Pilot Projects
A goal of Drawdown East End is to build a local roadmap to put Drawdown solutions into action — both personally, with personal climate action plans, and also in community, by designing replicable pilot projects in partnership with our communities intended to be brought to scale across the Peconic Bay Region. If you have an idea for a replicable scalable model, contact us!
Projects To Date
Food Waste Diversion
November 2019- Ongoing
The Reduce Food Waste team of Drawdown East End, in cooperation with the Town of Southold, launched a “30-Household, 30-Day” pilot program in February of 2020. Its purpose was to conduct research about residents separating food waste from town yellow bag refuse. The 30-day pilot diverted over 1000 lbs of food waste from the waste stream, and turned it into compost for a local farm. This is the equivalent of sequestering over 2000 lbs of greenhouse gases. A scaled-up community pilot program is in the planning stages for 2021.
“Our hope,” says Sherry Thirlby of Southold, lead organizer of the Drawdown East End Reduce Food Waste Team, “is to scale up this separate-your-food-waste pilot to include the entire community – to ultimately divert food waste from the waste stream, turn it into local compost for our farmers, help our town save money, and bring cascading environmental and health benefits to our community.”
Contact: Sherry Thirlby, Mary Morgan, Mark Haubner.
Food Waste Reduction
November 2019- Ongoing
An educational webinar, “Waste Not. Want Not. Cut Food Waste. Save Money,” launched in the Town of Southold in November 2020, will be followed by a 10-day pilot program, during which attendees will weigh their food waste post the interventional education. This will measure the efficacy of the webinar if food waste decreases below the national average of ½ lb per person per day. A community wide educational program is in the planning stage for 2021.
“Waste Not. Want Not. Cut Food Waste. Save Money” webinar plus file link with handouts, lists and references here
Tree Planting Project
November 2019- Ongoing
Drawdown East End announced a native tree planting project in partnership with the Town of Southampton Sustainability Committee. Beginning with select local K-12 schools, “our overall plan,” said Mark Haubner of Riverhead, project leader, “is to create a tree-planting community engagement program with a large educational component, first with Peconic Bay Region schools, then extending to our entire residential sector, about 140,000 residents of the five east end towns. This would follow the Drawdown climate solution #15 Afforestation, and meet the larger regenerative work with which our towns are now being tasked.” The general public can participate and be counted by planting native trees on the East End and registering your tree(s) on the map of the UN Trillion Tree Campaign app called Plant-for-the-Planet.
Contact: Mark Haubner, Mary Morgan
Let’s work together. Drawdown is not just a project – it is an adventure. It is a promising story that has the potential to engage every person on the planet with at least one solution…
KAREN O’BRIAN
co-founder of cChange
Let’s Work Together – Get In Touch!