You may have noticed that I have been posting more intermittently lately. There are some exciting reasons why… 

Real Food Revelations

First of all, after months of dreaming and scheming with Zachary Cohen, the original founder of the Farm to Table blog, I am now serving as an editor of the New Farm to Table, a community website built to support and sustain something very close to my heart: the Real Food Movement.

I am very excited to be a fundamental part of this big, new endeavor. Our mission is to “inform and strengthen the sustainable and local foods community by providing a collaborative journalistic forum for the presentation of a unified voice for small farmers, restaurateurs, consumers, and everyone in between, with an emphasis on the importance of grassroots initiative as a means to bring about large-scale change in the American food industry.”

As such, I will be posting all articles related to food there, and syndicating my articles back to Small Footprint Family a week later. This means you can get the latest and greatest sustainable food news, reviews and recipes from me first at Farm to Table, and then here, a week later.

If you read SFF for the food news, I hope you will check out the new Farm to Table, subscribe to our RSS, and join us in building a healthy, sustainable food system.

New Green Ventures

In the last month, I have also taken over the blog at Greater Goods, my favorite environmental department store (and a SFF sponsor). My Eco-Tip Tuesday posts will be published there first, then syndicated back here the following week too. I hope you will check out Greater Goods, read their blog, and maybe pick up a solar cellphone charger, biodegradable trash bags or CFL lightbulbs there next time you need them.

There are some other exciting green things coming up this year too: We have become founding members in a new Eco-Village forming in California, and I am intimately involved in the Permaculture, planning and design of both the buildings and the property. So stay tuned as I plan to post all that I learn as I research the latest in eco-friendly flooring and wallcovering, greywater systems, composting toilets, and the myriad other environmentally sustainable features we plan to incorporate into our new homes.

So, thank you, Dear Reader, for your patience over the last month. I hope you will enjoy reading about all the new, exciting stuff Small Footprint Family is up to this year.

I guess I thought that using a reusable bottle was as common as recycling at this point, but as I watched dozens of people roll out of Target with discounted cases of bottled water this past weekend, I discovered that perhaps the message has clearly not reached everyone.

Did you know that approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil are used annually to produce plastic water bottles in the U.S. alone—enough to fuel about 100,000 cars for a year. What an incredible waste of resources and a foolish threat to national security—all for a single-use bottle!

Like all plastic, these bottles will be with us forever since plastic does not biodegrade. Rather, it breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate our soil and waterways and ultimately end up in the ever-growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Anything we can do to phase out their usage quickly would be good thing.

Along with plastic bags, plastic bottles are one of the most prevalent sources of pollution found on our beaches. Each year, over 500 billion disposable bottles and cups end up littering our soil, rivers, lakes and oceans, killing countless fish and animals.

There is also overwhelming evidence of adverse health effects tied to Bisphenol A, or BPA, a widely-used chemical in the manufacturing of food and beverage containers, including baby bottles, water bottles and aluminum cans. A reusable bottle is the only way to hydrate on the go while protecting yourself and the environment from this dangerous chemical. While nearly all major brands are free of the toxin now, make sure any bottle you buy is marked “BPA-free.”

There are many types of reusable bottles to choose from, and many different designs and colors to suit anyone’s taste. The most eco-friendly ones are made from stainless steel or aluminum. Some are thermal, allowing you to keep hot beverages hot and cold ones cold.

Choose one you like, and carry it with you so you always have it on hand at home, work, the gym, or on the town!

Shop for Reusable Bottles >>

I just got back from visiting my hometown of Washington, D.C., which recently passed a bag tax wherein retailers citywide charge $.05 for each plastic or paper shopping bag you require. More and more cities are passing similar legislation against disposable shopping bags, particularly because it is increasingly common for U.S. seashores and riverbanks to look like the one above—especially after a storm.

Laws against throw-away shopping bags make good sense if you consider that every year in the U.S., we consume over 380 billion plastic bags, of which over 4 billion end up littering our land, rivers, lakes and oceans, killing hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, seals, seabirds and other marine mammals that mistake these discarded bags for food. Plastic bags also require 12 million barrels of oil to produce each year, take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill—or worse—add to the ever-growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Anything we can do to phase out their usage quickly would be good thing.

One of thousands albatrosses who die every year with bellies full of our plastic trash. © Chris Jordan

In many ways, paper bags are even worse than plastic bags. Paper sacks generate 70 percent more air pollution and 50 times more water pollution than plastic bags. And paper bags don’t decompose any faster than plastic bags, once they end up in a landfill.

The answer to the question, “Paper or plastic?” is: “Neither, thank you, I brought my own!” Let’s face it, all those grocery bags you’ve saved under the sink will only last so long. A shopping bag you enjoy using and reusing is your most sustainable option.

While any tote bag will do, my favorite reusable bag is the Envirosax bag. Lightweight polyester, portable and waterproof, these unique bags hold the equivalent of 2 supermarket plastic bags, yet they fold down small enough to stow into a glove compartment, pocket or handbag. They fold down so small, in fact, that I always have few on hand for when I’m at the drugstore, the mall, or even making a spontaneous stop at the convenience store. (Do you remember to bring your bags to these places, too?)

Sexy and sustainable!

I also like Envirosax because they are the only reusable bag I’ve found where the bag handles fit over my shoulder, which is important when carrying the groceries and the toddler into the house. My favorite part though, is that they come in dozens of distinctive, stylish patterns—or solid colors to suit a man’s tastes. (Though my male friends say they like Chico bags better.)

Reusable bags can make shopping a little more fun and lot more eco-friendly. What more could you want?

Shop for Reusable Bags >>

Thank you everyone for participating in the Stevia selection giveaway sponsored by NuNaturals!

The lucky winner will receive: 

• 1 oz. NuNaturals Pure White Stevia Extract
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Pure Liquid Stevia
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Alcohol-Free Vanilla Stevia
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Pure Liquid Cocoa Bean Extract with Stevia
• 3.5 oz. NuNaturals No-Carbs Sweetener Blend (Stevia/Erythritol)
• 16 oz. NuNaturals Sweet Health Erythritol Crystals (derived from corn)

Learn more about stevia here. >>

The winner was chosen by random number at Random.org. There were 11 total entries among 4 people. The more times you entered, the more chances you had of getting your number chosen.

And the winner is…

Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship

Thank you everyone for participating in the stevia giveaway and tweeting, stumbling, fanning, and following Small Footprint Family! Stay tuned for more giveaways of healthy, eco-friendly stuff in the near future!

In many parts of the country this week, streets and walkways are covered in snow and ice, and everyone is using salt, sand and other chemical de-icers to make their streets safe for travel. But not all de-icers are alike, and some are downright harmful to your pets, your children and your local streams and rivers.  

Urea, potassium nitrate (KNO3), rock salt, table salt (NaCl) and baking soda are common de-icers that are cheap and do a good job of melting ice. But when the snow melts and rain falls in the spring, the salts and nitrates in them quickly run off the streets and sidewalks where they kill soil life, grass, trees and other plants they come in contact with. Eventually these pollutants run off into the nearest waterway where they kill frogs, fish and other aquatic life.

Common de-icing salts are also notorious for tearing up the paws of dogs and cats who walk on them, for sickening children who play in snow and ice that has been treated with them, and for causing metal corrosion on vehicles and roadway structures.

Instead of using salt this winter, head down to your local hardware store and pick up some “pet-safe” de-icer made from calcium magnesium acetate (CMA), potassium chloride (KCl), or calcium chloride (CaCl2) to melt the ice around your home or business. When these non-toxic de-icing products run off with the snowmelt, the minerals they contain can actually fertilize the plants they come into contact with.

Good brands include PetGuard, Safe Paws and Bare Ground. Some of these products can be applied right before a snowstorm to help prevent the build up of ice and snow. And they are non-toxic and non-corrosive, so they won’t harm people, pets or property.

With the right de-icer, safe winter travel means streets that are both clear of snow and ice and free of harmful chemicals too!

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED

It is Jewish tradition to begin a new year on a sweet note. So, even though this is the secular New Year, not Rosh Hashanah, today I am giving away a taste of New Year sweetness to all my readers! 

Many of us are experimenting with healthier, less-refined sweeteners these days, especially natural ones like stevia that have few calories and don’t spike blood sugar levels. For this reason, I’m excited to announce that the folks over at NuNaturals, are hosting the first giveaway of the year: One lucky SFF reader will win a selection of NuNaturals stevia and erythritol sweeteners to try in his or her kitchen!

Included in the giveaway are (pictured above):

• 1 oz. NuNaturals Pure White Stevia Extract
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Pure Liquid Stevia
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Alcohol-Free Vanilla Stevia
• 2 fl. oz. NuNaturals Pure Liquid Cocoa Bean Extract with Stevia
• 3.5 oz. NuNaturals No-Carbs Sweetener Blend (Stevia/Erythritol)
• 16 oz. NuNaturals Sweet Health Erythritol Crystals (derived from corn)

Learn more about stevia here. >>

How To Enter
To enter, leave a comment below, making sure to use an email address where I can contact you.

There are eight other ways to increase your chances of winning, for a total of 7 possible entries:

1. Tweet this giveaway post.
2. Stumble this giveaway post.
3. Follow us on Twitter. (Link under “Connect with Us” to the right of this post.)
4. Fan us on Facebook. (Link under “Connect with Us” to the right of this post.)
5. Tweet any other article on this site that you enjoyed. 
6. Stumble any other article on this site that you enjoyed. 

IMPORTANT: When you leave a comment below, please list each of the ways in which you entered so I can make sure all your entries are tallied.

Here’s an example of a comment that counts five entries:

Hi, I’m Mary! I tweeted the giveaway, tweeted and stumbled your post called Stevia: Traditional Medicinal or Modern Pseudo-Food, and became a fan on FB. Thanks!

Your name will be entered into the drawing as many times as you enter (as indicated by your comment). The entry deadline is 9pm PST on Monday, January 11, 2010. Later that week, I’ll announce the winner, who will be selected using a random number generator.

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED

Good luck and Happy New Year!

“People are so worried about what they consume between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they consume between the New Year and Christmas.”

—Unknown

I like New Year’s resolutions. They provide a great opportunity to reflect upon the successes and shortcomings of the past year, and set goals and intentions for the new one. I don’t believe in making the kind of resolutions in January that ensure I will be self-flagellating in February, but I do think it is important to set progress benchmarks for doing things I care about over time.

Really, a resolution is nothing more than a firm decision to do or not do something. This year, I’ve made four firm decisions for the Small Footprint Family. We will…

#1 Do something physical in the sun with my family as often as possible.
The older I get, the more it seems that the aches, pains and dis-ease of modern life are really the result of deficiencies in sunlight, regular physical activity and nutrient dense, whole foods. These are three essential things we were evolutionarily designed to require in large, daily quantities. And they are also three things American consumer culture has almost completely designed out of our lives over the past 50 years.

I have always been happiest and healthiest when I have been doing regular outdoor work, whether that be tree care, greenroofing, farming, or at least puttering outside daily in our food garden. Since leaving my greenroofing business to have Babyzilla, I have gotten away from fulfilling this biological need, and I am really feeling the effects physically and mentally. (Not to mention the fact that my Vitamin D levels could use improvement.) So, this year, I resolve to complement our already very healthy diet with daily sunshine and enough outdoor physical activity to get our heart rate up. Babyzilla is very excited about this—as you can imagine any toddler would be!

What are you doing in 2010 to make sure you get enough sun and activity?

#2 Increase our local food consumption by 10%.
We currently get about 75% of our produce, meat and eggs from local organic farms and ranches as members of two CSAs and weekly visitors to the farmers’ market. But here in California, finding local produce year round is very easy: We grow a majority of the nation’s organic fruits and veggies after all. Nevertheless, I’d like to increase the amount of local food we eat by 10% in 2010—including finding a local source for pasture-raised pork bellies, so I can learn to make my own bacon this year!

If you’re wondering why choosing local food is so important, and how to get started with eating more locally-produced foods in the new year, please read Why We Should All Eat Locally.

How can you eat 10% more local foods in 2010?

#3 Reduce our trash output by 20%.
We eat few packaged foods, and compost most of our food waste, but somehow we still produce at least two tall kitchen bags of trash every week. The biggest single sources of trash in our house are disposable coffee cups from the corner coffee shop, spoiled leftovers that contain meat and so can’t be composted, and plastic food bags that can no longer be washed and reused. This year, we will strive to get the thermoses washed more regularly, among other waste-reducing measures.

If you’d like to learn more about composting or reducing your waste output, please read Waste Not, Want Not and Compost Happens.

What can you do to reduce your trash output by 20% in 2010?

#4 Quit extraneous spending and buy second-hand. This resolution is dear to my heart. Some would argue that consumer spending will get the economy going again, so we should all go out and do our part for the country by buying stuff. Never mind that many of us no longer have the money or the credit to keep buying things we don’t really need that were designed to be provide only short-lived satisfaction anyway.

Rather, I believe it is all the stuff we buy—as part of a consumption-driven economy dependent on limitless growth—that has brought us to the brink of the greatest economic and environmental crises humanity has ever seen. The wanton, subsidized exploitation of natural resources and fossil fuels that brings us $5 radios and ripe tomatoes in January simply cannot be sustained. We cannot maintain an economic system or a culture requiring infinite growth on a finite planet. We cannot endlessly consume from limited and vulnerable resources—and we are destroying or running out of a lot of things we’re gonna need in the future. You know, like fresh water.

It’s not enough to recycle your bottles and cans, install CFL light bulbs and bring your own bags. It’s time for a new economic paradigm: one where return on investment is not measured just in dollars, but also in how a product or service benefits regular people, communities, and the fragile land, water and air we depend on—a “triple bottom line” of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

In such an economy, many industries, products and services we take for granted today would no longer be considered profitable or ethical, and they would be replaced by new closed-loop industries, social entrepreneurship and relocalized community economies.

And yet the endless quest for Stuff is not only damaging to the Earth and threatening to our very survival, it is also spiritually debilitating too. Since when did spending money become an American pastime? For all our wealth relative to the rest of the world, Americans are not a happy people. In fact, we are becoming quite depressed, impatient, despondent, and diseased, despite—or perhaps because of—how much stuff we consume.

I believe our unhealthy and unsustainable cultural relationship to earning/spending money in order to acquire material things is supplanting what really matters at the end of the day: strong, authentic relationships with our family members, friends and neighbors; nutritious, whole food meals enjoyed with others; daily sunshine and physical activity; and ample time for recreation, contemplation, reflection and rest.

For this reason, in 2010, I want to spend my money in support of the new paradigm. We will severely curtail buying things we want but do not need, and anytime we do need to acquire something, we will try first to get it from a local, second-hand source before buying it new. Fortunately, San Diego has many, many outstanding thrift stores, and other resources like flea markets, FreeCycle, CraigsList and eBay are available too.

This spendfast means a year-long experiment in not buying any more clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, magazines, excess toiletries, stuff for the kitchen, stuff for the house, stuff for… the sake of Stuff. Should be an interesting challenge. I’ll keep you posted…

To learn more about “spend-fasting,” please read The Story of Stuff – Reducing our Consumer Footprint.

What are you doing in 2010 to trade quantity for quality in your life?

In keeping with the end-of-the-year trend in the blogosphere, I’ve made a list of Small Footprint Family’s top ten posts of 2009. These are the articles that you, my dear readers, searched for and visited more than any others on my site. 

Over the last year, it’s been interesting to see how some posts I never thought would fly still get big hits every day, while other posts I was sure would make waves barely raised a spike on my visitor stats. Another interesting trend over the last year was that the top 10 posts of the last year were all about food. In fact, the top 20 are. We are primarily concerned with food around here too, so in 2010, expect to see more articles reflecting our family’s deeper journeys into small footprint foodways.

Without further ado, the Top 10 Small Footprint Posts of 2009…

#10 Ten Ways to Strengthen Your Immune System – This rundown of 10 food-based methods for preventing colds and flu was a big hit during October and November when the H1N1 scare was in full swing. I’m grateful that so many people are choosing natural methods of preventing illness and building good health.

#9 Soaking Nuts and Seeds Makes Them Better – I am very glad that so many people are reading this post because it means that more people are getting the full nutritional value from the nuts and seeds they eat. And, hopefully it also means that interest in traditional foodways and whole food nutrition is growing.

#8 Raw Butternut Squash Cookies – Perhaps because these are unusual, many people have sought out this recipe. They are unusual, low in sugar, and quite yummy!

#7 Grassfed Beef Can SOLVE Global Warming – This is my personal favorite post, and I spent a great deal of time researching and writing it. As a former vegan and passionate environmentalist, I feel very strongly about eating animal foods that come from humanely raised livestock fed in ways that sustain communities, improve grassland, rebuild topsoil and sequester carbon. It’s a pet cause of mine, and I do everything I can to support farmers and ranchers that raise (or want to raise) meat, dairy and eggs in this sustainable manner.

#6 Making Homemade Butter is Easy – I wrote this early post after learning to make homemade cultured butter from an article in Mother Earth News. I am so excited by how easy it is to create this nutritious, ancient staple food, that I continue to do it regularly for my husband—even though Babyzilla and I can’t enjoy it!

#5 Soy is Not a Health Food – This piece contradicting the health claims of the ubiquitous legume became another overnight StumbleUpon success, and continues to draw hundreds of readers a day. Hopefully that means fewer people eating soy products.

#4 The Skinny on Fat, Part 1 – This was part one of three explaining what is really making Americans fat, tired and drug-dependent, and explains the role that a diet high in polyunsaturated oils and omega-6 fatty acids plays in obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Part 2 is about carbohydrates and sugar and Part 3 is about hidden chemicals in our food and how they each contribute to America’s health epidemics. I hope you’ll read them too!

#3 A Salt Worth Its Salt – I really enjoyed doing the research for this one, right down to picking the photograph. If you missed it, read more about how ordinary table salt is like the refined, white table sugar of the seasoning world, and what to choose instead.

#2 Homemade Coconut Milk Yogurt – It would seem there are lots of people out there like my daughter and I who don’t eat dairy products and are looking for a yummy, soy-free alternative to cow’s milk yogurt. Glad I can help!

#1 The Inconvenient Truth About Canola Oil – To my complete surprise, this little missive on the problems with this so-called “health food” broke all traffic records for Small Footprint Family, and has had tens of thousands of readers since I published it in September. May the gospel about good fats spread onward in 2010!

Happy New Year from Small Footprint Family
We Wish You an Abundant 2010!

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans throw away a million extra tons of garbage each week, including holiday wrapping and packaging, according to Robert Lilienfeld. Lilienfield is co-author of the book Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are. Here are eight ways to reduce your environmental footprint this holiday season. 

1. Make Your Own Wrapping Paper
Most mass-produced wrapping paper you find in stores is not recyclable and ends up in landfills. Instead, here’s a great chance to get creative! Wrap presents with old maps, the comics section of a newspaper, or children’s artwork. Or use a scarf, attractive dish towel, bandana, or some other useful cloth item. Lilienfield, who has published a newsletter on reducing waste since 1996, notes that if every family reused just 2 feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet.

And not all gifts need wrapping. “Think back to your three favorite holiday memories,” Lilienfeld said. “I’m willing to bet that they all involve time you spent with your family and friends.”

By giving gifts that can be experienced, like tickets to a baseball game, a trip somewhere interesting, or a homemade dinner, you can minimize wrapping and shopping, and still win points with the receiver. “People like these gifts just as much, if not more” he said. (Indeed, I do!)

2. Buy Energy-Saving Holiday Lights
Thanks to technology, you can now decorate your house with LED lights that use 90 percent less energy than conventional holiday lights, and can save your family up to $50 on your energy bills during the holiday season! As an added bonus, LEDs release little heat, and they last about 200,000 hours. In the unlikely event that one does burn out, the rest of the lights keep on glowing. Whew!

According to one U.S. Department of Energy study, if everyone replaced their conventional holiday light strings with LEDs, at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved in a month. The savings would be enough to power 200,000 homes for a year! LED lights are available at many major retailers.

3. Add Organic and Local Foods to Your Holiday Feast
Support local family farmers who grow sustainable meat and produce. Not only does local, organic food taste better, but you’ll also be doing your part for your community and the planet too. Find an organic turkey or humane ham and local vegetables for holiday dinner.

4. Get a Pesticide-Free Tree
Demand is on the rise for Christmas trees that are not covered in chemicals; some growers use 40 different pesticides, as well as chemical colorants. The good news is that there are now a number of tree-farms that sell pesticide-free trees, so ask your local Christmas tree seller, or search for an organic tree farm near you.

5. Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Ninety-eight percent of Christmas trees were grown on farms, not in forests, so at least you’re not cutting down an ancient tree. Each year, 10 million Christmas trees end up in the landfill. While your tree won’t fit in the recycling bin with your newspapers and bottles, you can recycle your tree: many cities offer programs to turn your tree to mulch or wood chips. Some cities even use your old trees to do important environmental projects like streambank stabilization. Call (800) CLEANUP or visit www.earth911.org to find the tree-recycling program near you.

6. Recycle Your Old Cellphone
Getting a new cell phone for Christmas? Not sure what to do with the old one? Now, you can drop off that old phone at any Staples store, as part of the Sierra Club cell phone recycling program. Each year, 130 million cell phones are thrown out, weighing approximately 65,000 tons. Recycling your old phone prevents hazardous elements like mercury, cadmium and lead from ending up in our landfills. Find out more.

7. Offset Your Travel
If you or your loved ones are traveling more than 100 miles this holiday season, try to reduce air travel whenever possible, and consider offsetting the fossil fuel pollution generated by your trip, no matter how you travel. These companies can help you get trees planted to reduce your impact.

• Terrapass – Provides carbon offsets for flying, driving, etc.
• CarbonFund – Provides a variety of carbon offset projects to choose from.
• Carbonify.com – Tree planting for offsetting carbon emissions

8. Donate Your Time or Money to an Environmental Group
Get into the holiday spirit by volunteering! There are countless ways to help improve your community—and the planet—from cleaning up a local river to helping inner city kids experience the outdoors for the first time.

How are you being green this holiday season?

We Wish You a Peaceful Holiday and an Abundant New Year!

—The Small Footprint Family

Installing solar panels to generate your home electricity has many benefits:  

• Protects you from escalating energy costs – Electricity gets more expensive every year. Over the last 35 years, the average annual rate increase has been 6.5% (high energy users have seen substantially greater increases).
• Supports clean energy – The average solar PV residential system (based on 5kW), would save nearly 175 tons of carbon dioxide over its 30-year lifespan, equivalent to removing 32 cars from the road. It takes approximately 4,487 new trees to absorb that much CO₂ produced by fossil fuels.
• Adds value to your home – The value of a solar system is added to the appraised value of your property and does not increase your property taxes. Solar is one of the few home improvements that can be justified in terms of return on invested dollar.
• Provides unlimited power - Solar is a true renewable and sustainable source of energy. Reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and produce your own electricity while reducing your carbon footprint. One of the side benefits is that with photovoltaic panels, homeowners have the ability to generate excess electricity during the day and sell it to the utility company through “net metering”, i.e., you run the meter backwards.
• Reduce the need for additional power plants – Your utility company’s peak demand is during the day. Meeting peak demand is how utility companies justify more power plants. On the hottest days, the oldest, dirtiest power plants are cranked up. Through net metering, you’ll sell the output of the photovoltaic panels to the utility. With enough of us net metering, we will reduce the need for additional power plants that are only used to meet peak demand. That will protect the environment for everyone and help keep rates from rising too fast.
• Rebates and tax credits are available – Various financial incentives are available from the State and Federal governments to encourage investment in solar energy.

Solar photovoltaic panels for your home can be expensive, requiring up-front investments of thousands of dollars. Even after federal and local tax rebates, it can take years for that investment to pay itself back to the homeowner in locally generated electricity. Fortunately, more and more states are authorizing solar leasing companies, making solar energy as affordable as your monthly electric bill!

Lease Solar Panels for Your Home
With a solar lease, you lease photovoltaic panels for your home, hassle-free. Someone else will install them (and not charge you for it). Someone else will make sure the components all match. Someone else will maintain them. Someone else will take them down and put them back when you need a new roof. Someone else will even move them to your new house when you move. Since your electricity is virtually free, the monthly payments for solar leases are often lower than your current electricity bill.

Each state has its own rules regarding solar leasing programs, and there are several states now with incentive programs available, so check with your local Department of Energy to see what they offer. There are also many different solar companies out there providing services with many different lease terms and fee schedules. Be sure to read the fine print on any lease and do your homework on any company you choose to do your installation. Here are a few national companies to get you started: (Though don’t forget to look up local companies in your state!)

• Citizenré
• Solar City
• Sun Run
• SPG Solar

Installing solar panels on your home can make a real difference in reducing your bills and the ecological damage our dependence on fossil fuels creates—which is not only important for the planet, but is absolutely vital for the health of our families and communities too. With solar leases, clean energy and greater self-sufficiency is within reach of more people than ever.