By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A local environmental group wants to see the entire Princeton community reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent and cut in half the amount of waste it sends to landfills.
Sustainable Princeton, a nonprofit organization that gets private and public sector support, has set target dates for both of those goals, spread over the next three to seven years.
”We do believe that with a concerted effort by all our institutions and our residents, we can address this,” said Diane Landis, executive director of the organization, on Wednesday.
Ms. Landis spoke prior to the group’s awards ceremony at the Princeton Public Library for nine people in the community who are making a difference to help the environment.
The organization’s two goals will be measured against data from utility PSE&G and tonnage totals the municipal trash hauler reports to the Public Works Department.
”We’ve set forth some pretty lofty goals,” said Matt Wasserman, chairman of the organization, who is an executive with Church and Dwight Co. Inc.
”To accomplish this,” he continued, “we create partnerships, with residents, with businesses, with the government, with other organizations to create programs that drive not just results but measurable results. And importantly, those results, hopefully, become models to other communities.”
Ms. Landis said residents can save energy by switching to energy efficient light bulbs and making basic improvements to keep heat from escaping. By 2016, the organization wants to see the amount of trash that goes into landfills go down by 50 percent.
”Our core program for that is the curbside food waste program,” Ms. Landis said in reference to a method of trash collection the town is offering to the first 1,000 households that sign up for $65 a year. Residents can get rid of food and other organic materials that will be collected and turned into compost, thus lowering the amount of trash that goes into landfills.
The township first tried it out in 2011, with the program expanded to the borough last year. Only around 430 households signed up out of 7,200 combined. But Sustainable Jersey received a $20,000 grant from another like-minded environmental organization, Sustainable Jersey, to market the program to the community, Ms. Landis said.
Part of the public outreach will be a neighbor-to-neighbor campaign to get people who’ve already participated in the program to tell others about the benefits, she said.
Mayor Liz Lempert, who appeared at Wednesday’s event, lauded the food waste program.
”It’s a great way to really get a sense of what trash is, what you’re throwing out,” she said.
”It’s amazing how by just separating out the things that you’re allowed to separate through this program, that your trash not only is the volume reduced but it weighs nothing because it’s really just Styrofoam, plastic and things that don’t weigh that much.”

