Highland Park, New Jersey’s first green community, has pledged to go green since 2003. It was recognized as the 2006 Clean Energy Municipality of the Year, for its vast green efforts.
Among the growing list of green efforts, Highland Park instituted solar activated pedestrian crosswalk signs, geothermal heating and cooling systems and heating lamps for school, high-efficiency lighting and LED traffic signs, hybrid police and inspections vehicles, green utility incentives, no pesticides policy, green (calcium chloride) snow removal, and an aggressive recycling policy.
As of 2006, Mayor Meryl Frank said Highland Park saves at least $14,000 with the town’s green initiatives. Mayor Frank is also chair of the Committee on a Green Future,
In 2007, the town set out with its green challenge.
The first effort was to exchange incandescent light bulbs for energy-efficient compact florescent light bulbs. To date, 450 Highland Park residents have taken exchanged a traditional incandescent light bulb for a compact fluorescent bulb that uses 20% less energy and can last 10 times longer. The town estimates that, in the lifetime of the bulb, each citizen could save $32.16 in energy bills and prevent 205 pounds of CO2. Together, the town has the potential to avoid emitting 92,250 pounds of C02.
- Only 10% of the energy used by an normal light bulb generates light, the rest is wasted heat.
- A study for the U.S. government calculated that the gasoline equivalent of the energy saved over the lifetime of one 24 watt compact fluorescent bulb is sufficient to drive a Prius from New York to San Francisco, according to HP.
The second challenge was using canvas bags rather than plastic bags for grocery and other shopping. The average American can save between 300 and 700 plastic bags in just one year by using canvas shopping bags instead.
- According to National Geographic: Going Green, Americans go through 100 billion grocery bags every year. One estimate suggests that Americans use more than 12 million barrels of oil each year just to produce plastic grocery bags that end up in landfills after one use and then take centuries to decompose.
- Green Tip: Many grocery stores will give you money back for using reusable bags or reusing plastic bags.
The final Green Challenge was to plant native tree saplings, which shades yards and takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that causes global warming.
- Mature trees can absorb roughly 48 pounds of CO2 a year. The tree in turn releases enough oxygen to sustain two human beings.
