In Your Community
How Do My Choices Help?
Some bay-friendly actions have multiple benefits! Look for icons to identify the areas you are supporting.
Help Sarasota Bay in Your Community
Our communities play an important part in our daily lives. They affect our safety, physical, mental, and social health, sense of place, and identity. Looking out for our natural surroundings as well as our neighbors can help strengthen our relationships and improve our community and environmental resilience.
Around Town
Learn About Local Issues
One of the best ways to take care of your neighborhood is to first learn about the issues from both a neighborhood perspective and an environmental management perspective.
- Book a speaker from SBEP to talk about water quality, climate change, stormwater ponds, native plants, or wildlife at your neighborhood association meeting
- Take classes/webinars with your neighbors with Sarasota and Manatee UF/IFAS Extension Programs
- Participate in the Sarasota County Neighborhood Environmental Stewardship Team (NEST)
Civic Participation
Maintaining the health of our surrounding environment requires participation, communication, and collaboration from many different groups. Local managers want to hear from you about ongoing issues and new projects in your neighborhood. Stewardship is an active form of care. If we all do our part the best we can, our environment will reflect that.
- Learn how local governments work and where your voice can be most effective: City of Sarasota Citizen's Academy, Sarasota County Civics 101
- Apply to join an advisory board (such as the SBEP Citizens Advisory Committee).
Community Composting
Our soil is filled with small microbes capable of transforming raw materials, like food, cardboard, leaves, and grass clippings, into compost. Compost helps revitalize soil, which is the foundation of primary production and our food system. It absorbs and stores carbon, reducing climate change. It also stores and filters rainwater runoff, the largest source of pollution to Sarasota Bay. There are neighborhood composting sites in various Sarasota and Manatee parks.
- Join a community composting program near you
- Composting classes in Sarasota and Manatee
Educational Signs and Displays
Signs labeling watersheds, storm drains, native plants, commonly seen wildlife, habitats, and sea level rise, can help add awareness, value, and protection to areas around your neighborhood. Work with your local Parks Department to identify additional opportunities for public spaces or highly visible areas.
Cleanups and Restoration Projects
Get your neighbors together for monthly cleanup potlucks or block party restoration events. Host friendly competitions for resource use or miles walked/biked. Plant trees to help make your neighborhood more shady and walkable. Adopt and plant in neglected spaces. There are many ways to beautify your neighborhood, increase property values, reduce your climate footprint, and bring the whole community together.
- Consult with SBEP or the Neighborhood Environmental Stewardship Team 941-861- NEST (6378) for project ideas
- Grant programs for environmental and community building projects: SBEP, City of Sarasota, Sarasota County, Manatee County, City of Bradenton
Events & Get Togethers
We all attend the occasional summer BBQ, birthday celebration, or holiday get together with friends and family. If you commonly plan these events:
- Location - Pick a central location to reduce driving distance.
- Decorations - Single use materials tend to dominate holidays and events with balloons, bows, beads, wrapping paper, plastic forks and knives, confetti, etc. Use alternatives that are reusable (gift bags or fabric) or compostable (brown paper packaging, decorations from nature). Avoid excess plastic packaging (i.e. fruit wrapped in plastic).
- Food - food waste is a large contributor to climate change. Send home leftovers with guests instead of throwing extra away. If no one wants it, feed what you can to pets. Then try composting. The landfill should be a last resort.
Pet Waste Stations and Litter Collection Receptacles
Make it extremely easy for all of your neighbors to clean up after themselves and their pets by installing pet waste stations in high-traffic areas. Identify hot spots and figure out why problems persist. If adding additional receptacles could help, either work with your municipality for disposal or figure out a way for engaged neighbors to "adopt" the area.
Stormwater Pond Enhancement
There are thousands of stormwater ponds in the Sarasota Bay watershed that do an important job of filtering and storing stormwater. Many ponds, however, are getting older and may need some help to function properly. Maintaining the right plants and keeping a minimum 6 foot buffer/fertilizer-free zone are some of the many best practices that can help improve your pond.
"I'm a healthy pond!"
"I need a tune up."
- Join the Healthy Ponds Collaborative
- Stormwater pond facts and resources
- Stormwater pond guide
- Landscaping around stormwater ponds
- Stormwater pond habitat assessment tool
- Lakewatch Program - "hands-on" citizen participation in the management of Florida lakes, estuaries, rivers, ponds, and springs through monthly monitoring activities.
Transportation
Walking & Cycling
The science is in! Walking and cycling are not only climate-and-bay-friendly forms of transportation, but they also improve your health! The next time you have an nearby errand, dinner date, appointment, or shopping trip, see if you can fit a walk or bike ride in. Offer your kids an opportunity for some independence in return for an errand if it's a safe ride for them.
- Check your route before you go: popular online mapping sites such as Google Maps can provide cycling directions and show locations of cycling paths.
- Legacy Trail
Carpooling & Public Transit
If you can't reach your destination through people-powered forms of transportation, is your timeline flexible enough for a carpool or bus ride? Even just looking to see how long it would take to get to your normal destinations by bus is a good first step. If it is a trek, maybe make it an option for non-work trips. Who knows? It could be an exciting trip for young kids if they don't ride public transit often.
Car Efficiency
For most Floridians, our cars are a vital way to get around every day. Responsibly maintaining them can not only increase their longevity, but it can also help reduce air, water, and chemical pollution.
- Group your trips based on location to save time and emissions.
- Reduce speeding - The faster you go the more emissions you release. That's one of the reasons why some states have reduced their highway speed limits to 55 mph.
- Service your car regularly and check for leaking fluids.
- Tire pressure - EPA recommends checking every 2 weeks. The wrong pressure lowers your gas mileage and increases your carbon dioxide emissions. Tire pressure has to do with the weight of the car rather than the type of tires you have, so use the number on the driver's door frame rather than on the tires. Make sure you're not carrying around extra weight in the trunk either.
- Consider an electric or hybrid-electric, for your next vehicle purchase. Sometimes they're cheaper on a monthly basis. Compare costs for different gas, electric, and hybrid vehicles.
- Get a smog test if you have an oldie. It may be time for an upgrade!
- EPA's car guide
Carbon Offsets
Until there are solar powered airplanes, many of us will have few practical, clean alternatives for long distance travel. Consider purchasing carbon offsets with your next airline ticket or even to offset your entire annual footprint. It's surprisingly not that expensive.
Photo Credit: Norman Schimmel, City of Sarasota
Out on the Town
Support Green Businesses
Whether you need home services or want to enjoy a drink out, money talks. Make sure to research a little and choose to spend with organizations and companies that are taking steps to protect water, climate, and species.
- Sarasota County Green Business Partnership - list of local green businesses registered with Sarasota County.
Explore Natural Florida
One of the best things you can do to support ecosystem conservation in Florida is to learn about the lesser-known habitats that protect and sustain our beaches, seafood, favorite fishing spots, and quality of life. Some of these habitats may be miles inland! Allow them to inspire the design and function of your own backyard or condo landscape so it too can protect the places we love and came here to enjoy.
- Local State Parks
- Preserves in Sarasota County and Manatee County
- National Parks and National Forests in Florida
Out of Town
If you are from out of town or heading out of town, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the environmental best practices of the place you're going. Supporting sustainable, local businesses through your food and activity choices. Before you leave, make sure your home is not using electricity or water it doesn't need.
Shopping
- Take your reusable bags. They are very sensible for clothes, tools, restaurant take out, and more!
- Look for clothing made from natural materials instead of synthetic. This can help reduce tiny plastics from ending up in our waterways.
- Group your trips. Walk or bike if you can. If you are stopping in many nearby places, park in a central location and walk from there.
Dining
We are lucky to live in a place with many options for eating out. Here are some minor tips that can help protect our local resources and environment while you enjoy a well deserved meal.
- Choose restaurants that serve local and sustainable seafood and produce. If you're unsure, ask where your food comes from. You might get a really neat story to add to your experience. Check the Florida Seafood Watch Guide for sustainable seafood suggestions.
- Some restaurants automatically refill your water. If you know you aren't going to drink any more, politely refuse when they come around.
- Skip the straw or bring your own.
- Although it may be tempting to throw some bread to that cute pelican just over the railing, please don't. It can harm them in the long run.
- Order only the amount of food you can eat to reduce food waste. If you often have leftovers, consider bringing your own container or ask for foil, cardboard, or any alternative they might have to styrofoam. Bring your own bag for easy leftover transport.
- If it's up to you to clear your area, make sure you grab everything. It's so easy for plastic cups and other litter to blow into nearby waterways.
- If you're ordering to go, remember to request no plastic utensils.