WHAT YOU CAN DO
Practical Tips We Can All Do to Make One Change at a Time!
- Carbon Tracker Checklist (PDF)
To start significantly lowering your carbon output, print out and use and use this checklist.
- Going Zero Waste
A delightful blog and absolute treasure trove of ideas on how to stop contributing to landfills and
in the process, creating a healthier home.
- TP For a Cause
This innovative company that began in 2012 through crowd funding, does two things; it delivers
recycled or bamboo toilet paper with no plastic packaging, and they donate 50% of their profits to build toilets around the world.
- Toothpaste tablets in eco-friendly packaging
Well Earth Goods - An Oregon based company providing quality products that support a
minimalist, waste-free lifestyle and help keep the earth well.
- Blue Earth Compost
Blue Earth Compost is a food scrap collection service for residents and businesses in
Connecticut. We’ll come by to collect your scraps and deliver the finished product back to you 3
times a year. We make the whole process clean and easy. They need 20 households to add Branford to their collection routes. Are you in?
- Lawn Gone
Low-maintenance, sustainable, attractive alternatives for your yard by Pam Penick.
- Single Stream Recycling
Branford now has a "single stream" recycling program. Learn more here.
- How to Eat a Plant-Forward Diet
Some ideas that may help you ease into eating meals that are both good for you and better for the environment.
Living Wisely Bookshelf
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most―the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.”―Jane Goodall
Under A White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
“[Kolbert] has a marvelous eye for the quirky . . . and she wields figurative language in truly glorious ways. . . . Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways we manage the environment; time to work with what we have, using the knowledge we have, with our eyes fully open to the realities of where we are.”—Helen Macdonald, The New York Times Book Review
Eat Like a Fish by Bren Smith
Bren Smith is a former commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer who pioneered the development of restorative 3D ocean farming. Born and raised in Newfoundland, he left high school at the age of 14 to work on fishing boats from the Grand Banks to the Bering Sea. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and elsewhere; his ocean farm won the Buckminster Fuller Challenge for ecological design, and, in 2017, was named one of TIME magazine’s Best Inventions. He is the owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm, and Executive Director of the non-profit Greenwave, which trains new ocean farmers.
Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy
In this grassroots approach to conservation, homeowners learn practical steps for turning their yards into habitats for the wildlife we need for healthy ecosystems.
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams
"In this upbeat, brightly conversational account, Outside contributing editor Williams travels widely to track down the best science behind 'our deep, cranial connection to natural landscapes …' A thoughtful, refreshing book with a simple but powerful message: 'Go outside, often, sometimes in wild places. Bring friends or not. Breathe.'”—Kirkus, starred review
Everyday Do’s and Don’ts That Help
Don’t try to do them all at once. Master one and move to the next. You will be pleased with how many changes you—and everyone in your household—can make over a year.
- Don’t run the tap while brushing your teeth.
- Turn out the lights when you leave the room.
- Avoid idling your car unnecessarily.
- Buy material reusable produce bags at BigY – don’t use the plastic-on-a-roll bags.
- Take your own reusable bags whenever you go shopping – not just supermarkets. Develop the habit.
- Use brown recyclable leaf bags from Home Depot/Richlin/Lowes etc. for your garden waste -- stop putting it in black plastic bags.
- Recycle! Branford has a two-stream recycling program — (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGjvYXo8qSQ)
- Don’t litter! Go one better - pick up litter.
- Take your own “doggy bag” to restaurants. Avoid using their styrofoam and plastic take home containers that you are going to throw out so they will go straight to the landfill.
- Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
- Bothered by the containers you can’t recycle? TerraCycle can provide big help with non-recyclable products. Visit www.terracycle.com
- Stay Up to Date with "Yale Climate Connections"
Yale University provides an excellent online newsletter, "Yale Climate Connections," with important stories about climate change.
Have ideas of your own to improve this list? We'd love to hear from you! Please email them to us at livingwiselyandwell@gmail.com.
