Check out Just Food's Buy Local Food Guide

Ecology Ottawa’s Top 10 Civilian Action Steps
“I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything but I can do something.” Helen Keller

1. Measure Up
Take your footprint quiz. Try I Conserve, a challenge to everyone in Ontario to make a personal commitment to conserve. You don't have to be perfect overnight, just better! Take the test, set goals, test yourself. Are you in?
Email your friends and family, compare scores and get talking. Find out your opportunities.

Ask the Mayor and your city councillor: what's their score? What they are doing to minimize Ottawa’s footprint and their own? Contacts for your Mayor and city councillor can be found HERE

2. Power Smart
Chose green, carbon-free power. Tell your friends and family about Bullfrog Power. Sign up and receive $25 off your first bill. Simply visit www.bullfrogpower.com and enter: ecology (one word, lower case) in the promotional code field – to sign up to one of Canada’s cleanest electricity producers!

Ask the Mayor and your city councillor: Do municipal buildings use green energy? Do they use green energy? Will the city offer green energy rebates?

3. Use Less, Live Better
Conserve and save. Reduce your home heating and electricity use. Help your friends, do it together. And increase energy efficiency in your home. Visit http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca for tips or Green Ontario.

And be sure to check out Ottawa's own EnviroCentre, which offers affordable energy-saving products and programs.

Ask the Mayor and your city councillor: Are muncipal buildings energy efficient? Are their homes energy efficient?

4. Move Outside the Box
Go car-free: cycle, walk, bus, carpool & car-share. Visit www.carfreeday.ca and www.vrtucar.com. Join the annual Commuter Challenge in June. Or start a car pool - check out Ottawa Ride Match. Tell your friends about your low carbon diet, and invite them to join you.

Ask the Mayor and your city councillor: Can Ottawa provide a user-friendly transit system? Can they use alternative transportation to/from work?

5. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Reduce the distance your food travels - support your local farmers by buying locally grown and produced food. Check out Ottawa's buy local guide at Just Food.   Consider reducing your consumption of meat and other animal products or going vegetarian or vegan.  Livestock contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, and producing food from animals requires more energy, water, and land than producing plant foods. Click here for more.  

6. Rethink Garbage
Resist and reduce. Generate less household waste.
For tips, see http://www.ottawa.ca/city_services/recycling_garbage/tips_en.html.
Teach your kids the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Buy your friends really nice reusable bags for gifts. Plastic is very unfashionable.

Email the Mayor and your city councillor and demand a plastic bag ban. San Francisco is doing it; why can't we?

7. Reuse, then Recycle
Take it Back! Check out http://www.ottawa.ca/takeitback.
Email the link to your friends and family. Encourage retailers and businesses in your community to become members of the Take it Back! program. Not only will they help the environment, but they can also benefit from this partnership by gaining city-wide recognition as an eco-friendly business.

8. Get your lawn off drugs
Naturalize your lawn and replace pesticides with alternatives. http://www.flora.org/healthyottawa.

Tell the Mayor and your city councillor to listen to the doctors and to pass a bylaw to restrict the non-essential use of lawn and garden pesticides. Sign the petition here.

9. Breathe clean air
Get out and enjoy Ottawa's green spaces. Check out Ecology Ottawa's Calendar of Events to find out how you can enjoy and protect our greenspace. Invite your friends, have a picnic, play in the park, it's all about supply and demand, and demanding better from our municipal government.

10. Plant Trees
They can soak up C02, make shade and block wind. http://www.treecanada.ca
Help your friends do it too. Give trees as presents. Demand our city to have more trees. Order yours from Ottawa's TREE Programme, and recommend a community location for a new tree. Ask for native species. To register for a free tree, visit: http://ottawa.ca/residents/healthy_lawns/forestry/tree_program/index_en.

Download a bookmark with these Top 10 Action steps below!

Bookmark.pdf