What incentives does your local/state/federal govt offer to encourage environmentally sustainable living?
eg rebates for installing solar hot water or rainwater tanks, free light globes etc. I want to make a case to my city council (who do very little in this way) so I’d like to know the government body as well as the incentive they offer. Thanks
My city encourages conservation. We have a variety of programs. Online energy and water audit, home energy and water audit, rebates for energy efficient appliances. Water conservation is a big issue right now, we have been in a drought for a couple of years, so the new program they are offering is cash to remove grass and install water wise landscaping. I put a link to my cities website, you can look at the utilities to see all the rebates. We also have non voluntary recycling, we put everything into our garbage and the Material Recovery Facility uses both manual and mechanical methods to pull recyclables, we have exceeded a 60% diversion rate. We also have a Utility Exploration Center which combines a museum with other educational opportunities to teach our residents how to conserve resources. We do school tours and a variety of classes from gardening and landscaping, shopping green, worm bins, composting, gift making, energy efficiency for the home, and many others.
Filed under: Rainwater tanks
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IRS offers credits around $2000 for certain things. Some states offer rebates and credits as well.
The goal is really to save energy for the homeowner, but even though the hype is to be sustainable as much as a buzzword as that is these days, government, industry and the corporate world want a dependency that does not really support being truly sustainable because that would mean lessor everything, which for government is a lessor tax base. It’s better to have all the flowing dollars in the market constantly changing hands, so it can be taxed at some point.
If you started making your own energy, growing your own food, and stopped buying overall, being truly sustainable, you would not be doing your part for the market, which is focused on growth. Not saving money for your sake.
References :
You can get state and federal rebates towards renewable energy in many areas. There’s a database available at http://www.dsireusa.org
References :
http://4solarpower.net/2009/01/solar-power-rebates/
My city encourages conservation. We have a variety of programs. Online energy and water audit, home energy and water audit, rebates for energy efficient appliances. Water conservation is a big issue right now, we have been in a drought for a couple of years, so the new program they are offering is cash to remove grass and install water wise landscaping. I put a link to my cities website, you can look at the utilities to see all the rebates. We also have non voluntary recycling, we put everything into our garbage and the Material Recovery Facility uses both manual and mechanical methods to pull recyclables, we have exceeded a 60% diversion rate. We also have a Utility Exploration Center which combines a museum with other educational opportunities to teach our residents how to conserve resources. We do school tours and a variety of classes from gardening and landscaping, shopping green, worm bins, composting, gift making, energy efficiency for the home, and many others.
References :
http://www.roseville.ca.us/
http://www.raintankdepot.com/siteinfo/rain-collection-rebates.aspx
Has a list of rebates by state and city.