Thinking and Acting Green, Every Month of the Year

Recycling & Composting

This can be a good time of the year to re-familiarize yourself with local recycling capabilities, to ensure you are recycling the right way. And although it’s January, it can be a good time to think about composting your household organic waste through Dakota County’s recycling program, held at Thompson Park. Recycling & Trash | Dakota County 

Celebrate Winter Salt Week! 

Winter Salt Week aims to educate residents on the issue of salt pollution: how salt impacts freshwater ecosystems, practices that agencies are implementing to shrink their salt footprint, and ways to get involved. All the salt that we apply to roads and sidewalks ends up in our freshwater. Salt can be an effective de-icer, but more isn’t always better. Salt prematurely ages roads and bridges and degrades freshwater lakes and streams. West St. Paul has implemented the following smart salting practices: calibrating equipment, incorporating the use of salt brine, and educating operators to avoid the overapplication of salt. You can learn more and practice low salt, no salt best practices.

Veganuary

January is a popular month for New Year’s resolutions like exercising or abstaining from alcohol. If you want your next resolution to have a positive environmental impact, consider cutting out meat or going entirely vegan for the month. It’s estimated that livestock farming accounts for 15% of global carbon emissions—that’s as much as all emissions from transportation worldwide!

Feed the Birds

Winters can take a toll on our bird community. Show them some love by leaving some seeds out for them!

Start your Gardens Early

March is an excellent time to start assembling supplies for vegetable gardens and annual flowers. Starting your plants inside can be a rewarding activity while you wait for the snow to melt, and can also help your garden be more productive with fewer pesticides once the growing season starts.

Plant Native Plants

Spring is here, which means it’s time for the growing season to start. When thinking about your balcony, porch, or yard, consider planting native, pollinator species. These types of plants will help to feed our local pollinators, giving them critical habitat.

Low Mow

Many residents can mow their lawn less frequently and still abide by code requirements regarding grass length. Try mowing every other week if you regularly mow weekly. Depending on the weather and your individual property, you might even be able to mow less frequently than that!

Tune Up Your Lawnmower

Breaking the lawnmower out for the first time this year? Give it a tune up to ensure it’s in top order. Check and sharpen the blade if needed to ensure efficient cutting. If you have a combustion lawnmower, be sure to check the oil, and refresh any old fuel.

If looking to get a new mower or replace your current one, look into electric options to see if one might be beneficial for your yard. This market has been growing, and battery-powered mowers are capable enough to handle most yards in town, as well as being versatile enough to be stored compact and upright in nearly any space.

Walk or Bike instead of Drive

As the weather warms, get into a habit of biking or walking, even if it’s just one day of the week. Not only will you be helping the environment with less CO2 emissions, you will also be getting some sunshine and exercise.

West St. Paul has several biking trails available, including the River to River Greenway. Take a look at these maps for more details:

• River to River Greenway
• West St. Paul Trails on TrailLink

Pump the Heat

Can you handle the heat? By raising the temperature of your thermostat in July by even just a couple degrees, you can help lighten the load on the electric grid, which is beneficial to the environment with reduced CO2 emissions during this high energy use month.

Efficient Yard Watering

Ensuring our yards have the right amount of water for optimal growth is surprisingly complex! Take some time during the month of July to check in on the health of your yard watering system - especially if you have an in-ground system. Is your yard being watered in accordance with best practices? Watering is most efficient at dawn and dusk when plants are active and evaporation levels are low, and least efficient during the middle of the day–especially when it’s bright and sunny.

Travel Green

As you enjoy those final family vacations and trips up north before school starts again, now is a good time to be mindful of how you travel. Road trips with at least three people in the car are more carbon-efficient than flying. Consider driving instead of flying to your vacation destinations, and try to carpool as much as possible on long drives.

Check your furnace

Take some time this month to ensure that your furnace is ready for the winter by doing a check up on your furnace. A professional furnace inspection can not only improve your home’s indoor air quality, but also make sure that it’s running at peak efficiency before the cold months–when energy use is highest–arrive.

Adopt a Drain

Maintaining proper stormwater drainage is important to preventing our roads from being flooded during storms. The Adopt a Drain program shows you a map of all of the storm drains in your area, and allows you to ‘adopt’ them, checking up on them periodically and removing any debris that may accumulate around them.

Mulch instead of Rake

Mulching up fallen leaves with a lawnmower has many benefits for your yard, as the mulched up leaves have protective and fertilizing properties. This fall, instead of raking up, consider mulching your leaves instead.

Bring a Reusable Bag

A great way to reduce waste is to always bring reusable bags with you when you go shopping. Not only can you bring reusable bags to replace paper or plastic grocery bags, you can also bring mesh bags that can take the place of those plastic produce bags.

Some tips and tricks to remember to bring your bags with you are to pre-pack them in your vehicle, or put them in your coat pocket, purse, or other accessory bag.

Sustainable Gifting

Many holidays that include gift giving are celebrated throughout the month of December. When planning a gift, think about sustainable options! 

• Gifting experiences can be a great option to reduce gifting physical items.
• Shopping second hand is a great way to get unique and special gifts.
• Bring your own reusable bags on shopping trips.
• Wrapping paper with foil, plastic, dyes, or glitter is non-recyclable. Give presents in reused gift bags or seek out recyclable, reusable wrapping options like fabric or newspaper for gift wrapping.
• Consider buying gifts that use less packaging.
• Buy gifts in-store to avoid additional packaging associated with shipping.
• Do not recycle items like packaging peanuts, Styrofoam, ribbons, bows, tinsel, or anything with a sticky adhesive.