Boston has been making strides in urban sustainability over the past few years and it's beginning to show. Sustain Lane has released its 2008 rankings of densely populated US cities on urban sustainability and Boston comes in a healthy 6th up from 7th in 2006 and behind Portland, OR, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Boston's best scores came from City Commuting (#2) and local food and agriculture (#3). You can learn more about the study here.It's important that we all do our part to help reduce waste too. Here are my top 10 tips for reducing your footprint:
1. Ditch the car for public transportation - or better yet bike or walk everywhere you can.
2. Stop cleaning with paper towels, bar towels are a great alternative.
3. Shop your local farmers markets, your taste buds will thank you.
4. Invest is some good reusable bags for grocery shopping. I'm partial to the durability of the bags sold through Whole Foods.
5. Teach your children the importance of recycling.
6. Give up the bottled water habit.
7. Bring your own coffee cup.
8. Use freecycle to recycle the things you don't want.
9. Switch to biodegradable cleaners, I prefer Method.
10. Support green businesses.
2 comments:
I'm not sure I agree with all the categories and the overall assessment, but it is interesting. For instance, what good is City Innovation if you don't have a Water Supply.
I like how my hometown Cleveland is in the top three for many criteria. It's a great city to live in as far as I'm concerned.
You bring up some great points and also a reminder that study results are only as good as the study itself. It's too often the case that after a study is released the researcher gains better clarity into what questions might have resulted in better data.
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