Community: Meet Your Neighbor!

Saturday is the Neighborhood picnic sponsored by the Cordata Neighborhood Association and hosted on Whatcom Community College's by Community Education. The picnic is a chance for people living in the Cordata Neighborhood to get together, mingle, and enjoy a couple hours of relaxation on a Saturday.

The picnic will have live music, free food, and booths from local neighborhood vendors. WTA will be showing-off one of their new buses and the fire department will be on site with a fire truck talking with the kids.

There is no cost, just show up, grab some food and enjoy the music! The picnic runs from 12-4pm Saturday, June 28th.

Community: Toward Zero Waste

Sustainable Connections has a great new program called Toward Zero Waste. This program aims to get businesses to push towards a goal of 80+% waste reduction. Most businesses and households can reach this level and for some businesses they may even be able to profit from it. Got to keep an eye on this program.

Community: Gas Saving Tips That You May Not Have Heard

The price of gas is consuming everyone's gossip time. Gas prices are getting more talk time than the American Idol finales.

There has been a lot written about saving gas. From combining trips, and carpooling to purchasing a smaller vehicle. I went looking to see what you can do NOW with your existing car that may not be so obvious. Here's what I found:

• In a an article I found earlier this month CNN quoted some statistics from Edmunds. Edmunds tested a LandRover and a Mustang. they found that using your cruise control on the highway can save you some serious gas. At 70mph, the Mustang saved almost 5% and the Land Rover save almost 15%.
  
  
• In the same series of tests, they found that when accelerating from 0-60mph doing it in 20 seconds instead of 10-11 seconds and gradually stopping will save you a whopping 25%. No matter the vehicle, gradual starts and stops save the most fuel.
• Surprisingly, things like tire pressure and using/not using the air conditioning did very little to save gas.

I found an interesting website call Hypermiling.com which takes gas saving to an extreme. They have some really interesting ideas on saving gas.

Finally, I am starting to see people with the tailgates on their trucks down. Shut your tailgates! Having your tailgate down does not save gas... it uses more. When the tailgate is up, a bubble of air forms in the bed of the truck. The remainder of the air flows over this bubble in a fairly aerodynamic way. Putting the tailgate down gets rid of the bubble of air and gives more surface air for the wind to grab onto...basically the air swirls around the end of the tailgate, acting like a fin on a race car. If you really want to save gas in your truck, put a bed cover on it. That should buy you a 5% to 10% better fuel economy.

Sustainable Building Advisor certificate coming to WCC

Green building is bigger than ever, and many homeowners want their abodes to be sustainable. If you're in the building industry, you can have the edge on your competitors by offering sustainable building as part of your services.

Whatcom Community Education is proud to announce that we will be introducing the National Sustainable Building Advisor certificate program this fall! This program has been a success at Seattle Central Community College for several years, and has now expanded to serve folks up and down the sound who are interested in making their construction or construction-related business more green.

To learn more about this program, come to our Open House on June 19th. Alistair Jackson, the lead instructor for the program, will discuss curriculum, and program alumni will share their success stories.