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Blogroll, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

Support Light Rail

As realtors and long-time Phoenix residents, we know that light rail has helped improve neighborhoods, attract business and transport many people who would otherwise contribute to daily traffic jams.

So, it is alarming that Dark Money groups from out of state, backed by the Koch brothers, are putting money in to an effort to effectively shut down light rail growth in Phoenix.

Further, they are attempting to place arbitrary caps on the city’s ability to spend money on our priorities or recover from massive cuts made during the Great Recession.

City leaders such as Mayor Gallego, a majority of city council members and many non-profit and trade organizations have created a campaign to ask city voters to vote NO on Prop 105 and Prop 106.

See the website with information here.

Prop 105 would:

  1. Create a prohibition agains further rail projects in Phoenix;
  2. Redirect billions of dollars of federal support away from Phoenix infrastructure;
  3. Threaten our ability to plan for population growth;
  4. Increase crowding on our streets.

Prop 106 would make permanent any cuts that leaders will be forced to make during tough times. To put that another way, if we make cuts during an up-coming recession or economic downturn as we did in the Great Recession, those cuts would be permanent.

So, where the city has been restoring services and making the pension program stable again since the recession, Prop 106 would make those cuts permanent and would force drastic cuts to the services that our citizens and neighborhoods rely on. This is simply reckless.

IMPORTANT: This election has been forced on the ballot on August 27th, when many people are on vacation. Early ballots go out on July 29th. So, be certain to get request yours by calling 602-261-VOTE (8683). See the city website for more.

June 26, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

Recycling in Phoenix

You may have seen the videos and Marshall Shore and I did, along with our videographer Chris Allen of AllenCinema.

We toured the recycling facility in North Phoenix so we could give you a clear idea of the process.

This is huge, especially since we can no longer export our recyclable materials to China for processing. See that article here.

We broke our video in to three episodes, to highlight three major stages in the process.

Hey, it’s not Game of Thrones, but we are pretty proud of it. You can watch the videos here, here and here.

Here are the big take-aways:

  1. For the love of all that his holy, please don’t put plastic bags or plastic wrap, aka “2D plastic” in the recycling bin. You will see in the video just how difficult it is to get out of the machinery.
  2. The process for separating materials is actually quite effective. The part of the process that could use improvement is the human factor. What we put in affects what is separated and what the city can earn from recycling materials.
  3. We should not stop recycling just because China is no longer processing the materials. There is a domestic industry starting up, so it makes no sense to stop when it will be needed here.

Here are some interesting tid-bits that I learned through this process.

  • The Coca-Cola bottling company is trying to make their bottles 100% recycled, but they need more plastic material. In other words, they need more consumers to properly separate their trash. They are also investing in new domestic recycling capacity.
  • The City of Phoenix has updated its guide to recycling. Get it at this link. This guide is much easier to follow than the last one. So, download it and share it in your household. Don’t just print the image here in this blog post. Follow the link. There are two pages.
  • The rush to re-develop domestic capacity to recycle is not happening just in the US. In fact, we are behind other countries, such as Germany. According to RecyclingToday.com, “… a few years ago Germany was a net exporter of as much as 5 million metric tons per year of scrap paper, but now the nation’s mills need to import some 2 million tons of recovered fiber each year.”
  • In the wake of China’s decision to stop imports of recyclable materials, many countries began shipping to Malaysia. Now Malaysia has declared that it will begin shipping materials right back where they came from. “Whoever sends their waste to Malaysia, we will send it back,” Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told reporters on Tuesday, declaring the foreign shipments to be “garbage … traded under the pretext of recycling.”
  • A bill working through Congress will direct the EPA to build a national recycling plan, and increases funding for domestic recycling. “The bill provides a total of $9.52 billion for the EPA, 7.6 percent over the 2019 funding level. President Trump’s budget requested $6.1 billion for the agency.” Let’s see if recycling becomes a bi-partisan issue when millions of tons of unwanted recycling comes back to our shores. Wait! Isn’t this a domestic jobs bill?
June 4, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Phoenix News, Sustainable Living

Healing Through Gardening

I’m a full-on gardening nerd-ball. Who else does a video just about composting, not more than once, but three times? See that here and here.

And, as the summer begins to leach the life out of most plants, this article made me reflect on how much I will miss my garden over the summer.

Oliver Sacks was a brilliant neurologist, whom I learned to appreciate on the RadioLab podcast. He said this of gardens:

“As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.”

I’m not a writer of any note. But I completely understand the need for a refuge. My garden is just that.

I pulled more kale, spinach and various other edible items out of my garden this year than ever before. I’m learning a little bit every year. Plus, the better I get at gardening, the more the garden is a truly relaxing place.

You may have had to suffer through my many Instagram posts about the height of my sunflowers. Those are about the only flowers that I intentionally grow. They are easy and dramatically large –my most recent pride reached over 9ft tall.

So, why is this worth a blog post? Well, because if you like to garden, especially in Arizona, you need two specialized things.

First, specialized knowledge about how to pick a house with a yard that will support three seasons worth of growth without succumbing to the brutal heat.

I can help you with that. I’ve failed a lot –meaning I’ve learned a lot. Most importantly, I have learned that the orientation of the house you choose will decide for you what you can plant.

You will also need to subscribe to Urban Farming U, a Phoenix-based website with an incredible amount of information, ranging from basic planting plans to fostering desert bees.

If you are in to gardening, or just want to create a desert oasis at your new home, then plan ahead and choose a home that works best for gardening.

Call us at 602-456-9388 for more.

June 3, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

The Best of a Bad Situation

You may have seen my blog post about how the Chinese government decided earlier this year to stop taking recyclable materials from the US and other countries. The result being that cities all over the country are scrambling to figure out what to do with our recyclable materials.

Phoenix saw the writing on the wall and jumped right in to action to find a solution. While the ideal is re-use of materials made from petroleum, Phoenix found what seems to be a temporary solution: turning low-grade plastics in to diesel fuel.

Now, before you protest, saying that burning plastics as fuel is not a great solution, consider several points.

First, the alternative is to spend all the money to collect the plastics (which we have to do), just to throw them in the landfill. I don’t like the idea of not having a fully renewable economy, but if we are going to reach a zero waste economy by 2050, we need to keep pushing forward, despite this set-back.

Second, there are benefits to transforming materials here to diesel fuel, rather than importing them.

Third, if we are lucky, perhaps the same policy makers at the state level who make it harder for us to collect recycling at the city level will change their minds once they see how we could be generating a massive supply of our own fleet fuels in Phoenix.

Aside from that issue, it is heartening to see that the Phoenix Public Works Department staff was agile enough to adapt to this massive change. This speaks volumes to the potential of this city to continue to build relationships with material recyclers through its Resource Innovation Campus (RIC).

Ultimately, what the China policy has shown us is that the US should have never given up its domestic recycling capacity. Until that returns and until we truly educate the public about the need for waste recycling, efforts like this will continue to push us forward.

The announcement, in its entirety is copied below.


The City of Phoenix to Begin Turning Plastics into Fuel

The city of Phoenix Public Works Department is excited to announce a new partnership with Renew Phoenix that aims to turn plastics destined for the landfill into fuel. This innovative repurposing of what’s known as “Plastics 3-7,” or low-value plastics, is the latest venture in the city’s “Reimagine Phoenix” initiative to increase its diversion rate to 40% by the end of 2020, and ultimately reach zero waste by 2050.

 “I believe in taking bold chances to make big change. The idea of making fuel with the plastics we are throwing away is certainly an ‘out of the box’ idea that I am thrilled to say will also bring jobs and revenue to our city,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “During a time when cities are giving up on recycling, Phoenix is again leading the way in setting the gold standard for innovation and creativity.”

The need to find a way to re-use these materials comes on the heels of China no longer accepting certain recycled materials from the United States. This forced city leadership to think creatively to find new solutions for its recycled materials. Thanks to the foresight of the Phoenix City Council, this new project is now ready to take shape.

“The future is all about recycling, sustainability and doing our part to ensure future generations have a healthy planet,” said Councilwoman Thelda Williams, who serves as the chair of the Water, Wastewater, Infrastructure and Sustainability (WWIS) Subcommittee. “I am certain that once others see what we are doing, they will want to be part of this movement to prevent more materials from being simply thrown away.”

The plan is for Renew Phoenix, a joint venture between Generated Materials Recovery and Renewlogy, to work together to build a facility to process the materials on the city’s Resource Innovation Campus.

“I am excited for what this partnership brings to Phoenix,” said Councilman Michael Nowakowski, whose district is home to the City’s Resource Innovation Campus. “This new, innovative venture will encourage other businesses to bring-next generation technology to the Phoenix to help us reach our diversion goal of 40% by 2020.”

Renew Phoenix was selected through a competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Their plan is to use a proprietary chemical recycling process to reverse the plastic back into its basic molecular structure, which will allow them to convert the plastic waste into fuel. Renew Phoenix will also bring as many as 15 full-time jobs to the valley, after investing more than five million dollars in capital to the project.

“Renewlogy is excited about bringing our technology to Phoenix and creating a more circular economy around plastic waste locally,” said Priyanka Bakaya, Founder and CEO of Renewlogy. “Phoenix will serve as a model for cities around the country looking for local solutions for plastic waste.”

Once at full production, the project is expected to divert ten tons per day of mixed plastic waste, which equates to 60 barrels of liquid fuel. This partnership will not only help Phoenix, but the Valley altogether. Renew Phoenix will be able to scale their production to allow regional remanufacturing of Plastics 3-7 to be processed as well.

“We are proud to continue bucking the trend and pushing forward with innovation, economic development and repurposing our waste,” said Ginger Spencer, city of Phoenix Public Works Director. “We are committed to building a circular economy and achieving our Reimagine Phoenix goals. This new venture to turn plastics into fuel is eye-opening and we hope it will serve as a model for other cities to reimagine their own recycling programs.”

About Reimagine Phoenix: Reimagine Phoenix is the city’s initiative to increase the city’s waste diversion rate to 40 percent by 2020 and to better manage its solid waste resources.To achieve this, the city is conducting community and educational outreach on the five pillars–reduce, reuse, recycle, reconsider and reimagine—in hopes to increase awareness of the importance of waste diversion and management. The city is developing the Resource Innovation Campus (RIC) as a regional circular economy hub. The RIC is home to one of the city’s two transfer stations, a composting facility, Palm Silage and the future operations of Renew Phoenix. Approximately 50 acres of the RIC will be leased to innovators with market-ready technologies and manufacturing processes that reuse or repurpose trash materials including recycled plastics, recycled paper, and recycled boxes and packing materials.

About Renew Phoenix: Renew Phoenix is a joint venture between Generated Materials Recovery (GMR) and Renewlogy. Renewlogy has the innovative technology and operational experience while GMR has the technical, operation, and local market expertise. Renew Phoenix will draw on the expertise of both companies to build a showcase facility for handling low value plastics such as #3-#7s and serve as a model for other cities around the world to follow.

About Renewlogy: Renewlogy is a plastic to fuel technology firm with facilities in the U.S. and Canada. Renewlogy was founded at MIT in 2011 and started operating its first pilot in Salt Lake City, UT in 2013. Renewlogy has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the Top 25 Most Audacious Companies.

About Generated Materials Recovery (GMR): Generated Materials Recovery (GMR) is a $10 million waste company established in 1998. GMR provides recycling services to manufacturing and industrial facilities in AZ, UT and CO. It currently services municipalities around the Phoenix Metro area including Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, and Surprise, and has a 20-year history specializing in the plastics industry.

April 15, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Sustainable Living

Recycling Crisis

There is a huge crisis in trash and recycling in the US today, and there are things you can do about it. In fact, I would suggest that we all need to act quickly to change behaviors.

I’ve had so many conversations with people over the years who are convinced that none of the things they recycle are actually recycled. They were convinced that the city pays all this money for blue bins, but then just dumps it all in the landfill, anyway.

This has not been true in the past. Phoenix has a goal of diverting about 40% of its waste by 2020. The last I saw, they recycle about 24% of its waste.

That’s far too little, for sure. The city does not recycle from office buildings and multi-family.

On reason for the lack of progress: our backward legislature made is impossible for cities to require multi-family dwellings (apartments and condos) to recycle back in 2015.

So, if offices and multi-family dwellings don’t pay for pick-up themselves, it simply does not get done.

Yet, things have changed in a dramatic way with the announcement by China of its “National Sword” policy, in which it will no longer accept recyclable materials from other countries.

This is a big deal if you are concerned about the future of our life on this planet.

Since the US, Europe and many nations were sending their plastic, aluminum and paper to China for recycling, rather than developing their own domestic recycling facilities, we are up trash creek without a paddle.

According to PRI, “Every day, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables leave US ports bound for China. China sends the US toys, clothes and electronics; in return, some of America’s largest exports back are paper, plastic and aluminum.”

As if it were not enough that our oceans and fish populations are chomping down on poisonous plastics every day, now our capacity to recycle is greatly reduced.

To that end, please listen to this podcast called 99% Invisible, which will help you understand the reasons for the crisis and what you can do about it. Listen while you are cleaning or taking a walk. It is worth 45 minutes of your life.

Here are some things that we can do to make a huge impact:

  1. Find ways to buy less.
  2. Countries and cities need to pressure manufacturers and designers to find ways to use less materials in their designs.
  3. Countries and states need to invest in more domestic recycling facilities.
  4. Look in to products that use less –such as toothbrushes with replaceable heads or toothpaste dispensers that are re-useable.
  5. Let’s move past refusing straws and find ways to re-use the whole cup, which represents about 99% more plastic than just the straw.

99% Invisible said it best, “In the end, Operation National Sword Could be a wakeup call. But only if producers, consumers, and governments tune in and listen.”

March 14, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

Do Not Fear the Bee

As a big-ol sustainability, gardening and composting nerd, I’m concerned about the decline of bee populations in the United States.

I think we are closing in on a solution to the problem. In the meantime, I wanted to share some thoughts that I learned from my friend and entomologist, Chelsea, who studies bees, specifically.

Source: UofA’s Arizona Bee Identification Guide

Before I tell you what I learned from her, I encourage you to have a look at 12 Reasons Not to Be Afraid of Honeybees. While you may not want a bee colony in your shed, there are two things to keep in mind: you have to work hard to annoy them enough that you get stung and there are companies out there that will take those bees without killing them.

So, on to what I learned. First, we could do ourselves a great service by supporting native desert bees. One third of what you eat relies on bees.

It’s a little-known fact that the bees we commonly think of are not native to Arizona. Chelsea calls them “the chicken of the insect world” in that we have cultivated them to help us produce the honey that we want.

However, there are desert bees that could help replace the declining population of bees that we are hearing about. There’s one really great thing about those: while they do have stingers, they are very unlikely to sting sting. But they do pollinate the many plants that we rely on.

Second, there are things that you can do to encourage these bees to create homes, or “hotels” and other things that you can do to give them the food that they need. For instance, you can plant wildflowers in your yard. I’m particularly proud of mine, and they are visited by various types of bees every day.

Source: UofA’s Arizona Bee Identification Guide

It is notable that native bee species don’t make hives. They are generally solitary or subsocial – so they make “nests” where they line a hole in wood or twigs with mud (mason bees), leaves (leaf cutter bees), or wax (carpenter bees), then they lay one egg and provision it with a pollen ball. Then they fly away. – not often caring for their babies.

With the “bee hotel”, you are providing them “nesting spots” – not quite hives. But you can set out or hang wood with little holes in which for them to nest.

Lloyd Hardrick, a contributor to Urban Farm U, gives great insight in to keeping urban bees in this podcast. He handles honeybees, but he has some great insight to share.

My flowers are providing pollen for bee hives, and thus supporting their populations.

You are welcome, bees.

So, Chelsea and I are hatching an idea of setting up a native bee population in my back yard. Stay tuned. We may get this together with a little video to explain.

Stay tuned. Bee cool. Bees are our friends…

March 5, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

Myths about Wildfires

For those of you new to seeing policy analysis in this otherwise community and real estate newsletter, here’s the deal. Since yours truly (Ken) is a policy nerd who believes that the real estate market is directly impacted by public policy, I’m going to choose topics of general interest having to do with policy once per month for a deeper dive.


I’ve been thinking about forest health for many years. Both when I was a legislator, and after. The Rodeo-Chediski fire happened around the time that I was in office the first time, in 2002.

Why is this important? Well, excessive forest fires add to the global warming problem. They can contaminate water that we rely on to live. They damage property and kill people and wildlife.

And if you want the real estate tie-in, just think what your property in Phoenix would be worth if we can’t attract tourists because our forests are decimated, or if we can’t depend on water from higher elevations.

The number one take-away of this story is this: our shared inability to maintain forest health has cost us much more than it would have cost to, you know, maintain forest health!

I’ve noticed over the years that there are talking points on both sides that stand like stone walls in the way of true, long-term planning.

Republican members often declare that all forest fires were the fault of environmentalists. Democrats, usually from urban areas, don’t pay enough attention to the issue. Neither approach is helpful.

So, I thought it would be worth talking with somebody who could bust some myths. I called recently-retired ASU professor Stephen Pyne to help me.

You may have heard Dr. Pyne on KJZZ late last year talking about the California fires. Pyne is well-regarded on all sides when it comes to forest health. He has published over 30 books on various topics related to the environment.

I asked him to talk about the biggest myths in forest health. We covered the big ones in a conversation last month.

Use these to impress somebody at your next cocktail party, or you know, myth bust the next politician who wants you to scapegoat their political foes when it comes to forest health issues.

To summarize, Pyne says of the political debate that, “it’s like everybody is standing around a camp fire, with their back to it, trying to describe how to manage it.”

The biggest problem, he says, is that most people want to use fire to animate some other message that they have. They don’t want to use fire to talk about the fire problem.

President Trump’s claim that the recent California fires were the fault of regulations was a perfect example. One percent of what he said, according to Pyne, had a kernel of truth and 99% was dead wrong.

Trump also spoke about a kind of “clean the forest floor” approach, which is a European model of managing forest, almost like managing a big garden.

However, they have different landscapes there with much different human populations. Plus it is incredibly costly to do.

The one kernel that Pyne says is correct is that we should open up some forests to logging. But, and this is a big “but”, it can’t be the clear-cutting methods that logging use to implement.

According to Pyne, clear cutting used to take the big trees and left the little trees. But healthy forest fires take the little material and leaves the big trees.

Alternatively, he says, “if you want to treat the fire problem, you need to take the small stuff. How do you want to do that? Goats? Wood Chippers? How is that financially feasible for a logging company? Plus, we need to match the type of management to the character of each type of forest terrain that we have in Arizona. All of that takes money.”

I remember that we passed legislation in my first term in office (2003-2005) that gave tax credits for fuel so that logging companies could afford to drive around and harvest small-diameter trees.

Unfortunately, that was insufficient to re-ignite the timber industry.

Basically, we have a “tragedy of the commons” situation, in which industry can’t afford to operate unless they take larger trees. But we can’t let them do that if we want to keep our forests (and ourselves) healthy.

As such, the most logical player to resolve the tragedy of the commons dilemma is the government. Yet federal funds for forest management are insufficient and there is not nearly enough at the state level.

The other myth that Pyne spoke about was the myth that forests are not healthy because the environmentalists made it impossible to log.

This is false for several reasons, and only serves to create a bugaboo for rural voters, rather than solutions.

First, forest health was undermined because both logging interests and environmentalists from the 1920s to the 1970s thought that the best approach was to suppress every fire.

According to Payne, “At the time, that made sense because the forests were over-logged by the previous century of clear-cutting and over-burning. The 1970s saw a change in policies, but getting that operational on the ground has been spotty. Further, they were not nuanced in how they prescribed burns. Basically, we operated for 50 years in the old policy and we’ve spend the 40 years since trying to correct it. You can’t blame environmentalists for that.”

He does say, however, that the current National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) regulations need to be modernized and adapted to allow for better management.

NEPA, he says, was not designed for fire management. We shouldn’t discard public accountability, but we should reform the system. We should not give up safeguards just because we allow logging, but it needs to be more responsive. He points to the Nature Conservancy’s conservation model as something to be emulated.

Of course you can see the problem here. Just try to ask the same Congress that can’t keep the government open consistently to agree new NEPA regulations and see how that goes.

Another myth: this is a problem that state and federal governments should solve unilaterally. Actually, no. We need to look ourselves to see how we, the public, have contributed to the problem and how we can solve it. It is the public, after all, that fails to build their forest homes with fire-resistant materials and defensible spaces.

As a result, homes burn and fire fighters spend precious time trying to defend homes that should not be nestled so closely to the trees.

Well, I don’t own a cabin in the woods, but we are all “the public” and we should be looking at our own behavior, just as we should with any environmental problem.

Pyne says that we need to bring, “urban expectations to an ex-urban setting.”

To put it another way, county governments need to enact and enforce laws about how to build homes in forest lands.

Just as cities enforced fire codes over 100 years ago to prevent massive urban fires, government needs to enforce laws that are appropriate for the urban-forest interface.

“We manage building materials in cities, but not in these ex-urban areas. Why not? Our cities used to burn this much, but we solved that. Instead of thinking of them as woodland fires, think of them as urban fires with funny landscaping.”

Specifically, that means choosing metal roof materials and clearing smaller trees and brush away from the house to create a defensible space. Pyne did these things to his property near Alpine and his property survived the Wallow fire.

I asked him where we should start first and what it would cost.

According to Pyne, we need to target the areas that matter the most: woodland-interface communities, water sheds and particularly sensitive lands.

I have made the recommendation to other government officials over the years that we treat forest health like cities treat recycling. The government should pay the cost of healthy forest management and should manage the sale of materials to the highest bidders.

This won’t make money for the city or state, but we can defray the cost, support new forest industries, improve forest health and prevent massive wildfires.

14-inch diameter Ponderosa pine is perfect for 2x4s, we can get mulch from bark and press board from excess shavings.

Pyne points to the Ecological Restoration Institute at NAU, which has been thinning for 25 years, as it looks for various ways to pay for itself. Naturally, it has not yet.

As for the cost, that’s just an issue of priorities. “We subsidize everything, anyway: high fructose corn syrup, fossil fuels. Subsidies are much cheaper than forest fires. It’s already costing us money.”

February 5, 2019by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Events General, Life, Sustainable Living

PHX Pheast

Pheast

Join us on Nov. 11th for PHX Pheast, as we celebrate local farmers and the amazing food that they provide us.

Phoenix Public Market is bringing PHX Pheast to downtown Phoenix. Together, we celebrate the farmers who make a market like ours possible and enjoy an evening of food, music, and community held in the heart of Phoenix.

Attracting diverse visitors from around the valley, this celebration of neighborhood chefs and restaurants, utilizing fresh ingredients from Arizona’s best farmers and producers, will be a highlight of the fall season.  Between bites, guests can sip a special PHX PHEAST cocktail, wine and beer while enjoying live entertainment from local musicians, and more. PHX PHEAST is a true farm-to-fork experience and a reflection of the finest food from the best farmer’s market in the Valley.  We hope you will join us in support of Arizona farmers.

You can get a ticket here. Prices range from $5 for a drink to $75 for a meal and two drinks.

Individual Ticket, Includes all food bites, entertainment from Tatiana Crespo and 2 drink tickets. They’ll have a variety of 10 chefs paired up with 10 farmers, each creating a different dish for patrons to enjoy as you move from booth to booth. Between bites you can enjoy local beer, wine and a craft cocktail or non-alcoholic beverages. Additional alcohol tickets may be purchased at the event, as well as online.

PHX Pheast is a fundraiser for Phoenix Public Market, a program of Community Food Connections (CFC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. CFC creates a downtown community-gathering place by supporting small farmers and businesses that strengthen sustainable food systems and produce healthy products for the local community.

Location: Outdoor dining experience, 721 N Central Avenue

Pheast

 

November 1, 2018by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Events General, Life, Public Policy, Sustainable Living

Cruise the Canals

canalDesert dwellers know what a precious resource water is. But do you know where our water comes from and how it gets to your tap? Find out by joining our friends at Local First Arizona on a bike cruise along the Arizona Canal.

We’ll pedal from Old Town Scottsdale to OHSO Brewery with Valley water experts filling us in on everything you’ve always wondered about our water system. Along the way, we’ll hear from the following:

  • Learn about the canal system from Jim Duncan, Salt River Project Engineer. We’ll stop at the scenic Arizona Falls, the oldest hydro-electric generation site in Phoenix, where we will learn how the Falls combines art, history and technology to generate clean electricity from the canal’s waterfall.
  • Water – Use It Wisely will share information about water conservation in the desert and easy steps we can all take to be more water aware.
  • Watershed Management Group will share information on rainwater harvesting and how you can create landscape features that preserve our watershed.
  • OHSO Brewery will be sharing their beer made with Sinagua Malt, a water conserving malt grown in the Verde Valley and talking about water in the beer making process.

The bike ride is approximately seven miles roundtrip.

Date: December 1st
Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Cost: Free to attend! Food, drink and bike rental are not included and will be purchased separately. There are several bike rental options in Old Town Scottsdale.
Meeting location: South Bridge along Arizona Canal & Marshall Way, 4420 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Need to rent a bike? Please scroll down for bike rental options.
Questions: Jake@localfirstaz.com
NOTE: This event has limited space and is expected to fill up so RSVP is required!

November 1, 2018by phxAdmin
Blogroll, Life, Sustainable Living

Thinking Sustainably

Thinking SustainablyAs a team we are often thinking sustainably. As you know, we highlight Going Green House cleaners because of the work they do to clean homes responsibly. We are also big fans of Greg Peterson’s Urban Farm website. We know that we need to change our relationship to our urban environment, too.

By the way, check out Greg’s podcast featuring the famous Jason Mraz, who has his own urban farming adventures.

So, we thought we’d share these two bits of brain food with you.

First, have you ever thought about the environmental impact of cement? We knew that it uses a lot of energy to create, but this article will give you an idea of just how much carbon is emitted from the production of cement. Cement is the second largest industrial emitter of carbon after the production of steel.

So, here’s the interesting thing: cement lasts longer and is more energy efficient than wood construction homes. But its manufacture is so much more energy intensive up front. Or, to think another way, our water infrastructure leaks enough water every day to serve 15 million households. However, the cement needed to solve that problem with new pipes will increase carbon emissions even further.

This article really explores the few options we have if we are thinking sustainably about cement.

thinking sustainablyHere’s another great find about how much plastic is in the world’s oceans, land and our bodies and what our options are to reduce its use. Hint: there are no easy solutions, but the knowledge is incredibly important to share.

You might find yourself sucked in to this Youtube page. Kurtzgesagt is the German word for “in a nutshell” and these folks provide entertaining and thought-provoking short videos about all nature of science, history and humanity.

Don’t let that video discourage you, though. Here is a handy website for how to generate less waste at home. Don’t feel over-whelmed! Its all about baby steps and changing habits.

As realtors we believe that we have a responsibility to think sustainably, and share that knowledge with you. You may own your home for more than 30 years –longer than the life of your mortgage. What will our life be like in the desert if we don’t pay more attention to water, carbon and our waste stream?

If you have questions about thinking sustainably, please hit us up at 602-456-9388!

July 3, 2018by phxAdmin
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