Wollondilly Shire Council

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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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• 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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• DIY environmental checklist

  Time to grab the clipboard and run the environmental ruler over your home. Identify the low hanging fruit and big bang actions that will quickly and easily reduce your homes impact on the environment.
  
  The journey to reduce your home's energy and water use is one of many small steps. Tips and actions from changing leaking taps to installing ceiling insulation can be easily done by anyone. More sophisticated actions like installing solar hot water will require a tradesperson. However, the ke…

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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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• Insulate, shade and weather proof your house

  Insulating, shading and weatherproofing your house can save you up to 45 per cent on your current energy bills while increasing the comfort and value of your home.
  
  Minimising the need to heat and cool your home from the extremes of our summer and winter weather will also reduce your household's contribution to global warming.
  
  Strategically placed trees that provide shade to your house in summer will cut electricity use, saving you hundreds of dollars over the life of your home. Similarly,…

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• Reuse your greywater

  Reusing greywater to water lawns and gardens could save up to 50,000 litres of drinking water per home each year.
  
  Greywater is recycled water from domestic use in the home. It includes water from baths, showers, hand basins and washing machines and can be used on the garden or treated and reused in your washing machine, toilet or garden. Greywater from the kitchen (including dishwashers) should not be used because the concentration of food wastes and soil organisms do not readily break down che…

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• Buy Local and Seasonal Food

  Locally produced food grown in sync with the seasons is fresher and requires less energy to produce and transport to you.
  
  Eating local and seasonal food supports local producers and the production of crops that are appropriate to our environment. It alleviates the reliance on long-distance transport and refrigeration of foods that are grown thousands of kilometres away. Foods grown in sync with the seasons are more in tune with our intuitive nutritional needs; after all, who wants a cucumber sa…

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• Buy Fair-trade Food and Products

  To stop the degradation of the global environment we have to deal with the failings of global trade, namely its tendency to increase poverty and its exploitation of the weak. Buying products labelled 'Fairtrade' is a good start.
  
  The Fairtrade collection of organisations has developed a Fairtrade Certification Mark. When you find a product that bears this mark, you know that it has been procured through a process that has helped deliver better trading conditions to marginalised produce…

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• Use Non-toxic Cleaners

  Common cleaning products, disinfectants and air fresheners are creating a toxic environment at home. Try natural alternatives for a healthier home and family.
  
  Toxic chemicals in the home impact our health, causing ailments that range from respiratory ailments to cancer. A US EPA study on indoor air quality found that the use of common cleaning products result in levels of several Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that are on average two to five times higher indoors than outdoors. During (and fo…

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• Services

  The majority of the services we receive from our governments, health care providers, banks, etc. are configured for financial efficiency (saving money or making it). As such, the inclusion of sustainability obligations or awareness of the ecological footprint of the services they provide is a rare feature for Australia's service providers. How do we shift this?
  
  Service Actions
  
  Choose green service providers
  Wading through the ‘green wash’ to find service providers whose pro-environmental…

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• Join a Revegetation Group

  Community groups are planting seedlings and revegetating our lost native bushes and grasslands. Why not join a group and do your bit for the environment?
  
  The Australian landscape has dramatically suffered from the arrival of European farming and our clear-fell domination of the native environment. This decline continues, even though we know it leads to salinity, soil acidification and erosion. It's time to heal what previous generations have harmed. Now it is our responsibility to start fi…

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• Help Protect Our Coast

  Keeping our fragile coastal ecosystems healthy and vibrant preserves the unique natural beauty of Australia.
  
  Since the 1970’s, many coastal regions of this country have been regenerated from bare rock walls and flat sand to the diverse sand dunes and functioning ecosystems of today. Healthy meadows of sea grass reach out from the coast supporting further vibrant ecosystems under the water.
  
  These natural assets and features of our local environment make Australian coastal areas a great place to…

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• Join a Bushcare / Landcare Group

  Community groups are helping to rehabilitate weed choked native vegetation, enabling it to regenerate and thus, restoring native biodiversity. Find your local group and lend a hand.
  
  Years of neglect have stripped our urban creeks, parks and roadways of vibrant indigenous vegetation. It's time for us to remedy this erosion of our natural heritage. We can bring a diverse range of birds and creatures into our daily lives and would be creating a sustainable living space in step with Australian…

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