solved by international deals alone. Virginia’s elected officials should act before it is too late. State legislators can start with S. 71, an energy efficiency bill that will reduce emissions and cut costs. And the rest of us must do our part as well.”

-Glenda C. Booth, editorial in the Alexandria Times
Alexandrian and Virginia outreach coordinator, National Audubon Society and advocacy chair, Audubon Society of Northern Virginia

During the President’s State of the Union speech, President Obama noted that China, Germany, and India “are not playing for second place.”

I believe our president had to do that because a cloud of malaise has descended upon the country. Columnists around the country are lamenting our decline. Two weeks ago Roger Cohen wrote an article entitled “Exit America” speculating what the world might look like if China becomes a superpower and the United States has retreated back to the Western Hemisphere in 2040, just last week Thomas Friedman wrote an article warning his readers that participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland were concerned about rising “political instability” in the United States. Last year Slate magazine published a “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” series about the decline and fall of These United States. Even William Kristol acknowledges the possibility of decline.

Without agreeing or disagreeing with these commentators, I think people believe we are in a funk. Everyone is facing deficits, from Capitol Hill to City Hall. Despite the very real concerns from the aforementioned writers, I am happy to report that our community has made progress in a very tangible area: recycling.

These tables below are are not new, but they are still worth publicizing. Before the Environmental Policy Commission started drafting the Eco-City Alexandria Charter and the Action Plan, residents and business could not recycle as much as they can today. Take a gander at the charts below to see the progress we have made.

Recycling Yes/No Chart in Alexandria, 2010

Keep going…

Recyling Yes/No List in Alexandria, 2008

..and look at the progress we’ve achieved! Now we can recycle prescription bottles, bottle caps, and plastic bags!

No matter how bad it seems, we can make a difference. The actions that individual people take in our fantastic little community do matter. We are making change, even if it’s not as rapid as we might like. Print the new chart here and tape it above your recycling bin and/or trash can to remind yourself to keep up the good work. Check out Transportation and Environmental Services’ website for more information about the our recycling program.

“An article on the Human Transit blog looks at the three common factors that determine which cities in the United States have a lower rate of car-ownership. The author, public transit planning consultant Jarrett Walker, notes that different areas of cities may have different rates of car ownership and that it can be difficult to gain an actual picture of what is going on based on city-wide statistics. However, even with this caveat, three major factors can be determined in car-ownership rates: high rates of poverty, dominate universities, and the age when the majority of the city was built out.” — Smart Growth Network

http://www.humantransit.org/

I was on hand Tuesday (February 2) when the ACPS Environmental Stewardship Committee was formally introduced to compostable straws, which the good folks at Food and Nutrition Services are considering to replace plastic straws in the school cafeterias. The cost of these straws is roughly the same as for common plastic straws, but their use might help ensure that cafeteria waste destined for compost isn’t contaminated with non-compostable plastic.

Now, a quick survey for parents: do your children use drinking straws at home? If your answer was “no,” or “not usually,” “not often,” etc, then I must ask: why should they use them at school, exactly? And what kind of trash-culture habits do students learn from a drinking-straw habit?

I know of no strongly persuasive argument for the use of drinking straws for milk at school–not that there aren’t weak arguments. But in terms of solid waste, the Eco-City Charter correctly orders its priorities: reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery (composting, waste-to-energy, etc), and disposal. Yet here we are skipping straight past the first three higher uses, settling for composting, in an educational setting.

Convince me that straws are indispensable–so to speak–and I’ll readily accept the compostable sort. Much better would be to take the line item for drinking straws and put it toward more worthy Eco-City goals.

Skip the straws, people!

Modern environmentalism has its roots in the study of environmental health. As ‘municipalisation’ spread during the nineteenth century, so departments were set up to improve the supply of drinking water and the carrying away of waste – sewerage.
Today, January 27th, marks one hundred years after the death of Thomas Crapper.

He didn’t invent the flushing toilet. That fame goes to John Harrington in 1596 and the word crap comes from a Dutch word, krappe, and has been in use for centuries. But Thomas Crapper really made the floating ballcock a practicality and his entrepreneurship made the flushing toilet a necessity for every loo. A matter of convenience, so to speak.

RECYCLING AWARDS
Two James K. Polk Elementary School students recently received awards from the City of Alexandria and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments for their participation in America Recycles Day, a nationally recognized day held Nov. 15 to encourage Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. Each year the City of Alexandria encourages children and adults to pledge to help the environment in new ways. As part of the City of Alexandria’s 2009 America Recycles Day Pledge Contest and the Eco-City Alexandria Plastic Bag Recycling Initiative, award winners Naomi and Rebekah Corbin pledged to increase recycling efforts throughout the community. Read more at http://www.acps.k12.va.us/news2010/nr2010012201.php

I must go down Cameron St again and see how the very big pile of snow is, the one on Cameron and St Asaph. It was, we were told, a very historic snow fall and it has worried me that the pile would melt before the Historic Alexandria department could get a plate (and a preservation order) on the edifice. Of course, it was constructed without the benefit of a ruling by BAR, but time is of the essence

Vancouver engineers its own urban dream – latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

I saw the future this week. I went to a Tesla showroom while I was in Boulder. This is an all-electric vehicle and it is in the showrooms. We were told that at that moment there were 59 Teslas in private ownership in Colorado.

Yes, with all the trimmings, they are expensive with a final price approaching $140,000 for a very sporty 2 seater with no room for a baby seat. But the range of electric cars is growing and the cities with charging points, plus the Truck Stop power supply network (promoted by the EPA to reduce the need for trucks to idle while in Truck stops) all go to say that electric cars are here and going to increase with numbers. And the 7 seat Model S Tesla is on its way with a basic price of $50,000. (Range 300 miles per charge, 45 minute quick charge, 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds). Charging points are being installed in hotels as well. Current charging rates are: 240 volts give a rate of about 30 miles per hour of charge, 115 volts 15 miles per hour.
See http://www.evchargernews.com/

So, Alexandria, it might be time to start planning a network of charging points for visitors. We are proud to be cutting edge, aren’t we?

As we left, another Tesla was being wheeled out of the show room. 60 Teslas in Colorado now.

HAMMOND RECOGNIZED FOR CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITY IMPACT
Francis C. Hammond Middle School Campus was among 25 schools selected to receive a mini-grant from the National Center for Safe Routes to School. Students will establish an Outdoor Activity Sampler Club focusing on the environment, physical exercise and safety. The National Center received 247 SRTS mini-grant applications from schools and community organizations across 44 states and the District of Columbia. Selected proposals distinguished themselves through originality of efforts to help lead local community efforts to promote safe walking and bicycling to school, including the strong involvement of students, protecting the environment, promoting physical activity, and the implementation of measurable activities. For more information, please contact Caroline Dickson at the National Center for Safe Routes to School at 919-962-5835 or dickson@hsrc.unc.edu.

It’s a pity that on the same day as reading this, two people have said that they don’t believe the City takes its duty to create safe sidewalks seriously