Oakland Schools, Students, and the Planet Win With #MeatlessMonday

Meatless Monday is a concept that goes back to WWI, as a resource-saving measure during the war. It came back during WWII and through the post-war years to help feed a war-torn Europe. The modern movement in the U.S. began in 2003 when the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health re-launched the effort, with the message of "one day a week, cut out meat" as a way for individuals to do something good for themselves and for the planet.

It's a pretty simple idea. Raising meat takes a lot of resources (including one near and dear to the hearts of Californians, namely water), a lot more than the equivalent nutrition from plants. Eating too much meat can lead to health problems. So eat less meat, use fewer resources, be healthier—a win all around. While a lot of people aren't willing to give up meat or all animal products full-time, if they all ate less meat, we would all benefit. If the world consumed 15% less meat, it would be like taking 240,000 cars off the road each year.

The Baltimore public schools became the first major public school system to do Meatless Mondays in 2009; the Oakland Unified School District started in 2010. Overall the reception from the students has been positive. After tasting one dish, a 4th grader told his cafeteria manager, "I want to eat this forever!". The staff love Meatless Monday, too, and are working on expanding the vegetarian options which are available during the rest of the week as well.

The OUSD Department of Nutrition Services isn't stopping there. They've also recently started a "California Thursdays" program, as part of a USDA Farm to School program. it's all California-produced goods, many from the Bay Area. And of course, it includes some meatless options, too.

So are OUSD's meatless recipes the real deal? The Humane Society of the United States thinks so. They held a national Meatless Monday recipe contest, and while OUSD's "Yakisoba Noodles with Stir Fried Tofu and Bok Choy" recipe didn't win, it was one of the finalists and is what the 4th grader loves so much. The recipes of all the finalists can be found here (PDF), so try one out and give #MeatlessMonday a try. It's good for you and for the planet.

Oakland Earth Expo

Wednesday was the annual Oakland Earth Expo, held on Frank Ogawa Plaza. There was a nice turn out to check out ways to help make Oakland more sustainable, as well as dine at the collection of food trucks and area restaurants.

This is part of the lead up to Earth Day, which Oakland celebrates with cleanups and other events all over the city. Check the Oakland Earth Day website for details. This is a great, easy way to volunteer to make Oakland better. For most projects, the time commitments are short, and the results gratifying. You can also use it as an opportunity to get out an experience a different part of the city than you normally do, or do something to help a favorite Oakland park.

More pictures from the expo:

Oaklanders volunteer with Urban Releaf to green Oakland

On Saturday, dozens of neighbors and other Oaklanders volunteered with Urban Releaf to help green Oakland. Trees don't just help provide shade, they also improve air quality and beautify neighborhoods.

Urban Releaf was founded in 1998 by Kemba Shakur to serve economically-disadvantaged and ecologically underserved neighborhoods. Since then, the organization has planted thousands of free trees around the East Bay. It's also provided education and employment for at-risk youth.

Saturday provided near perfect weather for the tree planting near 89th Avenue. Some neighbors knew about the tree planting and were there at the start. Others saw the activity and came out and joined the work. It was great to see people of all ages and backgrounds working to make Oakland greener and a better place to live.

More pictures from Saturday:

installing solar with GRID Alternatives

Yesterday I took a day off working and volunteered with Oakland-based GRID Alternatives. The core of GRID Alternatives is the Solar Affordable Housing Program, where they train and lead community volunteers (like me!) and job trainees from all walks of life to install solar electric systems with low-income homeowners. As part of their mission, they also install the solar panels on Habitat for Humanity houses, which is where my previous experience with GRID has been.

This install was on an existing house, and the technology has changed a bit since I last volunteered (use of microinverters, for example), so I had some new things to learn. That's part of why I enjoy volunteering with GRID is the chance to learn new things. I worked on the ground crew in the morning, assembling pieces and passing things up to the roof. Then after lunch I worked on the roof for a while, helping run conduit from the main panel up to the start of the solar array. It was a fun day. Thanks to installation supervisor Dave Lee and the crew leaders for making things run smoothly and safely.

If you're interested in volunteering with GRID, donating, or want to see if you qualify for an install, check the Grid Alternatives website.

detain the rain with low cost rain barrels

CM Jane Brunner and
homeowner Terry Galloway

Anyone who's lived in the Bay Area for more than a few years knows we generally have dry summers and wet winters (this winter notwithstanding). But what newer residents may not know about are the occasional fires in the urban/rural interface of the hills. The immediate event is devastating, but the longer-term effects can be devastating, too. Denuded hillsides don't hold the rain, leading to mudslides, and roads and homes destroyed.

Hiller Highlands in the north Oakland hills has experienced all this, and resident Terry Galloway knows first-hand about the effects. He lost his home in the 1991 Oakland Firestorm that killed 25 people and destroyed almost 3,800 homes, apartments and condominiums. Then he watched mudslides when the rains began that winter. But even in years when there hasn't been a recent fire, normal rains can cause mudslides which damage property and roads. It's a difficult problem.

One answer is to build a network of storm drains and storage tanks, but Oakland doesn't have the estimated $200 million+ needed for it. A much more economical solution is to detain the rain on individual properties, and make the peak water flow lower by spreading it out. Or as Lesley Estes, the city's Watershed Program Supervisor said, "to control the firehose effect." Galloway already had two 65 gallon 'Moby' rain barrels, and Estes, council member Jane Brunner, and Matt Freiberg of the Watershed Project came to see more storage installed.

Matt Freiberg of
the Watershed Project

Much of the prep work for this install was done by two interns in Merritt College's Environmental Science program, but Freiberg described how simple a typical install can be. It does require some plastic pipes and fittings, and usually cutting the existing downspout, but overall it's fairly easy. Galloway said the hardest part was getting the new 305 gallon tank from the street to its final location behind his house.

The city has a federal grant which significantly reduces the cost of the rain barrels. The 65 gallon barrel retails for $219, but is available through the city program for $48.50. There are larger tanks like the 305 gallon tank installed at the Galloway residence, all the way up to a 620 gallons. Buying one is as easy as going to the city's rain barrel program website and placing your order. You can either pick up the barrels or arrange to have them delivered. I bought two of the 65 gallon barrels a couple of years ago.

BUT (you knew there was a 'but' coming), the federal funding for the program runs out at the end of 2012. Which means to get the barrels for the lower cost, you need to order and take delivery before then.

There are benefits besides erosion control. If you have any sort of garden or plants, you can use the collected rain to water them and reduce your water bill. Galloway has a drip system connected to his existing barrels, and uses rainwater to provide water for the small greenhouse built behind his home. The new tank will be used to water six fruit trees. I was also impressed because he has a solar hot water system for providing hot water in the house and heating the small pool in the backyard, as well as photo voltaic panels to generate electricity.

more pictures from the install:


For more information about the program, see www.oaklandpw.com/rainbarrel

Also check out the coverage at Oakland North.

Crossroads: Gimme (Green) Shelter

This guest post is by Tim Eyre.

Crossroads
Emergency
Housing

About a month ago, driving farther down International Boulevard than my business usually takes me, an impressive building caught my eye that I'd failed to notice before. What corporation was this sleek building the headquarters for? With its mint green walls and fanciful yellow tower, the Crossroads Emergency Shelter stands as a beacon of modern architecture and progress in an otherwise hardscrabble neighborhood.

Looking further into the building, I discovered that it opened in 2008 after an $11 million construction effort. That stopped me in my tracks. With all the causes that need funding, why drop such a hefty figure on the homeless? They're not exactly contributing to our tax base, right?

It only took a minute to realize my own ignorance and appreciate the virtues of Crossroads. The East Oakland Community Project's 125-bed building has solar panels on its roof, a brightly colored mural in the lobby (painted by the community), and hydronic heating using grey water to heat the building. If green building is the approach we should be taking with all new construction, a principle that people of all political and philosophical backgrounds mostly agree on, then why not follow suit for the most needy?

Here's how I justified the expense to myself: Imagine you have some insurmountable problem, like having to come up with an extra $5,000 in income this month, doubling your regular salary.

You're going to need to find some other sources of income – probably something creative. That's going to require time and concentration.

Everything else will take the backseat for awhile, right? You need to focus fully on the task at hand.

Now imagine that your room is a wreck, with piles of clothes stacking up on the dresser and dust bunnies under the bed. Your kids are home sick, and someone needs to call the plumber before the kitchen sink backs up again.

With all the distractions constantly around us, it's hard enough to concentrate on a major task until all the other pieces of our daily lives are back in place.

Now imagine that you're starting off with nothing; penniless, with no assets, and you're HIV positive. You're given a bed and a hot meal once a day at the shelter, but you have to get in line early to ensure a spot each night. Your goal is to be self-sufficient, renting a room in an apartment with a steady job, within three months. It seems impossible, and it's easy to give up and turn to the bottle or drugs.

The goal of most shelters is to get the recipients of their care off the streets and back into a productive life. It's a task made more difficult by the environs of most shelters: bleak concrete bunkers with unnatural lighting and prison-like facilities. The dreary surroundings make it easier to give up and fall back into old substance abuse habits.

Crossroads recognizes that in a sunny, light-filled atmosphere of hope, people are more likely to take personal responsibility and stick with a plan to success.

"I wanted to help create an environment where people could wake up and say, 'Okay, things are bad, but I have a clean environment where I can work on my other issues,'" Crossroads executive director Wendy Jackson told Ode Magazine in 2008.

The shelter already boasts tons of success stories. Former resident Sharon Hicks ended up at Crossroads after suffering from domestic violence and losing her child. An AIDS sufferer, her depression led to drug use. Counselors at the East Oakland Community Project helped Hicks design a money management plan and to regain custody of her daughter. They now live together in an affordable apartment that Crossroads staff helped her find.

Countless other men, single mothers, and families share similar stories, not just at Crossroads but at shelters around the country. The trend that Oakland helped begin has spawned other green shelters around the country. At The Bridge in Dallas, crime rates in the surrounding community have dropped 18 percent in the three years since the award-winning building opened. Austin, Tex., and Boulder, Col., both boast shelters with amenities their users can take pride in.

A friend even sent me a link to a new shelter being built by the nonprofit Crisis Ministries in Charleston, SC. Rainwater collection and a silver LEED certification at a homeless shelter in the deep South? As is often the case, what starts in California slow trickles east.

If you haven't been out to Crossroads, I encourage you to volunteer. They're open to help of all sorts, from serving food in the kitchen to offering computer help. There's really no better way to directly help the needy in your community. Fortunately, for both the homeless and the volunteers, it's much easier to smile and look ahead from a naturally lit green building than the concrete bunker shelters of yesterday.

Tim Eyre works in the self storage industry, regularly traveling to see locations like this Oakland self storage facility near Jack London Square. Tim also contributes to the Extra Space Storage Blog on a regular basis.

food: Rising Loafer Cafe

Rising Loafer Cafe

I'm not downtown very often for breakfast or lunch, so it was a while before I was able to final try the Rising Loafer Cafe and Bakery. I first heard about it at the Oakland Indie Awards back in May, when they won a Greenie Award, and briefly met the owner, Maria Gastelumendil, at an Oakland Grown event.

Wednesday I took another downtown Oakland walking tour, which ended in Frank Ogawa Plaza right at lunch time, so I had my chance.

Greek Crepe

Since it was a beautiful day, after I ordered I sat at one the outside tables in the shade of the plaza trees. From my seat, I could see the B shuttle running over on Broadway, people out enjoying the open space of the plaza, and hear the free Summer Sounds concert at City Center in the distance. Lovely.

I had a Greek Crepe for lunch, and it was delicious. It came with choice of a green salad or soup. I chose salad, which was nothing special but was tasty. I'm looking forward to trying some of their baked goods when I'm downtown some morning. Next time you're looking for a spot for breakfast or lunch downtown, give the Rising Loafer a try.

photo journey 5: how green is my city

Green is a familiar color to most Oaklanders. It's one of the colors of the city flag, the A's logo, Oakland street signs, the AC Transit logo and numerous other things we see every day. Even now in summer, when there's no rain (well, until Tuesday, when there's a chance of thunderstorms!?), there are lots of green trees and plants around Oakland. And of course Oakland is going 'green' in the sense of making environmentally-friendlier changes. So it wasn't hard at all to find green things to photograph on my way home from church this afternoon.

Bike to Work Day 2011

Bike to Work Day 2011 was a big success -- the biggest BTWD yet. Early counts say that over 10,000 people rode their bikes to work yesterday in Alameda county alone.

Bike to Work Day 2011

I volunteered at the energizer station at Lakeside and 14th, one of over 110 energizer stations around the East Bay, where we counted 386 cyclists by 9AM. A large percentage of those were obviously regular bike commuters; some even said, "I do this every day" as they rode past. Hopefully some of the newer riders will bike to work every day, or at least more than they have in the past.

From Bike to Work Day 2011

After we closed up our energizer station, I headed over to city hall to check things out there. I ran into Annalee Allen of the Oakland Walking Tours program, and saw lots of familiar faces staffing the WOBO and EBBC booths and valet bike parking.

Then I rode home, worked for the afternoon, and came back down the hill in the evening for the Bike Away From Work after-party. It was a lot of fun. I chatted with former EBBC director, now BART board member Robert Raburn. And hung around with Becks, dto510, @DanielBackman, @das88, and others, all the while smelling Tina Tamale's awesome food at the nearby stand.

More coverage:
SF Streetsblog
SF Streetsblog - after party
Oakland Local
Oakland Local - allaboutgeorge's ride
KGO ABC7
my photos
EBBC blog
Ella Baker Center

(To keep the Oakland fun going, I then headed down to Heinold's to meet up with @egratto, @adri, and @ohdottie, to meet @twitchhiker. He's traveled around the world relying on Twitter, and wrote a book on his experiences. He's traveling again, and working on another book. A quote on his site from the BBC says "Smith is one our true British eccentrics." I don't know about that, but he is a nice, interesting guy, and has even less hair than me. Safe but interesting travels, Paul! Enjoy the Greyhound to El Paso!)

biking and seeing

image courtesy of kikashi

Longtime readers may (a) know that I'm a fan of biking as transport and (b) have been wondering why I haven't been posting so much of late.

No, I haven't run out of signs to shoot or even pictures of signs I've already shot, nor have I dropped off the face of the earth. I have been continuing to bike, though not as much as during the Car Free Challenge.

In part, I've been busy working. Yesterday I was out in Pleasanton (via BART and bike, thankyouverymuch), and was programming away when the great news about Prop 8 came out. I've been continuing to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity on Fridays and donate blood platelets on alternate Tuesdays, mostly by bike, too, but some actual income is a good thing.

There's lots to like about biking as transport, the low cost compared with a car and health benefits being high on the list. But I also (re)discovered that by moving more slowly through an area, whether on bike or on foot, you see a lot more than if you rumble by in car. Something DC of Fragmentary Evidence has known for a long time. There's a nice piece over at KALW featuring David Colburn and fellow Car Free Challenge participant Andrea Osgood. Yesterday on my ride to and from Fruitvale BART, I saw several scenes I wish I could have captured with my camera: kids playing, a couple of guys playing dominoes at a table on the sidewalk, an older couple working in their yard. They're all scenes I would have missed if I'd been driving.

Tomorrow I'll be volunteering at Habitat again, though I'll have to leave a bit early for another volunteer gig, helping East Bay Bike Coalition with the free bike parking at the Best of the East Bay party in Jack London Square.

Finally, next week is Scraper Bike Week here in Oakland. Scraper bikes are an Oakland creation, and some are pretty darn cool. Read more about them on TreeHugger. The events for Scraper Bike Week are aimed at kids 7-13, and are being held in a variety of locations around Oakland, but all are welcome.

Sick. Transit. Gloria! (Copa) Mundial.

No, not Sic transit gloria mundi ("Thus passes the glory of the world"), but the much more mundane: I'm sick with a cold. K had a great experience with transit. Alas, very little of that experience was in Oakland.

I was planning to volunteer at Oaklavia on Sunday, but that didn't happen because I was having a hard time sitting, never mind walking or biking about the streets of Uptown and Downtown. By all accounts (In Oakland, Oaklander Online, Oakland North, SFGate) it was a huge success -- great weather, lots of people having fun. I'm sorry I couldn't volunteer or even participate.

About the only upside (besides the cats approving of my inactivity, though not so much of the sneezing and coughing) is that I've been able to watch more World Cup matches. We don't have cable, so thank goodness for the Univision coverage. I like their announcers better in general anyways, even if I can't understand everything they say.

Yesterday K headed up to Seattle for a few days on business. I dropped her off at Rockridge BART and she headed over to SFO for her flight. She's staying in the Fremont district of Seattle, north of downtown and west of Lake Union. In a great example of how transit should work, she took light rail from SeaTac to downtown, then hopped on a bus that let her off a few blocks from her destination. Total cost less than $5, elapsed time door-to-door of 1 hour, 15 minutes. A cab would have cost $55. Driving time (i.e., not including walking to the cab stand, or walking to the parking garage and driving out nor including parking at the destination) is about 30 minutes (longer during commute times). And no slower than spit $5 people-movers just to get to the light rail.

The 'gloria!' is the beautiful summer weather we've settled into here in Oakland, last week's all-too-brief visit to Monterey to celebrate our 10th anniversary, and the fact I'm finally starting to get over this $%&#! cold.

Car Free Challenge

It's not (yet) too late to sign up for the Car Free Challenge. Today is the last day to sign up; it costs $45 which may be too much for people in this economy, but it is a fundraiser for TransForm which does good work. So far Becks from Living in the O, VSmoothe from A Better Oakland, DC from Fragmentary Evidence, Eric from Transbay Blog, and of course yours truly have joined the event along with people from all over the country.

If $45 is too steep, you can take part for free and let the rest of us know, or you can support me or one of the other Blogoaksphere participants for some amount less.

I've been working towards car-free the last several years, but I don't know if I'll ever get there 100% like many of the participants. I can for this week (I hope), but doing it permanently isn't probably going to happen any time soon. The main thing is to get people driving by themselves less.

It's getting easier for me these days, as the addition and remodel are pretty much done (so not so many trips to the lumber yard or Home Depot), I'm not attending and doing media for a church in Dublin any more (though I still visit occasionally -- great contemporary service), and well, I'm not employed (so no commute). Should be easy, right?

Well, there's still grocery shopping, volunteering at the Habitat worksite in East Oakland a couple of times a month, church on Sunday, and getting to appointments and the like. Fortunately I've done all these trips by bike or transit before. Unfortunately, I haven't done them all in one week before, which is what my 0 miles in a car goal for the Car Free Challenge will require.

So far, so good, though: a trip to Kaiser and Trader Joe's on the way home yesterday, and a trip to Kaiser again today, all by bike. The bad news is that the second trip was necessary because I misremembered the date of my appointment -- d'oh! But it was good exercise, even with the e-bike to help me up the hills (especially with groceries yesterday.) I rode down Moraga, but back via the longer-but-less-trafficky way past Lake Temescal both days. And had breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe yesterday as a treat (and to console myself for having ridden down there on the wrong day.)

Bike to Market Day

Fresh on the (w)heels of Bike to Work Day is Bike to Market Day, tomorrow, May 22nd. Numerous markets like Farmer Joe's, Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, and Grocery Outlet are offering discounts and other goodies for cyclists. Get the complete list at the East Bay Bike Coalition page, and check out the nice Google Map they've done showing locations:

View Bike to Market Day in a larger map

Most of the discounts are around 10% and require you to have your cycling helmet in hand. Riding with a helmet is a very good idea, as I can personally attest. I took a corner too fast the other month and wiped out, cracking my helmet but not my head.

The page mentions farmers markets, too, but didn't give much in the way of particulars. K and I rode to our local farmers market in Montclair last Sunday. She rode the e-bike, and I took a mountain bike. Getting there was easy, of course. Riding back we both worked, but me more than her. These days I get a little tired riding the e-bike back from the Village depending on the load, but it's not too bad. I more fully appreciate how much work the e-bike is doing now.

Bike to Work Day and Car Free Challenge

Tomorrow is Bike to Work Day, to encourage more people to bike (and take public transit as needed) instead of driving to work. To make the idea more palatable, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) and the Bay Area Bike Coalition (BABC) have set up energizer stations around the city. You can even ride into Downtown with your council member (and eat pancakes)! Can't bike all the way? AC Transit is supporting Bike to Work Day and has bike racks on the front of buses. Bikes are allowed on BART with some restrictions.

More reading:
WOBO's Bike to Work Day hub
BABC's Bike to Work Day hub
map of the energizer stations
post at Today in Montclair

As wonderful as it is, Bike to Work Day is a one-day event. Hopefully it will encourage more people to consider biking (possibly in connection with public transit). But if you want to show you're really committed (or some would say, really should be committed), take part in Bike to Work Day tomorrow and then take part in TransForm's Car Free Challenge the first seven days of June. Ideally you'd not ride in a car at all that week, but that may not be practical. So instead you register (for prizes, a t-shirt, and an after party) and then set your mileage goal as low as you can. This event also supports the work of TransForm. Join up with other Oakland bloggers and be part of the Blogoaksphere Car Free Challenge Team.

As a reminder for both events, Google Maps now supports directions via bike. That feature is still in development, but between that and the WOBO and BABC resources you should be able to figure out a bike route or bike + transit route to your destination.

Home Energy Efficiency

blower door test

You may remember a while back I attended the Greening Oakland Homes fair. A lot of the info was familiar to me, but I was inspired to have a home energy audit done. My experiences with that were recently published on Jetson Green, a green building website I've done some writing for in the past. Whether you're a do-it-yourself type or not, it has some good info on making your house more energy efficient.

Earth Day 2010

Earth

Happy 40th Earth Day! I spent the last 4 days at the Habitat for Humanity Earth Day Build-a-thon (day 1, 2, 3, 4). We framed 10 houses in 4 days, going from foundation to roof trusses, even with some rain on Tuesday morning. Habitat East Bay has been using green building techniques for years and continues to refine them.

Habitat for Humanity Build-a-thon

Oakland North has coverage of what Oaklanders have been up to in order to celebrate Earth Day and make Oakland a better place.

The Oakland Tribune writes about the improvements to Bay Area air, water and land quality in the last 40 years and the challenges that lie ahead. There's also a great article about ways to reduce, reuse and recycle for free by using sites like Freecycle. The article includes a list of other sites for borrowing and other ways to reduce the amount of stuff we buy.

lots of goats!

Finally, we have a great green solution for reducing the flammable undergrowth on Oakland hillsides. I took this picture while riding home today, and the goats clearly love their work. You can hear them happily munching away over the car noise from highway 24. Read more at Today in Montclair (though right now the goats are in Hiller Highlands.)

Habitat Build-A-Thon 2010

Just a quick post to refer you to one of my other blogs, the Habitat for Humanity East Bay / Thrivent Builds blog. I'll be blogging daily coverage of the 2010 build-a-thon there. And thank you for the donations to support Habitat's mission!

day 1 volunteers and homeowners

Oakland Earth Expo

Oakland Earth Expo

Yesterday was the Oakland Earth Expo, a public fair for Oaklanders looking to be more green. There were a number of groups and companies I'm familiar with there, including:

• TransForm
• Walk Oakland Bike Oakland
• East Bay Bicycle Coalition
• Habitat for Humanity (thanks for the donations!)
• Greening Oakland Homes
  
• East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse
• Ella Baker Center
• SunPower Solar

There were also a number of groups I wasn't familiar with:

• Friends of the Morcom Rose Garden - There's a nice post on the rose garden at Oaktown Art
  
• Universal Waste Management - electronic waste recyclers based here in Oakland
  
• B Spoke Tailor - custom and individualized cycling clothes
  

There appeared to be a good turn out for the event. I was there after noon so I missed the special Earth Day 2010 photo shoot that was planned, but I saw lots of people checking out the booths.

In a bit of irony, PG&E was there trying to to drum up some good press for smart meters after the problems they've been having with smart meters in Bakersfield; a couple of booths down was a group encouraging people to Vote No on 16. Prop 16 is sponsored by PG&E to the tune of millions of dollars, and they're putting it forth as a "keep governments from spending unlimited funds without a vote". In reality, it's because PG&E doesn't want municipalities like Marin becoming power producers and thereby competing with PG&E. On one hand, I love that PG&E sponsors the solar panels for Habitat for Humanity homes around California, but then they pull stuff like Prop 16. Sigh.

Oakland Earth Expo

Come celebrate 40 years of Earth Day at the Oakland Earth Expo. It runs from 10AM to 2PM on Wednesday, April 14th, in Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of city hall.

Visit over 100 dynamic local green exhibitors: • green businesses • environmental and social change organizations • artists • government agencies • community groups.

Find tips, products and partners to: • reduce waste • compost • green your workplace • drive less • build or remodel green • reduce energy use • become a smarter consumer • bring your own bag • conserve water • practice bay-friendly gardening • hold a ZeroWaste event • reduce your carbon footprint • restore our creeks • eat seasonally • volunteer • much more!

Read more on the Oakland Public Works Earth Expo page.

rain barrels for Oakland

Civicorps loading rain barrels

Part of my home improvement efforts have been to make our house more resource efficient, not just a bit bigger and nicer. As part of that, I added a 60 gallon rain barrel to use for watering plants in our yard. As you know, the rain patterns in California mean that wouldn't get filled from roughly May until November, so 60 gallons won't last the whole dry season.

Eventually I'd like to have a larger tank to collect rain water and gray water from the washing machine, but that's a long ways down the line. So I was delighted when I heard that the city of Oakland was going to be selling rain barrels to residents for only $45. Saturday I header over to Kaiser Elementary in Hiller Highlands to get some. I don't know if they're planning on selling more in the future, but if so, it's a great deal. The barrels hold 65 gallons, are made from recycled plastic, and come with all the necessary fittings for a faucet and the overflow.