Wollondilly Shire Council

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• Sustainable Living Guide

  The Sustainable Living Guide lists a variety of activities you can undertake in your day to day activities to ensure you're doing your best to be sustainable. Find out more.
  
  “Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.” Jane Goodall
  
   Less stuff, more life.Creating a sustainable life and society, requires we recognise an…

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• Garden

  Our gardens can bring us closer to understanding ecosystems that underpin life on this planet and how to live in harmony with the earth. By creating a beautiful, efficient and productive garden in your home, you can learn the rhythms of nature and our humble role in it. So how can we let our green thumbs align our gardens to the sustainable path?Garden Actions
  
  Grow your own food
  Would you like to eat fresh food that's good for you and the planet? Get into gardening in your own backyard.
  
  K…

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• Grow Your Own Food

  Would you like to eat fresh food that's good for you and the planet?
  Get into gardening in your own backyard.
  Much of the food we eat has travelled hundreds, even thousands of kilometres to reach us. The carbon emissions from transport and refrigerated storage are a significant contributor to climate change.
  
  Creating a food garden at home or in your local community is a simple and effective way to reduce your impact on the environment. It will also give you the experience of pleasure that…

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• Keep Chickens For Eggs

  Keeping chooks provides your household with a daily supply of sensational tasting eggs from a sustainable pet that consumes your kitchen waste and weeds your garden.
  
  Keeping chickens is a great way to turn waste into food, entertain yourself (and your kids), and they increase the nutrients and health of your soil while eating bugs, insects and sometimes mice.
  
  How to do it now!
  Keeping chickens is easy with the right setup, equipment and knowledge. Always check your local library, bookstore or…

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• Water Efficient Gardening

  With less rainfall and hotter weather predicted in the coming decades, we need to go with the limited flow and create water-wise gardens.
  
  Clean water is essential to life on earth, yet it is a scarce resource comprising only 3 per cent of the world's water. Most fresh water is stored in ice caps and below the surface of the earth. Despite the scarcity, global consumption of water has been increasing each decade. Australians use about 30 per cent of their household water consumption on thei…

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• Use Plants to Remove Toxins

  Is your living space giving you 'sick building syndrome'? Treat it with a collection of plants that absorb toxic chemicals. They're good for your soul - and good for your health.
  
  In the drive to make our homes energy-efficient we have become better at sealing the indoors from the outdoors to keep temperatures even and lighten the load on the energy systems used to heat and cool our houses. However, this can lead to poor indoor air quality and our health can suffer from the build-…

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• Mulch Your Patch

  Mulching your garden beds improves soil health and prevents water loss through evaporation.
  
  Mulching is the number one rule for water conservation in your garden. Adding mulch to your garden beds can prevent water loss by up to 25 per cent, reducing evaporation rates and increasing the water storage capacity of your soil.
  
  Soil is the starting point for life in the garden (and in the forest, bush and grassland). It is continually being made in one of nature's great cycles. We can't ma…

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• Nurture and Conserve Biodiversity

  Create an urban refuge for local biodiversity and enjoy the visual elements, the sounds and serenity of nature in your own backyard.
  
  Nature is something special. It's not just about trees and animals, but also the way they interact with one another and the uniqueness of these relationships. From birds, bats and koalas to insects and worms, they all have an important role to play.
  
  By fostering biodiversity in your backyard you are supporting a diverse variety of plants, animals and micro-o…

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• Grow an Indigenous Garden

  Growing indigenous and endemic plants in your backyard helps extend remnant patches of native fauna, attracts native wildlife to your garden and conserves biodiversity. So get your hands dirty and enjoy the rewards.
  
  Climate change poses real threats to indigenous flora and fauna, much of which is already under threat from urbanisation and modern agricultural practices. It is more important than ever that we do our bit to protect habitats. By using indigenous plants in your own garden you can cr…

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• Assess your homes sustainability

  Like many of us, you might be thinking about ways to save money at home.
  
  A home sustainability assessment can help you to identify where you can save money through reducing energy and water usage. A number of professional organisations and state government run programs are available.
  
  Ordinarily they involve a qualified assessor visiting your home and conducting a physical inspection of major energy and water systems. It usually only takes an hour or two, at the end of which, you'll receiv…

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• Buy renewable electricity

  Every time you use electricity in your home greenhouse gases are belched out on your behalf. So buy the clean stuff!
  
  By purchasing 100 per cent Federal Government accredited GreenPower renewable electricity you are instantly switching your electricity dollar from a traditional coal-burning power plant to one of a combination of renewable sources of electricity generation (e.g. wind, hydro, biomass and solar) and stopping approximately 10 tonnes of CO2 / year (for an average home) from being rel…

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• Cultivate energy saving habits

  Energy saving habits are easy to learn. By changing your daily habits, you can save resources and money and reduce your contribution to global warming.
  
  The cost of energy is rising and the threats posed by climate change are increasing. However, with just a bit of effort, the average household can reduce its energy use by about one-third – and save money on energy bills at the same time. The energy efficiency of the latest technology is improving and using common sense, we can significantly red…

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• Cultivate water saving habits

  Water saving habits are those easy-to-learn daily behaviours that can save us thousands of litres (and dollars) during the course of our lives.
  
  Thousands of litres of pure fresh water are wasted every day by bad habits we have all developed. While the water we use at home may seem trivial (only 7 per cent of all water used in Australia) its conservation is a step toward increasing our knowledge and respect for this precious, life-giving resource - a resource all the living systems around us als…

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• Embrace energy efficiency

  Energy conservation can save resources and money through the adoption of efficient technology and behaviours.
  
  The cost of energy is rising and the effect of pollution is increasing. With just a bit of effort we can cut our household energy use by more than a quarter and rapidly repay this investment within a year or two with the savings on our energy bill. The energy efficiency of the technology available to us is improving and when combined with our common sense, can create large reductions in…

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• Generate your own electricity

  Energy conservation can save resources and money through the adoption of efficient technology and behaviours.
  
  The cost of energy is rising and the effect of pollution is increasing. With just a bit of effort we can cut our household energy use by more than a quarter and rapidly repay this investment within a year or two with the savings on our energy bill. The energy efficiency of the technology available to us is improving and when combined with our common sense, can create large reductions in…

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