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Make my city greener, leaner and greater by...

Citizens in Hazel Park, Southgate and Ypsilanti are partnering with their city governments to create local climate action plans. Through a yearlong public planning process, these cities are asking residents for their ideas to reduce greenhouse emissions, improve environmental quality, enhance quality of life, and save energy and money. The final climate action plans will strategically identify and prioritize sustainable strategies in order to achieve community goals.

This site is a supplement to our public meetings and allows residents from across the three cities to share ideas. For more information on how to get involved in person or to see the information we’ve collected so far, follow this link.

How would you make your community greener, leaner and greater? Share your ideas below!

27 results found

  1. Encourage front/back yard gardens.

    By creating a visible garden you are creating a platform to get to know your neighbors and members of your community. Offering extra vegetables and or fruits from an over abundance your garden will produce can help your neighbors. Why should we be investing in weed killers and "yard" fertilizer when a garden seems so much smarter!

    4 votes
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  2. Put our roads on a diet.

    Ypsilanti is cut into pieces by Washtenaw/Cross/Hamilton/Huron, two-to-four lane highways that are dangerous if not impossible to cross on foot (and really, really ugly). These roads can be reduced to one-to-two lanes, with adequate parking, complete bike lanes, pedestrian facilities, and other traffic calming measures to bring the average speed down and make these roads usable/crossable by all people, not to mention more beautiful.

    5 votes
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  3. lower or eliminate the recycling bin fee

    the loss of bin fee revenue might be offset by greater SOCCRA payments for increased recycling

    1 vote
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  4. Offer a bus route between the Ypsilanti Township and the City

    We don't have a bus-route in the Township because AATA owns the Ypsilanti Bus route. There are allot of residents in the township that would spend more time downtown if they could get a bus-ride. There also is a Kroeger shopping center and a Library on Whittaker that could be used as bus-stops. I know I would save allot on gas if I didn't have to drive all the way down to the transit center (which by the way has gotten rid of the majority of their free parking spaces)! Why cant we have our own bus route?

    3 votes
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  5. Implement Kinetic Energy (human powered) Programs and Funding

    Funding for clean green energy is important because right now everyone wants energy independence but can't afford 30-40,000 to make it happen. I would add to this, that the solar panels of today are tomorrows hazardous waste. They contain cadmium, a known carcinogen. Some companies also use nitrogen triflouride, a potent greenhouse gas. SVTC (Silicone Valley Toxics Coalition) estimates that 1.5 billion pounds of solar panel waste containing 2 million pounds of lead and 600,000 pounds of cadmium will be disposed of in California alone. So solar panels are not the solution yet.

    A very under promoted technology is Kinetic…

    9 votes
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  6. Educate the citizens of the city that own their own older homes to insulate their outside walls and attic with cellulose insulation.

    I am exploring insulating my exterior walls with GreenFiber cellulose insulation. This is "green" insulation, since it is made with recycled newsprint. This insulation is blown in through 1" holes in either the exterior of the home, or in the interior walls of the home. A 1" hole saw is used to do the holes between wall joists. A small home, with 915 of square foot wall area, would take about 15 bags of this insulation, for a cost of 148.12. Home Depot rents the blower for free with a purchase of 20 bags. Only problem is the holes needed…

    2 votes
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  7. 1 vote
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  8. Use earth and environmentally friendly cleaning products, such as Shaklee. You could actually see if the Teen program has a 501c3 and get

    a free website setup and also help an organization at the same time. Here is a website to check out the cleaning products... www.hkirshman.myshaklee.com there are several videos on that site you can look at and get more information on it.

    3 votes
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  9. Using Programmable thermostats to turn down the heat or cooling in residential, commercial, and civic buildings

    ENERGY STAR recommends turning down your thermostat by 8 degrees Fahrenheit on winter nights and 8 degrees on winter days when you’re not home. However, while this degree of energy saving / greenhouse gas reduction may not be comfortable for all, the savings are as follows:

    For every degree you turn down your thermostat in winter, at night or during the day, you would save 29 dollars a year, and save 248 pounds of c02 a year. If 7000 homes did just one degree of heating savings, we could prevent 868 tons of c02 per year.

    2 votes
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  10. Purchase Neighborhood Electric Vehicles for use by code enforcement and other city functions where a full size vehicle is not needed.

    Full size, 8 cylinder vehicles are not needed to transport workers to a job site, or to enforce codes in the city. Non-public safety activities such as transporting workers to a worksite, checking fire hydrant operation, code enforcement, even civic patrols can be better served by using electric vehicles within city limits. At 10 vehicles replaced, the results would be as below.
    $3.30 Price of Gasoline ($ per gallon)

    $0.0988 Price of Electricity ($ per kWh)

    15.7 Miles per Gallon of Vehicle Replaced

    0.2 kWh per Mile of New Vehicle

    12,042 Average Annual Miles per Vehicle

    7,670 Annual Gasoline Savings…

    2 votes
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  11. Commit to purchasing "green" generated electricity from the DTE "Green Currents" program, or purchase Renewable Energy Certificates.

    While not a perfect option, doing this generates the most "bang for the buck" in terms of reducing the greenhouse gases that are generated by electrical use. We all can't make our own clean power, but by purchasing green energy, we force the utility to create and generate clean power. For example, in a city with 16000 residents, a 20 percent "green power" buy could reduce the greenhouse gases (c02e) by 9,997 metric tons a year, while costing the average resident a whopping 18 dollars and change A YEAR!

    Renewable Energy Certificates are similar in principle to the purchase of…

    1 vote
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  12. Partner with SMART or another carpooling organization to transport our high school students.

    Families all of the City of Southgate were greatly impacted by the loss of buses and now our children are indivudually driven to the schools. If there were bus routes or carpooling opportunities availalbe this would save multiple families in the same neighborhoods driving to the same schools to drop off and pick up their kids.

    7 votes
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  13. 13 votes
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  14. Composting in your back yard it's easy. Saves money, and produces great top soil for your garden

    Composting is just collecting kitchen scraps and leaves and putting them in a pile . Then Mother Nature does the work of turning it back into soil. Composting can be done with almost no effort. Just add equal amounts of kitchen waste and leaves or ( cardboard scrap) in summer.
    We save in garbage fee and have a green city.

    9 votes
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  15. Offer Micro-grants and/or Micro-loans to people (individuals or groups) for direct, positive change.

    Often, the people who would benefit most from having a bicycle (and necessary accessories), tools, a garden, trees, a sewing machine, small business, etc., are stuck in a cycle of living paycheck to paycheck, and just need a little boost to help them break free of unsustainable living.

    3 votes
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  16. impliment funding for wind or solar energy in low income neighborhoods .

    encourage local businesses ,organizations, and local government to supply a fund available to low income families to install solar or wind energy in their homes or neighborhoods .it will pay for itself because the money that they save on energy will go back into and stimulate the local economy. Thus giving people that dont have the funds opportunity to incorporate these green energies into their home

    7 votes
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  17. encourage businesses to have close to work employees

    give incentives to businesses who hire walkers or bikers. Or have businesses pay for parking spaces of employees to encourage walking/biking workers

    2 votes
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  18. get a flock of sheep

    let's sell the city's lawnmowers and instead get some sheep and a moveable fence. Rotate the sheep around the parks to keep the grass short. At the end of the season, sell the sheep for meat. Repeat annually.

    7 votes
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  19. Partner with public and private schools to build stewardship education and recognition of the empowerment available thru engaging

    Revitalizing anything, be it your body or your block requires active participation, a serious antidote to the apathy, depression and woes of all sorts (economic, educational, political, environmental, etc) that plague our culture.

    By bringing joyful meaningful activity, be it weeding a garden, community mapping or building model wind turbines - involving young people with the development of their place is essential to forming effective solutions.
    I am not quite singularly sure how this would work, be it partnering with existing school events or running new ones...?

    19 votes
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  20. 8 votes
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