Connecticut Green Living

Connecticut doesn't have any cities that make it to the top largest 100 in America, so there is no way to know exactly how well we stack up against America's greenest. However, in the new WalletHub feature comparing various criteria of America's largest cities, clear lessons and practices can be learnt. For one thing, recycling and abandoning plastic bag use is a huge plus. Connecticut is on its way with the plastic bag tax (10 cents at most stores for a plastic bag ), encouraging reusable bag or no bag use. People (some people) gripe a little but most I've spoken to are very enthusiastic! WalletHub's top green cities from amongst America's largest 100 cities are: 1) San Francisco; 2) San Diego; 3) Irvine, CA; 4) Washington, DC; 5) San Jose; 6) Seattle; 7) Fremont, CA; 8) Sacramento; 9) Portland; 10) Oakland. The worst are: 91) Virginia Beach; 92) Jacksonville; 93) Detroit; 94) Cleveland; 95) Gilbert, AZ; 96) Mesa, AZ; 97) Lexington-Fayette, KY; 98) Toledo;...

I have been saying for years that our state claims to be green and blue yet its not so secret dirty habit is plastic bags. Plastic bags strewn all over the trees outside Stop 'n Shop. Plastic bags spilling out into the waterways. Plastic bags inevitably choking the life out of fish. It is with great relief to note that our ban goes into effect this Thursday. Here's what you need to know: For the period starting August 1, 2019, and ending June 30, 2021, each store including supermarkets and drug stores will charge a fee of ten cents for each single-use checkout bag provided to customers at the point of sale. But, the exciting part is that on and after July 1, 2021, no owner or operator of a store will be allowed to provide or sell a single-use checkout bag to a customer. A "single-use checkout bag" means a plastic bag with a thickness of less than four mils (one-thousandth of an inch, or 0.001 inch) that is provided by a store to a customer at the point of sale. It...

WalletHub, a personal finance website, has lauded our state with green praise once again. We've ranked fifth in the union overall for environmental practices, even tops for water quality. Analysts culled data on everything from rate of waste recycling to soil, air, and water quality. While we weren't high on every criterion, our overall rating was superb. Rankings in order were: #1 Vermont, #2 Massachusetts , #3 Oregon, #4 Washington, and #5 the Nutmeg State . The worst rating on the green scale was Wyoming. I got a chance to send some questions to one of their analysts, Jill Gonzalez. Following is a transcript of that discussion: Jill, explain to me, please, what methods you all used to determine these scores and can you quantify them? We compared the states across three quantifiable categories: 1. Environmental Quality, 2. Eco-Friendly Behaviors and 3. Climate-Change Contributions. These categories were evaluated using 20 relevant key metrics. We then calculated the o...

What's refreshing about Sustainability Made Simple: Small Changes for Big Impact is that it doesn't talk down to the reader, nor does it assume the reader knows anything more than that the climate is changing and everyday citizens should do their part to slow the process. The young authors, fairly recent University of California San Diego International Affairs grads, met on campus when they were studying environmental policy. Laurèn DeMates now works in sustainability in San Francisco at a tech startup, and co-author Rosaly Byrd, who blogs on sustainability for the Huffington Post, was calling in from her role as a sustainability professional for the UN in Rio de Janeiro. DeMates told me recently that the idea for the book arose naturally. "We definitely knew we wanted to do something about the polarization about information on sustainability. There was nothing in the middle that was helpful to individuals who don’t necessarily call themselves environmentalists. We wan...