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Your Actions Matter!

Even small steps can ripple outward into lasting impact. Let's create a more resilient future by getting involved in local and global climate action, building stronger communities while restoring ecosystems.

Sustainability Venn 2026

Advice from local nonprofit Windsor Earth Action

Your holiday celebrations can be sustainable AND fun! 

The holiday season is upon us. There are many ways to celebrate and no matter how we honor this special time of year, we are barraged with hundreds of ads to BUY stuff. We often feel pressured to buy gifts for children, grandchildren, spouses, friends, co-workers, pets, and more. Much of this stuff ends up in the garbage, on a back shelf, and potentially in our oceans. These things are often made with plastic and/or packaged in excessive amounts of plastic.  We are all learning the terrible impact all this plastic is having on ourselves, our environment – the wildlife, the climate, the oceans, and those communities reeling from industrial facilities spewing poisons to make all that plastic. This holiday season, consider returning to the good old days. Shop secondhand, invite loved ones over for a home cooked meal and games, volunteer, participate in community exchanges, etc. Our grandparents were onto something great with their homemade pies, gifts, and decorations. Need inspiration?  Here are some great resources:

Make this a special Halloween season with fun, spooky, zero waste ideas! 

Think old school with costumes from local thrift store, homemade or borrowed.  Tap into your most creative self by making costumes and decorations with cardboard or paper mache. Try natural face paint and natural items to style your hair.  Decorating with natural items such as pumpkins, fall leave, Spanish moss, and tree branches is fun and beautiful. Lanterns can be made from glass jars decorated with paint, paper and tea lights. Replace your plastic utensils with bamboo and use reusable or compostable paper plates for serving delicious Halloween treats. When it’s time for Trick or treat, old pillowcases, canvas tote bags or any upcycled cloth make great bags.  Candy treats can be purchased wrapped in foil (Hershey’s Kisses) or wax paper (saltwater taffy) or little cardboard boxes.  Seed packets, pencils, coins and other fun items make great alternatives to candy. And finally check out this great Halloween treat!

Dispose of Your Household Hazardous and Electronic Waste the Right Way

Check out CalScape for All Things Native Plants

The California Native Plant Society has made it easy to decide what the best plants are for your landscape and local ecology. They have a website (https://calscape.org/) that allows you to drop in your zip code and then filter for color, season, pollinators, etc. You can even find links to local plant nurseries that carry those plants or seeds in your area. Collecting 'exotic' plants goes back to the Victorian Era when it was a sign of wealth to have enough resources to keep a tropical plant alive in harsh cold climates. Imported plants from Asia, South America, and beyond haven't evolved for generations with our local climate and native biodiversity. Not only do they take more water and energy to keep alive but they also don't provide food for the insects that then in turn feed the birds, frogs, salamanders, lizards, opossums and so on that make up a healthy ecosystem. If we could get people to plant even a patch of their yard in natives we could create a Homegrown National Park as our yard connects with our neighbors patch and on it continues. 

❤ Book recommendation: Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy, who purports this idea of creating a Homegrown National Park.  

You can find all sorts of resources, volunteer opportunities, and advice on the actions you can take in everyday life while aligning yourself with a statewide movement for tracking and empowering climate action! Find out more and take the pledge at www.californiavolunteers.ca.gov/climate-action-counts . Priority climate actions from the State: Reduce Waste, Compost Food Scraps, Support Local Farmers, Green Your Ride, Get Planting, Be Disaster Ready, Save Energy / Water / Money, Discover Nature, Get Connected, Tell a Friend!

"Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent synthetic compounds that have contaminated millions of hectares of agricultural land through decades of biosolids application. Conventional remediation approaches, such as thermal destruction or excavation, are prohibitively expensive, carbon intensive, and leave affected farmland unfit for agriculture."

 This Yale University study explores a potential scalable remediation strategy that combines phytoremediation (plants that can absorb certain contaminants better than others), biochar production, and enhanced weathering to simultaneously remove PFAS from soil, immobilize residual contamination, and achieve durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR)

Some packing material is recyclable and some is not. Here's a better solution: Pack Ship & More on the corner of Windsor River Rd & Bell Rd as well as the Post Office will take any clean packing material that you have and reuse it. They will accept (clean only): bubble wrap, air pillows, cold packs, peanuts, and flat polystyrene (styrofoam) sheets.  No formed polystyrene, please. Just drop it off at the counter and they will do the rest!

Take the pledge to tackle plastic

Did you know that the average American throws away about 300 pounds of plastic packaging annually? There are about 342 million Americans.   Now that is a lot of plastic! This ends up in landfills, incinerators, or polluting our natural habitats. The planet is suffering, human health is suffering, but with mindful choices, we can work together toward alternative solutions. Plastic Free July is a great time to start! Check out  https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/   and the movie "The Plastic Detox" on https://www.netflix.com/title/82074244.  Take the pledge and learn how to reduce, reuse, and  refuse! 

Attend Town sustainability events and workshops

What do I do with....

Do you have a growing collection of used batteries?  You can drop them off at Town Hall or have SCRR pick them up on your collection day. Batteries must be placed inside a sealed clear bag, and higher voltage battery terminals taped. 

Drop off: Town Hall, 9291 Old Redwood Highway, Building 400, Monday – Thursday, 8AM – 5PM. Curbside: On your collection day place on top of your blue recycle cart.  For more helpful tips visit Zero Waste Sonoma https://bit.ly/3Tqrinu