Always welcoming new members ... see committee chair contacts below.
Climate and Energy
The climate and energy committee will present at the December 5th Climate Cafe on strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of your home. This presentation will focus on energy reduction and home electrification. The committee continues to meet twice a month on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Contact: Brian White [email protected].
Education and Outreach
The Outreach and Education Committee had a rousing success with our first official Climate Café. Alexi Dart-Padover gave a wonderful presentation on the importance of Native Plants in your garden and everywhere. Jeanette Millard introduced the audience to Green Hudson including our effort to get input for the Town Climate Action Plan. Brian White spoke on the “urgency of now”. Having had a few false starts it was clear we needed good PR. Janice Habermehl outdid herself on publicity, and we had 25 audience members! Thanks to Tom Green for recording and to HUD-TV for the use of their equipment. Future Climate Cafes will be recorded in collaboration with HUD-TV.
Thanks to Alexi Dart-Padover and our Green Hudson volunteers for making the evening both fun and useful. You can view the presentations at October Climate Café.
Our next Climate Cafe will be on November 15th. Details are listed below under Reminders.
Do you have PR or newsletter skills? The committee can use your help. Contact: Jeanette Millard [email protected].
Plastics Reduction
The reduction of polystyrene and single use plastics is our ongoing major project. To that end we have recently completed a survey of 44 local restaurants to determine how many are still using polystyrene (Styrofoam) containers as well as other single use products such as straws, utensils, and non-recyclable black plastic. We anticipate meeting with the Board of Health to ask for their support for a proposed plastic reduction by-law to be on the May 2024 Town Meeting Warrant.
Here are our initial survey results:
Restaurants giving out:
Styrofoam containers: 16 (not recyclable)
Black plastic containers: 19 (not recyclable)
Plastic utensils: 37 (not recyclable)
Giving out or making available plastic straws: 40 (not recyclable)
Giving out home compostable straws: 3; metal: 1; industrially compostable: 1
Giving out industrially compostable utensils: 2
Still giving out plastic bags: 10 (Banned by popular vote at Nov. 2019 Town Meeting!)
We Can and Will Reduce Plastics in our Town
We had planned to bring our results to the Board of Health meeting in early October. Unfortunately, given the new responsibilities of the BOH to oversee the refugees that the state has sent to our town, they were not able to meet with us. We will try again for the November meeting. We plan to bring a plastic reduction by-law to the May 2024 Town Meeting one way or another and ask for your support!