Click here for more details about solar heating, solar electric and other energy rebates offered through the MN Office of Energy Security.
Energy Home Visits. Sign up for the incredible One Stop Community Energy Services. $400 worth of products and services for just $30! Not to mention years and years of energy savings! Includes CLFs, a programmable thermostat, pipe wrapping, a blower door test to identify leaks and much more!
Linden Hills Power & Light (LHP&L), is a neighborhood-based organization aiming to shrink our local carbon footprint through education, community engagement and action. We promote sustainable energy, waste reduction and energy conservation.
We are currently focused on three priorities:
1. Making the curbside organics collection pilot a great success, with the aim that it continues in Linden Hills and is expanded to other neighborhoods in the city.
2. Pursuing the development of an urban Anaerobic Digester (AD) to process organic waste and produce renewable energy. More info here.
3. Working on energy efficiency initiatives in the neighborhood. Afterall, what's the point of purchasing/developing renewable energy if it's just going to be wasted through uninsulated houses, or inefficient furnaces, etc. There are several forms of assistance available to increase your home's energy efficiency. A single person earning less than $21,184 or a family of four earning less than $40,736 qualifies for substantial retrofit efforts. Click here for details based on the size of your family and income levels. Eligible families receive on average $6,500 worth of weatherization. Don't qualify for these? Click here for some pointers on cheap, easy ways to weatherize your home.
Linden Hills residents can now recycle their food scraps into compost!!
Residents of single family, duplexes and fourplexes are now able to recycle their organics through a pilot Source Separated Organics (SSO) curbside collection program.
You can join the Green Tub Club by reviewing the letter the city sent here. Or, Sign up for the pilot quickly by clicking here.
For those in apartments, email info@lhpowerandlight.org for a form you can give your apartment manager or owner. Businesses can also save money and do their part for the environment by recycling organic material - join Clancy's, Great Harvest, the Linden Hills Co-op and soon, Dunn Bros in this environmental stewardship initiative.
Recycle your plastics
A program to collect 'tub plastics' (such as yogurt containers) is now underway at Whole Foods Markets. The Preserve company's "Gimme 5"
program has a collection bin for #5 plastics at both metro Whole Foods Markets. Preserve collects these plastics (as well as Brita filters) to
recycle into household products. Check with Home Depot also, they may collect yogurt tubs for growing seedlings. NEW! East Side Co-op is now collecting plastics number 3 and 7. So that means they collect ALL plastics 1,2,3,4,5,6,7!!
Compost? Why?
"The only effective method to prevent methane emissions from landfills is to stop biodegradable materials from entering landfills. The good news is that landfill alternatives such as composting are readily available and cost-effective. Compost has the added benefit of adding organic matter to soil, sequestering carbon, improving plant growth and reducing water use - all important to stabilizing the climate. Composting is thus vital to restoring the climate and our soils and should be front and center in a national strategy to protect the climate in the short term."
-BioCycle magazine, August 2008
Significantly decreasing waste disposed in landfills and incinerators will reduce greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent to closing 21% of U.S. coal-fired power plants. This is comparable to leading climate protection proposals such as improving national vehicle fuel efficiency. Indeed, preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting are essential to put us on the path to climate stability.
www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org
You can find a comprehensive, A-Z list of what is and isn't compostable here. For more details and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the compost program click here.
What IS compostable?
Food scraps, including fruit and vegetable peelings, meat, leftovers, etc. Paper products that you're not currently recycling -(continue to recycle newspaper, office paper, cardboard, corrugated card in your usual manner) that is, tissues, paper towels, egg cartons, pop boxes, paper that's touched food e.g. paper plates, pizza boxes; waxed containers such as milk cartons, and packing from fridge and freezer products. Once this pilot is up and running there should be no paper in your trash at all. Other items that are biodegradable include coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, lint from your dryer, vacuum bags, old potted plants, and unusable old (non-synthetic) clothes. Yard waste will NOT be composted at this time.
What is NOT compostable? There should be very little in your regular black trash cart - broken glass, ceramics, rubber, leather, non-recyclable metal, diapers and pet feces.
For more information and FAQ about the Organics collection, click here.
WHAT DO WE NEED?
We need your help in ensuring the SSO Collection is a success! Become a compost captain and encourage your friends and neighbors to participate. We promise you will not look like this guy if you help out. Click here to learn more.
What is LHP&L focusing on right now?
LHP&L's mission is to reduce our local carbon footprint through education and community action, by promoting sustainable energy, waste reduction and energy conservation. We have been working with the city on a pilot collection of biodegradable (compostable) material. Taking biodegradable waste out of the trash has many environmental benefits, see here for more information. All households except multi-unit dwellings with more than four units are eligible to participate (apartment buildings and businesses can opt to modify contracts with haulers if they want to join). We have completed a feasibility study on the viability of a neighborhood anaerobic digester, to see if we could use the neighborhood's waste to create energy that would benefit the community.
We're also encouraging residents to participate in the MN Energy Challenge -an online tool that shows how small steps can have a big impact in reducing carbon emissions and global warming. Take the challenge!
Click here to see a short 2 1/2 minute video about LHP&L.
How can I get involved?
We welcome your ideas, comments and feedback. We are a neighborhood group, comprising neighbors just like you. We are incredibly blessed to have brilliant people living in our community and many have already come forward to offer their talents - whether market research, legal knowledge, etc. If you have a skill you believe would be useful to us, give us a call! We could certainly use help with fundraising, grant writing, bussines plan creation or evaluation, 2 hour volunteer shifts at the May festival, joining a committee, or just joining our mailing list and spreading the word with your neighbors. Don't forget the green cart drill team! Anyone who would enjoy synchronized marching with a garbage cart is welcome!
Feel free to use the buttons in the boxes on the left of this web page -particularly the ones that say "? question" and "discuss". This website is designed to harness the collective intelligence that we know is out there, whether you're in our neighborhood or beyond. (In order to ask a question or discuss, you may have to create a login initially. It only takes a few seconds and we totally appreciate you doing it!)
We need your support
This project cannot go forward without commitment from our neighborhood. And while financial support is nice, more important to us is your philosophical support – that you believe as we do, that Linden Hills is exactly the community that can make a replicable impact on a global crisis. To contribute time, ideas, suggestions, resources, or funding, contact LHP&L:
Linden Hills Power & Light
2720 W 43rd St, Suite 101,
Minneapolis MN 55410
Ph (612) 925-4249
Email: info@lhpowerandlight.org
Green Carpet Film Fest.
LHP&L recently held a film festival promoting renewable energy and combating Climate Change. Click here for the winners of our 2008 Green Carpet Film Festival, "The Golden Garbys".
This video shows our carts being delivered!
What if you believed that community involvement could change the world?
Linden Hills Power & Light (LHP&L) is an informal group of citizens who got together in 2006 to brainstorm how to reduce energy wastage in our community - Linden Hills. More recently, a board of directors and advisory board have been assigned to actively target waste reduction and energy conservation tasks. We aim to make Linden Hills a replicable example to the rest of the city – by engaging our neighbors and moving them to action. Changing the habits of 4000 households is not something a small group of people can do, but with the support of our community – intelligent, thoughtful, committed people – we know it can be done. In fact it's already being done in Europe - watch this short video about Sweden!
There should be very little in your regular black trash cart - broken glass, ceramics, rubber, leather, non-recyclable metal, diapers and pet feces.