Cities Going Green: Charlotte, NC

CHARLOTTE CHARLOTE, NC IS GOINGGREEN How IS THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE GOING GREEN? With 200 bikes and 20 stations, Charlotte's B-Cycle bike share program is the largest in the Southeastern U.S. B Bike Share Map Scan the QR code to get a B-Cycle station map on your mobile device. One of CLT's 50 ft. long compost bins where food scraps from the airport terminal are turned into organic fertilizer with the help of 2 million worms. Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) is one of the greenest airports in the U.S. CLT has cụt landfll waste by 70% with a comprehensive recycling and composting proģram. Keep Mecklenburg Beautiful The "Keep Mecklenburg Beautiful" campaign promotes recycling and litter cleanup, earning the city the 2012 Nestle Pure Life Recycling Award. Volunteers collected 485,000 lbs. of PET plastic bottles littering the streets of Mecklenburg County. The city offers full-service recycling stations all across the county. There are also dozens of smaller drop-off stations around the city. Call the Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Dept. for a recycling center near you: (704) 432-0400 # 2 North Carolina ranks 2nd in the nation in solar technology. Duke Energy, based in Charlotte, is leading the way. Several BILLION dollars worth of solar projects are in the works. Use of solar is expected to increase by 80% through the end of 2013. TreesCharlotte is collaborating with the city to plant 15,000 trees per year. This reduces CO2 levels by 46,500 tons per year! TreesCharlotte Plant, Preserve & Celebrate! V Charlotte's goal is to have a 50% tree canopy coverage by 2050 Envision Charlotte is a public-private partnership that aspires to make Uptown Charlotte the most sustainable urban core in the 'US. The group is recruiting and training 500 "Champions" who lead the charge to reduce energy, save water, eliminate waste, and improve air quality in their workplaces. Be a Champion (704) 575-2861 Uptown CLT Energy Usage 9900000 Uptown CLT Water Usage 238000000 kWh gal used over the last seven days of water used per year Uptown CLT Air Usage 171000000 Uptown CLT Waste Usage 260000000 Ibs Ibs of smog forming pollutants produced per year of trash produced per year N TRYON One of 13 hybrid-electric "Sprinter" buses in the city's fleet. SPRINTER TO RIPPORT HYBRID ELECTRIC Sprint Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) retrofitted 176 city buses with diesel particulate filters and utilized Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) to reduce, emissions up to 90%. CATS also recently added 13 hybrid buses to its fleet. ...BUT THAT'S NOT ALL CHARLOTTE IS DOING. Here's a look at some of the other green initiatives in Charlotte, NC Charlotte has 600 MW of clean energy City-wide sustainability plan approved in 2013 сарacity @an) 8 coal 36,000 tons of power plants have been retired in N.C. since 2011. Another commercial food waste is composted each year by the city, and growing. The county closing in the works currently has 187 miles of greenways The Blue Line Extension (BLE) rapid transit railway system is expected to break ground in 2017 and provide eco-friendly transportation between downtown and UNC Charlotte Among the cleanest cities in America in terms of short-term air particle pollution (American Lung Assoc.) By: Hometown Dumpster Rental of Charlotte, NC www.hometowndumpsterrental.com/North-Carolina/Charlotte-dumpster-rental.html Sources: Duke Energy, NPR.org, CleanEnergyAuthority.org, U.S. Green Building Council, EnvisionCharlotte.com, EnergyNC.org, Power2Charlotte.com, Charlotte.bcycle.com StateoftheAir.org, Charmeck.org, SustainCharlotte.org