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 For decades, the
City of Ames has actively engaged in saving resources, reducing
energy demand, and promoting recycling. From a strictly financial
perspective, conservation of resources is good fiscal policy. In
recent years, however, the push to reduce, reuse, and recycle
reaches beyond the positive impact on the budget’s bottom line.
There is a growing movement in the Ames community to promote
conservation of limited resources as a means to achieving a greater
global good – a more sustainable future.
EcoSmart is
the City of Ames marketing plan to capture all City of Ames
conservation efforts under one program. While many of these efforts
are new, others have been around for decades.
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 With support from the Ames City Council, Mayor Ann Campbell
joined mayors from across the country in signing the U.S.
Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Part of signing the
agreement involves conducting a baseline inventory of energy
usage, collecting data about energy management, recycling,
waste reduction, transportation, and land use. The City’s
“Cool Cities” committee is made up of representation from
several different departments including Electric Services,
Water & Pollution Control, the Resource Recovery Plant, and
the City Manager’s Office. |
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Unveiled in July 2007,
Smart Energy is the Ames Electric
Services demand-side management program. This effort
provides rebates to residential and commercial customers for
making purchases or installing systems that reduce
electricity demand.
Click
here to visit the Smart Energy Page |
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Ames’ CyRide bus system continues
to experiment with biofuel, using B5 in the winter and B20 in warmer
months. In the last year, CyRide provided 4.3 million, saving an
estimated half-million gallons of gas. Two CyRide bus shelters
feature solar-powered lights.
The City of
Ames has moved to purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles including a
Chevy Aveo, Nissan Versa, Honda Fit, and Toyota Yaris.
Additionally, the City of Ames has purchased an all-electric Zenn
for City use for quick trips around the city’s center. |
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The Arnold O. Chantland Resource Recovery Plant
(RRP) was the first municipally operated waste-to-energy
facility in the nation and was built in 1975. The plant
receives garbage from Ames and the surrounding communities
in Story County. The RRP recovers reusable metals and
garbage. The burnable portion of garbage becomes Refuse
Derived Fuel, or RDF, which is piped to the City's power
plant. It is used as a supplemental fuel in the coal boilers
to generate electricity. This way we not only help to
conserve precious fossil fuels, but sulfur dioxide emissions
also decrease when coal is burned with RDF.
 The
non-burnable material is sent to a landfill. Since it
is shredded, it takes up much less volume in the landfill
than it would if it were buried whole. Through this process
more than 80 acres of Iowa farmland have been saved from
becoming a landfill.
Glass
recycling is a new initiative. Since Ames residents have
been asked to drop glass at yellow recycling bins located at
area grocery stores, nearly 100 tons of glass has been kept
out of the Power Plant and out of the landfill. Crushed
glass is being used in landscaping and industry. |
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This marketing
conservation effort is directed at residential and
commercial water consumers to decrease demand for water.
Through newspaper advertising, direct mail, Web site
information, and other initiatives, the Ames Water and
Pollution Control Department is promoting the message that
water is a limited resource and conservation of water can
delay costly expansions of the water treatment facility.
Click here to
visit the Smart Water Page. |
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