Our first meeting was on Sunday July 27, 2008 at the Burien library. Our next meeting will be on the fourth Sunday of the month - August 24th from 2:30 - 4:30pm at the KCLS Burien Library (doors open at 2pm). Please check our Upcoming Events page for updated information prior to the meeting.

At our first meeting we created five working Pods [Interest Groups] and developed an action item for each Pod group to work on between meetings. Active Pods will soon have space on the Interest Groups page where they can share information about what they're doing and what they've learned. The current Pods and action items are as follows (listed in alphabetical order):

• Community: Recruit new members for future meetings. Pod members will advertise to our neighbors and throughout the community.
  
  
• Energy: Explore incentives for using solar energy looking at a) pay back, b) life cycle costs, c) break even, d) precursors to obtaining solar energy, e) bulk purchases, rebates, tax incentives.
  
  
• Environment: Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. Develop a list of environmentally friendly products and practical methods of obtaining them.
  
  
• Food: Encourage interest, spread the word on community gardening, gleaning, canning and preserving.
  
  
• Transportation: Find out about walking maps of Burien in English. Contact Feet First. Contact Sustainable Ballard and bike stores regarding the Undrivers' License program. Research pedestrian and bicycle plans.
  
  

We're looking forward to seeing everyone on August 24th from 2:30 - 4:30pm (doors open at 2pm). Remember to check our Upcoming Events page for updated information prior to the meeting.

Did you know that when you shut off your TV, stereo or many other appliances, they aren't really off? Instead they simply draw much less power. Sometimes this is needed in order to retain settings or keep a timer running. Other times it's just so that when you turn it back on, it turns on faster. Sometimes it serves no useful function at all. One example of the latter is the wall wart/power adapter that many small appliance use. Even when they're not connected to anything, the adapter is drawing power. If it's warm, it's wasting electricity. The average appliance only uses 1 to 10 Watts in standby mode, but this adds up, estimates of the percentage of a home's power that is used by vampire devices are usually in the range of 8-10%.

Many new appliances are designed to use minimal power in standby, older appliances are often less efficient. If you want to check your house for vampires, you can use something like a Kill-A-Watt meter. It's available online and many hardware stores carry it. For things that don't really need to be on all the time (like battery chargers) you can just unplug them, plug them into a power strip so you can really turn them off, or use special plugs that will shut them off when they only draw a trickle of electricity. More information about vampire power is available at Wikipedia.

Upcoming Events

Monday, August 18, 2008
Sustainable West Seattle Pot Luck.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Sustainable Neighborhoods movie at St. Francis Church

Sunday, August 24, 2008
Sustainable Burien meeting, Burien Public Library.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Sustainable Saturdays, Kirkland City Hall.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sustainable Saturdays, Kirkland City Hall.

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sustainable Saturdays, Kirkland City Hall.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sustainable Burien meeting, Burien Public Library.

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sustainable Burien meeting, Burien Public Library.

View full event listing with detailed information.....