 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City of Columbia's Climate Protection Action Committee, or CPEX, four-quarter webinar. And I hope you are ready because we are in for a treat. Before we get started, because we have some great information to share, I just want to remind you about the purpose of CPEX. So we are a coalition of individuals from the city, appointees, as well as community members working together to address climate concerns within our community. So at the end of this webinar, I'll give you the website if you would like to get more information about the work that we're doing, as well as ways in which you can be a part of this great effort. So without further ado, let's get started. Now, we are happy that you have joined us throughout the year, but we have we are now embarking on one of the greatest parts of the year where we're having fun food and festivities. We are entering that part of the year where we have multiple holidays. And it also means that we have opportunities to engage in different types of events, celebrations, maybe a little bit of shopping and overindulgence. And so being that we are a CPEX and we know that you are citizens that want to be responsible as well as have a good time, we're going to see exactly how we can address some of our habits during this holiday season. So we're going to talk about managing your holiday waste line. And we hope that we're going to give you some great tips that allow you to have fun and be festive during the end of the year, but in a way where it's not increasing our ecological as well as wasteful footprint. So one one thing I want to share is that I got to give a shout out to our great CPAC leader Bob Petruis. And so again, I'm going to talk a little bit more at the end about ways in which you can be a part of this great organization, but I did want to give that one shout out. So first off, we are going to talk with the city of Colombia's solid waste superintendent, who is Samantha Yeager, and she's going to give us some tips on what we can do as relates to the management of our waste. And so if you think about we're going into Thanksgiving, we're going to do Christmas and other type of holidays. There is the likelihood that we may be purchasing a lot of materials as well as trying to manage that waste. And so she's going to talk about ways in which we can do that in a sustainable way. So Samantha, how are you doing this evening? Thank you so much, Tamara. This is such a great opportunity to talk about reducing our holiday waste because the city does see a little spike in what we pick up during the holidays, as you can imagine the gift giving and people being at home on vacation for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other holidays. We see a little bit of more waste. So just to give you a brief overview about our our waste collection here in the city, the city does collect about for 40,000 residents. We do yard trash, garbage and recycling collection. So we've been recycling curbside since 1991. We started with those little 18 gallon bins and we have expanded our program in 2015 to those beautiful blue 95 gallon roll carts. Now, with those roll carts, we see a lot of wishful recycling throughout the year, but especially during the holidays. So when we talk about recycling, we want to make sure that we stick to our list. Where you can find this information, that list can be found online at columbiasc.gov. Backslash solid waste. We have our very useful Waste Wizard app. That app is mobile friendly as well. It's free on iPhone and Android and you would search Columbia SC solid waste. And with this app, the app and the calendar tool online, you can find your specific address. There's a search tool that you can use to say, hey, I've got batteries or I've got paint or I've got plastic bottles. What do I do with this? The Waste Wizard will tell you that. The Waste Wizard will also tell you your collection schedule. So next week, when we're collecting Thursday's routes on Wednesday, you know when to put your card out. And there that that third part of our app is that reported problem. So if you have a problem or a miscollection, you can always call us and say, hey, I forgot to put my card out or I was a little late or you miss me. We will always come back and service that garbage or recycling. Still, what goes in that blue bin? So we have our nice list again, stick to your list. If you don't live in the city, Richland County, City Casey, City of West Columbia, Lexington County, they all have great resources on their websites. DHEC also has a comprehensive list of what should be going in that roll cart on their website as well. But in the city of Columbia, we want to see those empty plastic bottles with their caps on. We do not want any liquids or any leftover food. We want to see flattened cardboard, flattened cardboard boxes, magazines, junk mail, bills you might not want to pay, they can go in there too. We won't tell anybody. But we also like to see aluminum cans, glass bottles. We take clear brown and green glass. We still do not take blue glass. We also want to see tin cans, soup, vegetables, all that kind of stuff. We want the cans, not your leftover vegetables. And the last little pieces you're aside from plastic bottles, we want to see jugs, jars and other containers. If the lid is plastic, keep it on there. On this slide, I do have gift bags. That is not necessarily goes in your recycling cart. But we like to that that second hour of our three hours reduce, reuse, recycle. We want to reuse as many gift bags as we can. So my grandmother was the queen of that. She had hundreds of gift bags she would just use and use and use. And it's a great way to give something a new life instead of heading to the landfill. We also have our naughty list, big item, big ticket items. We see more so during the holidays, but we do see it throughout the year. Any of the disposable cutlery, cups, paper plates, anything like that needs to go in your garbage. Those are not recyclable any time of the year, but we see more parties this time of the year and we see more of those disposable materials. We also don't want to see any foil pans, any foil, pipe pans, trays, anything like that, our recycler does not accept those. But and with those, we also see a lot of food waste in our recycling. Our recycling should be clean. There should be no food. There should be no liquids. Garbage stinks for cycling doesn't. We also see during this time of the year, wrapping paper, tissue paper, those. We also see a lot of string lights. All of this is non recyclable. That's why we go. I advocate for the reusable bags. Tissue paper, you know, the fiber is too thin to recycle, so it can be recycled wrapping paper and bows. They have a lot of metallics. They have a lot of colors. The metallic and glitter makes that paper non recyclable. So we say just just keep it out. I know there's no other joy than ripping up a president on Christmas morning with all that wrapping paper and bows and but if you can stay away from it, great. I know sometimes we just can't. And then there's there's Christmas presents or holiday presents. We see a lot of styrofoam, even though styrofoam has a little recycling symbol on it. It cannot go in your roll cart. It has to go in the garbage. Bigger, bigger pieces of styrofoam need to go out on your yard trash day with our bulk items. So that's to keep in mind as well. And then we have some specialty items that you can drop off here at Public Works, the City of Columbia Public Works located behind 3,000 Hardin Street. You can drop off your electronics. We take basically anything that plugs in. If you have a white good, which would be considered refrigerator, freezer, deep freezer, stove, washing machine, anything like that. We will also take that. It just needs to be clean of any freon and any food or anything else that might be in those items. So electronics we take every day, they are banned from the landfill. So we like to offer that recycling option. Richland and Lexington counties also have several drop off sites that our residents can take advantage of with our e-waste here. We also do take batteries. Those batteries are recycled along with the e-waste. So it's a great drop off. We also do cooking oil. The city has two cooking oil locations, the one here at Public Works. And then we also have another one at Fire Station 16, located off Lake Murray Boulevard. We take this cooking oil and we give it to green energy biofuels. And they turn it into biodiesel. So we are turning our old cooking grease into fuel. Richland County does offer Richland and Lexington offer drop offs for tires and scrap metal. The city does not offer that. The residents looking to recycle tires, scrap metal could be anything from old bicycles, old lamps, anything you may think you want to get rid of. They do offer drop offs for that. You can find that those locations on their website. And of course, I can't can't not mention leaf season. So the city is currently we've declared it leaf season. And so right now we are seeing all of the leaves on the ground. And we are seeing an increase in collection and the volumes of collection. So we're actually offering an optional leaf drop off locations. So the city has invested in what we call a roll off truck. And we have containers that we are locating at five parks, at five different parks each week where residents can drop off their bagged leaves. Yes, we can still still use that curbside service for leaf collection. But we actually offering this to keep your keep your curb lines nice and tidy, especially during the holidays with lots of visitors. I know everybody gets a little frustrated when we get behind schedule. So this is just an optional optional service that we're adding to the Solid Waste Division. The parks locations can be found on our website, in our mobile app and on social media. So follow, look for those for those five different locations. The containers move every Friday. So we are moving to our second set of locations tomorrow, which will be Drew Park, Pinehurst Park, Martin Luther King Park, our Busbee Street Community Center, and Owens Field. So we're excited for this new program to add another another way to keep our waste down and also to save on fuel for the city. It's a great, great opportunity for residents to take care of. And with that, our biggest contributor to Holiday Waste would be. I have my back point. Our food waste, which I believe our friend Ada Gordon from DHEC will be talking about. And I'm sure she will go over more specifics of this. But food waste is 40 percent of what's going into our landfills right now. So when we talk about those three R's, reduce, reuse, recycle, we want to make sure we're reducing how much food waste is going into our landfills. We're using our gift bags and recycling the right things in our roll cart. So please stick to your list. And with that, have a great holiday season. Here's my information for any any other further questions. You can always call our office at five or five thirty eight hundred. We're here Monday through Friday, eight to five. Well, thank you, Samantha. That was some great information. But I do have a few questions for you and I don't believe Santa will mind if you talk a little bit more about what's on the naughty list. And so I assume that during this time, especially when we think about gifts, there is a lot of packaging that's going to be generated. So whether it's coming in cardboard packages or other large boxes, when we have citizens that are recycling and they're taking those roll carts to the curb, is there a certain way that we want to make sure the waste is getting in the the bins and so should everything actually be put in the bin or is it allowable to have some additional items on the outside? Because I'll be perfectly honest. I've driven down my neighborhood and seen quite a bit of boxes and other materials piled next to the recycling bins. And so can you give a little directions on exactly what is going to make it easy for those individuals that are picking up all of this waste? Absolutely. Great question. We want our cardboard flattened and in those roll carts, you can absolutely put some cardboard on the side. What we don't want is all that plastic, that plastic film wrapping, any styrofoam that comes in those boxes or packaging. All of that needs to go in your garbage. Yes, it may be plastic or may have a recycling symbol on it. But here in the city of Columbia and Richland County, we do not take those. Actually, those those recycling symbols and numbers really don't mean much to recyclers, just just to the manufacturers and chemical companies. So we want your boxes flattened. Any plastic films or styrofoam go in your garbage. And if you have extra waste, you can put it out on the curb. We'll get it by city ordinance. We have to take up to three extra bags outside of your roll cart. Well, thank you for sharing about that. And so hopefully everyone, this will be helpful for you as you are getting different gifts and materials and are trying to do the right thing. As far as segregating, putting waste in its containers, as well as putting recyclables in their containers. And so again, the information was shared by Samantha. And so please reach out to her agency if you have any questions. So thank you again, Samantha. That was awesome information. So as she shared, we're going to start talking about another thing that is really, I will say significant when we're thinking about the festive holidays. And that is food. So Samantha touched on it a little bit. But we are probably all familiar with going to different holiday parties, whether it's in the office, maybe with some of our organizations. And there are great spreads. So you'll have your candy, you'll have snacks. Maybe there is an end of the year holiday party. So there is a lot of food that's generated because it kind of goes along with the festive holiday spirit. But we also want to be mindful of not being wasteful. And so as Samantha has mentioned, food waste does account for about 40 percent of the waste that is going to our landfills, and we can definitely do better. So next, we're going to talk with Ada Gordon, who is with South Carolina or DHECs, Don't Waste Food, South Carolina. She's going to give us tips on ways in which we can have a festive holiday season, enjoy all of our great treats and other foods, but doing it in a way where we're not going to generate a lot of waste. So nice to see you, Ada. Nice to see you too, Tamara. Thanks and thanks, Sam, for giving such a good lead in the food waste. So let me share this with you all real quick. Just fill you all in a little bit real quick. I work at DHEC's Office of Solid Waste Reduction and Recycling. And you might be asking yourselves why. DHEC's interested in food waste. And honestly, it is. Oh, sorry, y'all. My screen got a little excited there. I'm going to start first. Actually, I'm a back of the truck for just a half a meter there. I'm Ada. I'm here because I love food as my favorite thing in the whole world. When I'm eating breakfast, I'm thinking about lunch. When I'm eating lunch, I'm thinking about dinner. And then I'm thinking about what I'm going to bake this weekend and who I'm going to give it to. So I don't think you'll ever meet anyone who cares about food quite as much as me, maybe, maybe. I mean, we can talk about it later. But anyway, so I'm here because food is my favorite thing. The holiday season is my favorite season because it centers around food. DHEC is interested in food because we waste a heck of a lot of it across the world in the United States. 40 percent of what goes into the land or 40 percent of the food we generate gets wasted. It's about 25 ish percent of what goes into the landfill. So it's the number one thing we're throwing away. And here in South Carolina, specifically, our latest stats tell us that in fiscal year 2021, so a little while ago, but the latest data we have. Yeah, you guys can read. It's it's pretty astounding. We do recycle a little of it, turn it into compost, which is awesome. But that's still almost a million pounds of food that's going to the landfill. And that's just an estimate, honestly. We don't go to the landfill and sort through it most of the time. So it could be more than that, even. So that's why DHEC created Don't Waste Food Essie as just a campaign where we're going around anywhere we can telling people. Try not to throw so much away. Try not to waste it, start on the front end, prevent. If there's anything that you can't prevent, let's donate it. We want to give it to hungry people if we can't do that. Maybe we can figure out how to give it to hungry animals. And then all else fails, let's figure out how to compost it, because at least then we can recycle it and get something new out of it. Instead of just putting in a landfill where it causes problems. So today, we want to talk about the holiday season again. Oh, man, just today at work, we had our work Thanksgiving. And it's it's amazing to see everybody get together and make all these amazing dishes that my family doesn't make. So everybody brought a little of themselves. But then at the end of the day, we had half of this and a quarter of this. And there was a whole pie that nobody even touched because there was just so much. So what we want to do is figure out how we can avoid some of that excess. You know, we want we want the horn of plenty, the cornucopia, but maybe it doesn't need to be overflowing. So we're just going to go through some few a few simple steps, especially on the front end, if you're planning the meal or you have a hand in planning the meal, there are a lot of things you can do. And some of them are really easy. So start out by getting an accurate head count of how many guests you're going to have. Always make sure to leave a little wiggle room. You know, somebody is going to drop in with a friend. You know, he just didn't have anywhere to go. And that's OK. We love that. That's part of the holiday spirit. At this point, you also want to decide if, you know, you want leftovers. If you're a leftover person, I love the turkey sandwich. It is why I do holiday meals is so that I can have the turkey sandwich. Some people I know refuse and that this is not their thing. And that's OK. But that's the kind of thing you want to plan for. So once you get your head count, try to keep in mind who you're going to be feeding. You know, if if you're the only person in your family who likes Brussels sprouts, maybe it doesn't need to be a feature at your meal. Maybe you just make a little bit and folks can try it. If they don't like it, that's OK. You'll eat the rest. Know if you have adventurous eaters or not. My family. Nope. No, they want the staples. They want them the way that they've had them for the past 35 years. And that's cool. I'll eat my curry turkey leftovers by myself and I'll enjoy them for all of us. Keep in mind your dietary needs or preferences of anybody. And nothing ruins a party like anaphylactic shock. And then if you know that there's a dish that everybody loves, like my auntie's macaroni pie. You know, they're going to eat twice as much of that as everything else. Just try and keep that in mind. If you just don't know, if you just have no idea, there are resources out there and we don't need to reinvent the wheel. So I'm going to tell you about other people who are doing this work. The N.R.D.C. And the ad council had created the Save the Food campaign years ago before we even thought about doing what we were doing, honestly. And they created this tool called the Guestimator. And I'm just going to walk you through some screenshots of what I did to play around with it to to try and show you what you can just hop online and do. If you go to savethefood.com, it's on the front page right now. And basically. You just fill in how many friends or family you've got coming over and you can do small leaders, average eaters, big eaters, because, you know, my brother's six two and weighs a little bit more than me, so he eats a little bit more than me. And that's good to plan for these things. So once you enter those, then you sort of figure out how many leftover meals you want and account for that. What kind of meal are you having? You know, if you're having all veggies, you're probably going to need a little more bulk than if you're having a bunch of proteins. And then you can just create your meal at this virtual table, which is really neat. And it shows you this is right at the top of the page. And then as you scroll down, you can change your proteins and your side dishes, your desserts to sort of figure out about how much of each you should make. So this is an unbelievable tool that will help you generate way less waste than, you know, just going and grabbing a 20 pound turkey and saying, this should be good for five people, right? Another easy resource, if that's too complicated or, you know, in addition to that, you can do something like a Christmas meal planter. This one I also stole from Love Food Hate Waste. They're the UK's version of all the things we're doing here. We love them. We share their stuff all the time. This planner can help you figure out what you can make ahead. So, you know, if you have some veggies that you know you're going to cook, you can go ahead and cook those instead of you get to Thanksgiving Day and you run out of time and those veggies don't get cooked. And then they end up getting pushed to the back of the fridge from all the leftovers and then they get thrown away. A little bit of planning can go a long way with these things. And it can be as easy as a piece of paper. If you don't feel like printing this out, get that shopping list off your fridge and just divide it into some squares. If you're going to your your company's holiday party or your neighborhood community party or your church is having a potluck, maybe just suggest that folks sign up, you know, tentative, even just like a category will work that way you don't end up with, you know, four bowls of mashed potatoes and a lot of belly aches and a lot of leftovers that nobody has anything else to put with them. Obviously, I highlighted desserts in red here because that's the most important food group. I do want to tell you to buy and bulk. Not that kind of bulk, this kind of bulk. If you go to us, there are quite a few stores in Columbia that have this option now. You can go and just buy a little bit. That way, if you if you go in and you know what you need for your recipe, you can just buy the amount you need rather than buying, you know, the big bag of pine nuts, which costs more than I get paid in a month. And then you won't end up, you know, forgetting that you have thrown them away and wasting a lot of money as well as, you know, a really good resource. And if you're the guy who's just not good at cooking anything, you can just burn a pot by looking at it. Just bring some containers, preferably something that's a fairly sustainable, fairly reusable. But as long as you're bringing something that people can put leftovers in, then that's taking it one step further and it's not all just getting stuck with one person who will end up throwing them away as well. So who knows the best way to decide if a food is still safe to eat, you check the date on the label. Is that like your your law of food? Maybe you eat a little and then wait about 30 minutes to see how you feel. Like if you feel a little queasy, maybe we don't eat any more of that, or just, you know, use your smell test, look at it, feel it, see if it looks different or weird or smells funky. It's going to be that smell test at the bottom. Just, you know, when food's good, you probably know when food's bad. Don't be a hero. Nobody needs to be sick, but this is a good rule of thumb. Use your common sense. It'll it'll usually steer you right when it comes to something like food safety. Now, when your meals over and you have leftovers and you've had a couple of turkey sandwiches and you're tired of the turkey sandwich or you really did still just end up with way too many mashed potatoes or no matter how many meals you eat, you can't use all that cranberry sauce. We were all blessed to have technology. And if we're not, we have friends. We we can go to the library. You can look in some cookbooks. There are tons of people who are figuring out this is an a tale as old as time, I would say. What do I do with all these Thanksgiving leftovers? I've seen nachos, pizzas, waffles, all kinds of good stuff. Also, I do want to point out if you want to follow us on social media, we're on Instagram and Facebook and from December 1st through January 1st, we will be telling you how to keep prep and maintain leftovers for a ton of different holiday foods. That's what we're focusing on for the next month. So if you did run out of time and you have some cans or some boxes, you know, you thought you were going to make two boxes of that stove top stuffing and you end up with one that you just didn't use. Go ahead and donate that food banks still need food after holidays. People are still hungry after holidays. We all tend to, you know, right right at Thanksgiving and right at Christmas. We go and we donate and we volunteer and then it tapers off a little bit. Folks still need help after the holidays and it's still a really good use for food, especially if you're not going to eat it. There will always be pieces. There will always be parts. I don't love chewing on the top of a bell pepper, the stem. It's just not appetizing to me. You know, you can technically cook with a banana peel, but it's not really interesting to me either. So we want you to compost. There are options for backyard composting. Highly recommend that in the winter. It just kind of hangs out. You don't have to do a lot with it. It's a good way to get rid of some of those leaves. So maybe, you know, Sam doesn't have to come pick all of them up or you don't have to go drop all of them off with her, but. And if you can't compost, I understand there are some people who, you know, it's in their lease that they're not allowed to. Or it's just not something that they feel like they have the time for. We're all human beings. I totally understand. Save those veggie pieces, save those extra meat bits that you don't really want to chew on and use them to make stock. At least then before you throw it away, you're getting one last use out of it. So if you want some more resources, we have quite a few on our website. It's scdheck.gov slash DWFSE or same thing, slash Don't Waste Food, SC, both will work. Like I said, a big, long list of stuff there for you. If there's anything specific you're looking for and you're just not finding it, please reach out. We are always open if you want to tell me that you learned nothing today and you would like to see something else in a presentation. I'm open to that, too. I'm happy to hear it. Again, I will encourage everyone to follow us on social media. That's where we give constant tips on date label guidance, donation guidance, just every time we figure out something new that we're excited about, about preventing food waste. That's where we share it. So thanks. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all the day. Thank you, Ada. This has been awesome. One of my holiday tips is that we often pick one holiday to actually go out and do dinner. So for us, our big holiday dinner is going to be Christmas. So for Thanksgiving, we might do Chinese, we might do Italian. We may go somewhere. And so let everyone else do the heavy lifting, but we're still able to partake in some great foods, and it also means that there isn't a lot of waste that we have to worry about. So if all of you are looking for some tips, definitely look at the resources that Ada has provided, but kind of figure some creative ways in which you can still enjoy the meals, but do it in a way that's going to be less wasteful. And I have to admit, those slides were awesome. I was giggling on the side while she was presenting. So we got some great information about ways we can minimize the waste that we're generating, we got some awesome information about ways in which we can still enjoy our favorite foods, but without being very wasteful. But now let's talk about another part of the holiday, which is the energy intensity in the amount of energy that we might consume. So regardless of the holiday that you may be celebrating or just being festive this time of year, there's a lot of lights, there's a lot of traveling that may take place, there's a lot of use of different equipment, whether we're running radios, TVs, or we're buying different things. And so we want to be mindful of that as well. So we're going to talk now with Stacey Washington and Chanel Williams with the South Carolina Energy Office. And they're going to give us some tips on ways in which we could be mindful about the amount of energy that we're using this holiday season. So Stacey and Chanel, how's it going? It's great. How are you, Tamara? Dr. Warren? Well, I'm excited. This is my favorite time of year. So getting all of these tips is just right up my alley. So I'm going to give the floor to you young ladies. OK, well, hello, everyone. Like Tamara said, I am Chanel Williams and my co-host is not speaking. I'm sorry, Stacey Washington. OK, and we are here to talk to you about tips for energy efficiency during the holidays. All right. OK, so a little bit about the energy office. We are a department within the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff Energy Offices and we're funded by the Department of Energy State Energy Program. As you can see, our mission is to promote energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean transportation, which we do through a variety of avenues, and we also implement the state energy plan. So we have a little crowd interaction. What are some sources of energy use during the holidays? Now, what I would like for you all to do is to use the QR code on the slide to enter in some ideas that you have about energy use during the holidays. There is a lag. So while I am waiting on the rest of the crowd or the rest of the audience to participate, I'd also like to invite our fellow presenters to participate. We're going to have some interaction and some things to leave in the chat. So not only are these questions open to the crowd, but again, they're open to our fellow presenters. So let's give it a few moments. And see what pops up. And I'm going to do it too, so it's not blank. There we go. Yay. All right. Gas, road trip, oven cooking, holiday lights, travel, let's move some things around. OK, anything else? Anybody? All right, well, let's let's move on. These are great tips or great uses, great examples to start with. But what Stacy and I are going to do over the next few minutes is give you some actual tips and talk about actual uses or sources of energy use when we're gathering and celebrating and doing all of the holiday things. Oh, I have to find my mouse. Sorry. Oh, there's more. OK, it took a second. Yay. I love the crowd participation. Thank you all. OK. All right. So now we have a little story for you to get you thinking. So Amanda is excited to decorate her new home for the holidays. She wanted a warm glow, so she purchased incandescent lights for her tree and battery operated candles to place around her home. After hanging garland from the fireplace mantles, she made a fire and enjoy the ambience. What can Amanda do to save energy in this situation? So let's see if you can give us some examples of what you think she could do. And you can put something in the chat if you're one of our presenters. And we'll also look at the chat for those that are on YouTube live. Use real candle like that. LED lights and I don't see anything in the chat from YouTube yet. Turn the heat down while the fire is on. Use wood, not gas in the fireplace. These are great recommendations. Energy efficient, wood stove, wear warmer clothing. These are great. Mm hmm. Let me know when you're ready to go to the OK, you can go to the next. OK, so you don't have anything in YouTube. Please, if you're on YouTube, we'd love to hear your comments as well. OK. So choose fiber optic decorations. This is something that was new to me. So pre-lit fiber optic trees and decorations use LED bulbs with the added benefits of being shadow proof, shock resistant and cool to the touch. So this is really a little bit of a new tip. This LED but fiber optic LED is new to me. Maybe not to you. All right, we have another opportunity for crowd participation. So little trivia question, true or false? LED bulbs are more fragile and need to be replaced more often. So presenters, you can obviously drop your responses into the chat. Everyone else on YouTube Live. Drop your comments or your responses into the chat as well. Stacey, are you seeing responses? I do have two on YouTube Live. They say false. OK. All right, I'm here for it. And that is correct. So LED lights actually use less electricity than incandescent lights. And that's one of the quick and easy energy saving tips that we have the energy office like to recommend for people to do. Just swap out your light bulbs for LED lights. And during the holiday season, obviously, you want to have LED Christmas lights or tree lights or decorating lights, house lights, whatever you'd like to call them instead of the incandescent lights. And now let's talk about the room lights. You can conserve power by using the lights on your Christmas tree to light the room instead of turning on the light fixtures. I know my children love to see that nice glow of the Christmas tree rather than using the light and always just makes it feel nice and cozy. And you can save energy by doing that. So that's just another thing to think about during the holidays. You have all these extra lights on. Maybe you don't need all the other lights that you normally use. Excuse me. You can also put lights on a timer. I know it's very nice to have your holiday lights on all the time and really get into the mood, get into the holiday spirit. But in actuality, that is a drain on your energy. So a simple way to fix that is to set a timer to turn the lights on. When it gets off, that timer could be electronic or it could be a human who comes in and turns the lights on when it gets dark. But it's it's good to remember to also keep lights on for less than six hours. Again, just another simple energy saving tips when it comes to your to your lights. OK. More crowd participation. And I'll go a little slower this time since we are getting some YouTube live interaction and there's that lag. So it's time for a feast and all your friends and family are coming over. What are you making? We all know Ada is making curry turkey salad, but just for herself. Not for the rest of her family. And with that, how can you save energy during holiday gatherings? Now, we're going to give you those tips, but I want to hear what ideas you all have. Anything that might come to mind about how to save energy while you're having those moments of fun and fellowship and friendship and enjoying one another's company. So we did get some in the chat here. Cameron says she would make cookies and Sam said, willing or less baking. Oh, grilling. Yes, sounds like my family. They're having seafood. Gathering one gathering in one room to avoid people in a lot of rooms in the house. That's a good idea. That's a great idea. I mean, on YouTube, do you have any recommendations for reusing the old string lights instead of giving Sam's team more work by throwing them away? Huh, that's a great question. Um, I guess it might depend on whether or not you want them lit. You could always hang some place if you just like that, like the way they look. But, um. And you can make notes. I know someone who used to make table old wine bottles and put Christmas she likes in them and make lips out of them. Oh, that's a great idea. She's some of the same tips that Ada mentioned about wasting less food. Oh, this is for the questions that we have. And then for how can you save during the holiday gatherings and turn down the heat to take advantage of the people heat and residual heat from the kitchen appliances? Some more YouTube comments. Thank you. Yeah, thank you all. It sounds like you are in a great mindset for how to save energy and you are prepared in another comment for the lights if safe that can be made into jewelry. I need to look that up. I'm here for it. OK, are we ready to move on, Stacy? OK, now we'll talk a little bit more about one of the comments that was in the chat about heating and cooling. So the biggest energy users in the home are heating and cooling the air and heating and cooling the water. So one of the things you can do is let the sun in. You can open the drapes and shades during the day to use that light from the window like the greenhouse effect to warm up the home. And a night close the drapes and shades to cut down and draft some of the cold windows. So those are ways that you can use that natural heat to save on the bill. You can also lower the thermostat when having guests over. So a little before they come over, you can lower the thermostat because you know that body heat is going to cause the temperature to rise. So go ahead and plan and make sure you're taking advantage of their body heat so you don't have to use your heat. And if you're entertaining, you can leave the door open door open after you've finished making that turkey and all those sides if you need some little extra warmth in the home. And then you can also be an energy savvy shopper. So basically when you are purchasing gifts for either yourself or others, be sure that you are purchasing ones that are energy efficient, recyclable or made of natural products. You can also reduce waste by investing in rechargeable batteries, which. Could be any number of items that make great stocking stuffers, especially if you're giving a gift that requires batteries. Even if you are buying things like large thing, making large purchases like appliances or lawn equipment, those are great opportunities to be more mindful of your energy related purchases and make sure you are buying something that's energy efficient. OK, so we have a couple of resources that I think will be dropped into the notes or the chat in YouTube live. But if you want more information on energy saving tips, you can go to and give these links and there are plenty of tips on them or on those websites. And that's our information. Again, I'm Shaniel and then you also have Stacy's information. And we encourage you to follow us on all the platforms, both Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. So you will get more information about energy efficiency, clean energy, clean transportation, renewable energy, all things energy from the energy offices, social media platforms. And thank you. But thank you very much, Shaniel and Stacy. That was great information. I would say if some of you are of a certain age and remember the Charlie Brown Christmas, it feels as if we're coming full circle. So Charlie Brown insisted on having a natural tree, but who knew that having a free lit tree might have some little energy savings there? He might not agree, but hey, this is of a different time. So we kind of make sure that we will do will have less of a footprint. So again, thank you very much for those great tips about energy savings. So next, we're going to talk about something that may be inevitable as we're hitting the holiday season, and that is the amount of stuff that we generate. So we've talked about ways in which we'll manage our ways, how we can reduce the amount of food that we're wasting, even be more mindful about our energy efficiency. But just with the holidays is likely that we're going to get some different gifts, get some items that we've been wanting, some items that we need, and that may add a little bit more clutter to our homes. And so what better way as we're talking about minimizing our waste and just being mindful is thinking about how we can actually reorganize these different items, either those things that we currently have in our homes or different spaces, or as we're going to get new gifts or materials. And so now we have the pleasure of talking with Kim Benson of Resolve Organizing. And she's going to give us some tips on how we can actually enjoy this holiday season, possibly all of the new and great things that we're going to get, but not add a lot of clutter in our home. So how are you doing, Kim? I'm great. Thank you. And I am thrilled to be here with all these folks who work day in and day out to take good care of our environment. And I'm also proud to say that our business, my business Resolve Home Organizing, we do our part to try to keep as much as possible out of the landfill because what we really spend most of our time doing before the reorganization starts is just as you said, Tamara, is the decluttering. And our byline is reduce, reorganize, re or restyle, recreate and that reduce is just like we hear it when we were talking about cycling and solid waste management. We do our best and while we're at it to educate our clients about how you can declutter and not clutter the environment while you're at it. I always suggest to our clients that they kind of get ready for the holidays by making room in their home, making space in their home for the influx that is going to be coming. So this would be the time of your stars. Matter of fact, Thanksgiving vacation when the kids have those few days off is a good time to say. If you want Santa to come, we need to be able to make room. So let's go through your closet in your toy box and the shelves and decide what you are no longer playing with and the sooner the better, because then those things can be donated to toys for tots or a local thrift shop or any of the other wonderful organizations that help families before the holidays. And so not only are they getting ready to welcome Santa Claus and family and all the surprises that they bring, but they're also helping other families do the same. So this is this is a good time to do that. And while the kids are home from school, you've got a little extra time to do it to do it with them involved in it, which I think is important. So I actually prepared also to talk a little bit about the surprises that you'll be bringing to your family and friends and how to do some sustainable shopping and wrapping and to not at the same time fill your house and other people's houses with clutter. I work in homes of all shapes and sizes with all kinds of clients. I cannot tell you how often people say, I'm never going to use that. But I bought it for my mother-in-law and I'm afraid to get rid of it or I, you know, or I'll be helping someone organize a closet. And I'll say, this doesn't look like the rest of your style. And I'll say, I know I got that as a gift from so and so. And I don't know. I don't know. I tried it. It's not my style. So we want to take steps ahead of time to be thoughtful about the gifts and in making sure that we do a good job of matching people's interests. At the same time, we want to we can make the choices about gifts as well. So we may want to do some thinking outside the box, so to speak, when it comes to the shopping and the wrapping. So I'm going to do a little bit of show and tell in a minute when it comes to the wrapping, but in the meantime, to when you sit down. I know I really get into shopping mode right about now and start to make lists and think about what should I be buying for different people? Right now, we're working at a client's home and in her garage, I found a giant shopping bag full of really nice fleece blanket throws. You know, they're wrapped in ribbon. See the McColles and all these other different stores. It's such a common hot item for the holidays, maybe teacher, that's neighbor, that's she must have had 20 of them. So I was like, what's what's going on with these? I bought them last year to give us Christmas gifts. I got sick before the holidays, never got to do the those gifts for neighbors and teachers and friends. So there they are. So the first thing I want to center your shopping is done for this issue. She said, I forgot they were even out there. So the first thing to do is check your own stash. I know that sometimes during the year, I'll see something cute that's at a great price or reminds me of someone and I buy it and put it aside in that safe place to give to a friend or family member when a holiday comes. And then sometimes at Christmas, I get so involved in the shopping. I forget they already bought that person something. So before you start the list and before you start the shopping, check your stash if someone that sweater that's hanging in your closet that your mother-in-law bought, you're like, I'm never going to wear it. Maybe you can read this. So start with that. And those are gifts that you've already made. You don't have to run to the store. You don't have to ship them that they're already in your possession. And there really is nothing wrong with reading something if it's still in good shape. I think. But if you are going to go shopping, do consider shopping local so that you can conserve energy in terms of driving around and or the extra cost of shipping goods as convenient as it could be to order online. Shopping local has so many benefits. Really great for our community and the planet. Whether you go to Soda City and there's lots of vendors you can shop from or right now, if you check your Facebook events, it's full of every church's Christmas fair and festival and every weekend is packed with opportunities to shop local right now. Another way to shop sustainably is to shop secondhand. I'll tell you this. I would not buy my mother something secondhand. Some people you just know are not going to appreciate it. But there are other folks on your shopping list who would love something that you could pick up from an antique mall or from a thrift shop. And thrift shops also have plenty of items that still have or have their tags on them from the original merchant. So and we're lucky to have great places just up the road at like Little Mountain and Deep Mall and Podong Caller is another great place with not just the antiques, but great pickings for holiday giving. So I recommend that. And and don't be afraid to give gift cards or money. My teenagers, when asked what they want for Christmas, they say gift cards. And you kind of go, oh, I miss them opening stuff under the tree. Think about you don't have to wrap it in a great big box. And it's what they want. And it again is is a great way to do some sustainable holiday shopping. Not buying someone something that might end up just sitting in the closet or immediately going in a landfill. So that those are some tips for giving stuff. But you've probably read lots of articles or seen stories online about giving experiences. I think since COVID, we have really realized how valuable that time we can spend outside of our home exploring or visiting a museum or spending time with family and friends, how how important that is to us now. And the gift of experience does allow people to do that. And again, there is no wasteful product that has to go with it. So memberships Riverbank Zoo, the Columbia Museum of Art State Museum Adventure, I mean, all of them have memberships. If you know someone goes to a gym, I can renew their gym membership. Or if they're Costco shoppers, you can renew their Costco membership. Or if you think they would benefit from something like that, you can start up a new membership for them. State parks have a pass and that's a great gift is to buy someone a pass from state parks or I live close to Saluda Shoals Park and buy someone a park pass for the year. You've set them up for so many great opportunities to make memories with their families, tickets, theater tickets, movie tickets. When it comes to events and experiences, I recommend you check Groupon. Sometimes they will have great deals on escape room for for eight or tours, walking tours, ghost tours, things that you might not even realize on the surface or around, but Groupon will have great deals on them. And it's a good way to to help your family and friends do something different for a change, again, a new experience. And the last, of course, is which it's kind of fun to put together a combo of those things and include yourself in the gift. So you're kind of giving a gift of time with you. So maybe it's, you know, a trip to the museum and a gift certificate for lunch. And then gift certificate to go and have a pedicure. And it's a girl's day out for your best friend. It's a great I mean, I would love that more than a new coffee mug. Or, I don't know, those those fun but unnecessary things we give to our friends. OK, the other thing is the gift of service, gift certificates for massage or the salon. Think about gift certificates to give someone a gift certificate to get their card detailed. Yeah, I love that idea. Gift certificate to get their house pressure washed or their windows wash. Even businesses that you wouldn't think, you know, their gift card isn't hanging on the big back at the grocery store. Like if you call and say, I know my friend would love this service. Can I buy it in advance? Sure, Bill, trust me, I've done that with our businesses. I'll create a certificate for you to give to someone. So the grub hub or whatever they all are, all those places have some kind of a membership deal that the person doesn't have to pay the delivery fee. A teenager who's a college student would probably love something like that. So those are just some different ideas that you think outside the box for folks. So now let's talk about some sustainable wrapping of gifts when you decide that you do want to give stuff. It's something that needs to go into a package. So I kind of think of these. I'm going to give them to you in in a list of least to most earth friendly. I took my notes and like I said, do some show and tell. So. This is great, but it's at the top of the least earth friendly, but at least by gift wrap that's made from recycled paper. That's the least you can do. It's a little more expensive, but not as much as you used to be. The next on that you could do is maybe use gift bags. And as Samantha said, her grandmother reuses and reuses those gift bags. We do as well. So a tip on that, a typical gift bag that you could buy at your local department store. When you first get it, some of them will have this little tag on it. That's great. When you reuse it, you need to put a tag on it. And some people just these are maybe harder to find than those stickers that are easier. So I always recommend and tell my kids, but after you wrap the gift, the name tag sticker on the tissue paper. Because now you can reuse this bag again. Once you take this off, you can use this bag again. So that's a little tip for how to reuse bags. Next on the list of earth friendly is to instead of buying traditional holiday gift wrap, you can buy in bulk quantities butcher paper, so the brown craft paper, the butcher paper. And a roll will last you for years and years and makes great gift wrap. And you can challenge your if you've got little kids, especially, they would we're going to decorate our own gift wrap this year and color on it, draw on it and grandparents and family and friends will see that as maybe the best part of the gift is your your kids artwork or your artwork or messages of holiday greetings that you can scroll across the gift wrap. You can buy that stuff in bulk. So that paper can be recycled. That's the difference between the gift wrap. And this idea is this paper can be folded up and put in the recycable, the paper. And another idea is to reuse boxes. So you're you can hope that the person who receives it will reuse it again. The least of your boxes. Another little night. So, you know, we all have a million Amazon boxes. I say we all this is based on what I see in fine songs. So you can, of course, the way that you typically probably break out a box to recycle it is you open the top and the bottom, but you can then carefully. They have like a glued edge. You can carefully open the glued edge. Then. This isn't just for shipping. This is for wrapping a gift to put under the tree. Is you can then look inside out. And then you use tape or glue, probably to close this side and then reassemble your box. And again, maybe while it's open. Hey to the kids. Hey, this is the gift for grandma. You decorate it because this is what the first thing grandma is going to say. So it gets the kids involved. It gets helps teach the next generation the value of reusing and recycling. And it's extra, super, extra special. And it's very another step in sustainability. I have been happy to find that even on Amazon and I learned recently. Paul Mark in their big Paul Mark stores where they have beautiful gift wrap. It's generally very expensive that they're also selling in addition to regular gift bags, like I showed you, they're selling fabric gift bags. So these can, of course, be reused. This one has a little drawstring. This one I actually made years ago. And we made all Watson Christmas fabric. Anybody can sew a bag inside out, start with it, put the fabric inside out, sew up each side and flip it over. You don't even have to do the cute drawstring. You can just tie some ribbon around the top. And I won't when I give these, this is kind of a big tag in comparison. But I create a tag. Let's see if I can. That's my show and tell. So it says Merry Christmas and it says to and from. Please reuse or return this bag so it can bring joy again next year. So you're asking the person, reminding the person that they either should give it back to you or they're welcome to reuse it themselves. And so again, whether you make your own or buy them, you can use. I think I made these the first year we got married and we've been married for 29 years, so those have been around a while. If you. Send gifts from online sources, a lot of them use sustainable gift wrap options. This was Amazon's gift bag a couple of years ago and I continue to use it with a dress of them. And I did just find a tutorial online about how to sew these bags as is. There's also the possibility of wrapping your gifts in fabric. Christmas fabric is plentiful in the fabric stores right now. And there's actually a Japanese art of wrapping with fabric. And there's a great book online that you can buy at Amazon that's called Wrapping with Fabric and there's all kinds of tips. Also, you can use items that don't have to be wrapped at all. So this was, you know, a cookie box and I can put a t-shirt in this as a gift. And it looks great just as it is under the tree or baskets or mason bars or other. Creative means for packaging up your your gifts for your loved ones. So thinking outside of the box, both with your your shopping and your wrapping. So there are some ideas and the best part is after it's all been opened, you don't have a huge pile in your living room around the tree. You go from having a beautiful living room to what looks like a Barbie teapot. This will help you ease right into the rest of the day without having to spend an hour cleaning up. So those are some of the tips. I hope that you found them helpful. Well, thank you, Kim. That has been very helpful. And as you were kind of talking about the last few items, I think there is quite a few things that we likely have in our homes, possibly a lot of extra cardboard boxes or even nice material, nice fabric materials or bags that we can use. And so you actually get two gifts. You get the gift out of purchase, as well as you get that new package that you can either use for yourself or you can give to someone else. So great tips and we definitely appreciate that. So I will say we have had a great hour of information that's been provided that has been relevant to all aspects of having a festive holiday season. Again, we've talked about, you know, there's food that we want to enjoy. There's gifts that we want to give. But how can we do it sustainably? And so all of our guests have provided a lot of great information. But what we want to do now is let you know about some events that are going to take place in the Midlands area that you can attend or be involved in that can also help you minimize your waste this holiday season. And so first I want to talk about an event with one of my friends, Jane Hiller. It is the Environmental Education Ornament of then. And so, Jane, if you can share information about our organization, EESC and what this event is all about. Hi there. Can you make sure that you can hear me? We sure can. OK. All right. So I'm Jane Hiller and I coordinate a program called the South Carolina Green Step Schools for an organization called EESC. EESC is the Environmental Education Association of South Carolina. And we are a group of formal and informal environmental teachers and communicators. And what we do is teach about conserving, protecting and restoring precious natural resources. We work with schools and communities across South Carolina, across our state. So EESC loves to do outreach programs. We do a lot of them and we love doing them here in Colombia and Richland County and Lexington County. And we are going to have one of our events coming up this Saturday. It's called an upcycled light bulb holiday ornament workshop. So somebody was earlier was talking about what do you do with old holiday lights or regular lights while we're going to turn them into fun holiday ornaments from old light bulbs. So this is going to be at Gardeners Outpost on Franklin Street. It's this Saturday from 11 to noon. And you get to come have fun and learn. We're going to also be talking about energy conservation like we did tonight. And while you're doing this, you're going to be supporting environmental education in our local schools. So we do have a few spots left for this event. And you can find that at EESC.org and you can register there. We also will be doing a lot of other events during the year, so just watch for EESC. When I talked to Mary Pat about actually Mary Pat and I are working together on this workshop on Saturday, so come have fun with us. But when she told me the topic of the program tonight, I said, oh, that reminds me of some song lyrics that I wrote a few years ago called Keep the Holidays Green. Now, I write lyrics much, much better than I sing, but I'm I'm going to inflict upon you my singing. Anyway, just just for the fun of it. So here it is and feel free to sing along if you like. Goes like this. Deck the halls, it's November, but we all must remember. Each little act keeps us on track in our dream to keep the holidays green. Buy a tree that can be planted later. Use LEDs to make the season bright. Share your food with some hungry neighbors, no matter if they walk or crawl or fly. Cup some plates. Please no plastic if they're glass. That's fantastic. Flatware is steel and linens are real in our dream to keep the holidays green. Plan a meal that's local and organic. Never shop without your grocery tote. Gift should please both people and the planet and pass along that extra winter coat, deck the halls, it's November, but we all must remember. Diss and reuse, recycle or lose our dream to keep the holidays green. So if you would like the lyrics for this, please contact me or if you have any other questions about environmental education, about how we work in our communities and in our schools, feel free to contact me at Jane Hiller at gmail.com. And you can pass along those lyrics to somebody who can actually carry it in. Thanks. That was amazing, Jane. And I must say the Grammy nominations for 2023 went out and I don't understand how you were not on the list. So everybody, let's make sure that Jane gets on for 2024. But thank you so much. And again, if you all can come out, Jane said there is a few spots left, so go to www.easc.org.org and if you want to get one of those spots, please feel free as well as reach out to her to get those awesome lyrics. So thank you, Jane. And so that's not the only thing that's taking place this holiday season. So obviously that is excuse me, that's taking place this weekend. But as we're moving forward, we're almost to getting into December and some of you are going to be getting those Christmas trees or holiday trees. And so we want to address that as well. So one of the big events that we have in the Millens area is the grinding of the greens and we have Laura Blake or we keep the Millens beautiful to provide more information about that. So hello, Laura, can you share with us? What is the grinding of the greens? Certainly, we are very excited once again to have the grinding of the greens. We have been doing this for many, many years. And the grinding of the greens is one of our recycling programs. The mission of Keep the Midlands Beautiful is to engage, inspire and educate the Midlands to invest in the community through litter prevention, recycling and beautification. I'm the core programs coordinator and this is always one of our favorite events. So basically from December 26th, the day after Christmas till January 19th, we will be collecting trees at 10 area locations in Lexington County, Richland County and the city of Columbia, along with our partners at the county level and the city level and our wonderful grinding partner Alpine Tree Care. They've been with us several years now to grind those trees and turn them into some yummy smelling mulch that will be available to residents in Richland and Lexington counties to pick up and we will have a loader out at two locations at the South Carolina Farmers Market and at Seven Oaks Park on the 21st of January. And we will be giving out this mulch free until it's gone. So we encourage you to drop off your live Christmas trees, no tinsel or lights, no wreaths, please. And we will collect them and then grind them on the 20th and have that mulch available for you. So we are very, very excited and this information will also be available on our website shortly. We just confirmed all of the locations today, so we will have it out there tomorrow. And we hope that everybody will participate. This is for residents only. So if you're a grower or a retailer, if you have trees and would like to contribute those, please contact us directly and we will arrange for that. So most of the trees will end up being turned into mulch, but some of the trees will also be turned into fish habitat or used for erosion control. So we hope that you will participate. Thank you so much. And we do have a couple of other holiday announcements to make. If I could take a moment. We have our gala for a greener midlands coming up. And that's on December 6th, where we celebrate our volunteers and our partners. So go to our website for that. Speaking of gift giving. We are happy to accept donations. So if you would like to make a gift in lieu of an actual present, but make a donation in honor or in memory of a loved one, we're happy to accept those year end donations and Giving Tuesday is coming up. It's a great time to do that. And as you're sprucing up the neighborhood for the holidays, there's nothing like doing a year end litter pickup. So we're here to provide you with all of those supplies to do a litter prep pickup before you decorate the neighborhood. To learn more about what we do, please visit us at KMBSC.org. And if you'd like to sign up for our newsletter, email us at info at KMBSC.org. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much, Laura. Appreciate that. And so again, for all of you who are going to be having those natural trees this holiday season, please take advantage of that great opportunity. And again, this is another way in which you can get a second news. So not only would you be able to enjoy your Christmas or holiday tree, but you can also get the mulch from it as well and use it for whatever purposes you would have around your home. So all in the same vein of managing our waste this holiday season. So we have actually come to the end of the webinar and I don't know about you, but this has been great because I've got some awesome tips for the holiday season that I love the most. So we've discussed ways in which we can manage our gifts. We've talked about ways in which we can enjoy the foods that we love, but without being wasteful, we talked about ways in which we can actually minimize our energy use while still having fun in our homes or as we're visiting others. We've discussed how we can actually package our materials in a more sustainable way as well as the clutter our own homes and we can take advantage of some of the events that are taking place in the Midlands area. And so what a great way to start off the holiday season by being festive, having fun, but no, we can do it in a very sustainable way. And so please reach out to all of these individuals or these organizations to get good information. And then please, as we're in the gift gift giving season, share that information with others. And so I also mentioned at the beginning of the webinar that if you would like to be involved with CPAC or if you want to learn more about what we're doing, you can visit us at columbiasc.gov. Once you click on that site, you will look under departments and under there. There will be information about CPAC. And so again, if you're interested in being a community partner or just learning about the additional additional sorry, campaigns or initiatives that we're working on, you can get all of that information there. So on behalf of CPAC, I want to thank all of our great panelists this evening, a lot of the information was shared. And again, if you would like to get more information, you can reach out to them individually and they would definitely share it. I want to leave it on this part. There were two statements that I heard this evening that really stuck out to me. One was by the experience. And so thinking about a lot of the materials that we buy or generate, use this season to actually either have a great experience with your loved ones or friends or think outside of the box as relates to what we're going to or the waste that's being managed. And then one that I thought was awesome was garbage stinks, but recycling doesn't. So that was a cute statement. And hopefully we can take that to heart. So again, on behalf of the City of Columbia's Climate Protection Action Committee or CPAC, we thank you for joining us for our quarterly webinar. And as we go into this holiday season, we do ask that you remain safe with your friends and your loved ones. Have a joyous season. And we look forward to bringing you more great information in the upcoming year. And so happy holidays on behalf of all of us. Have a good evening and good night.