Nicole Goldman, owner of “g”Green Design Center in Mashpee Commons, said that people walking through her door are not always aware of the simple steps they can take to become more green.

With her “one-hour speed greening” service, she walks customers through their homes, recommending a switch to plant-based cleaning products, setting up an easy recycling and composting system, and other low-impact ways of greening the household.

Step 1: Reduce Your Consumption

Now in business for four years, Ms. Goldman said she has seen a growing demand for eco-friendly products and services, and the market— and the tax code— are responding.

“People are not sure where to begin. They get overwhelmed and think they have to do everything at once. We help give them a jumpstart,” Ms. Goldman said.

She added that even though some of the products in her store are more expensive than what one might find at Home Depot, the quality and durability makes them a more ecologically responsible choice— and will end up saving customers money.

“Being green is about thinking smartly about the materials you put in your house, what you ingest, and what resources you consume,” she said.

Step 2: Energy Efficiency

Homeowners interested in reducing their energy bills should take advantage of a home energy audit before replacing windows or insulation, she said. She recommended a comprehensive home energy audit provided by Cape Light Compact for a small fee.

“People are a lot more educated and aware about their energy use. They see the costs of fuel going up. It’s not just about saving money, but it’s certainly a forceful incentive,” Ms. Goldman said.

According to Cape & Islands Self Reliance, federal tax credits for household renewable energy have been extended for another year, meaning homeowners and businesses can qualify for rebates of up to 30 percent of the cost of installing wind turbines or solar photovoltaic systems, solar thermal systems for heating and domestic hot water. These systems generate renewable energy on-site and sell any unused electricity back to the grid.

“The paybacks are much quicker now. Not only does the government pay back the cost of the system, you then go on to enjoy free use,” Ms. Goldman said.

Step 3: Compost is Black Gold

If installing solar panels or a wind turbine is not an option, there are still a number of ways to establish eco-friendly habits in the home.

Anne-Marie Runfola, a composting expert and member of the Falmouth Farmers Market board of directors, said that the average household can reduce 30 to 70 percent of its trash by composting food scraps and recycling.

“We don’t have the space for landfills, so we’re trucking and training trash farther. That’s bad for air quality, carbon emissions, and the economy,” she said.

Composting has the added benefit of being an excellent fertilizer for a garden or potted plants. By mixing a carbon source such as leaves with nitrogen-heavy compost, nutrients are “fixed” at the source, helping control nitrogen runoff and erosion, she said.

Using compost instead of fertilizer made from petrochemicals on one’s garden has much less of an impact on the environment— and on the pocketbook, Ms. Runfola said. “By throwing food out, we’re paying for garbage to be taken away, and we’re paying again for fertilizer to go in,” she said.

Step 4: Eat your vegetables

While carbon dioxide has grabbed most of the attention as a greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide and methane are even longer-lasting and effective agents of climate change.

For that reason, the European Nitrogen Assessment reported at conference held this month in Scotland that the best thing people can do to reduce their nitrogen footprint is eat less meat, said Eric A. Davidson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center.

Livestock are not particularly efficient at converting protein in the food they eat. A cow converts 10 percent of the protein it eats into meat products that humans consume. Pork and chicken are a little better, and fish is probably the best. So eating meat is wasteful in terms of the protein needed in the human diet.

-Eric Davidson, WHRC

That protein inefficiency has upstream effects, Dr. Davidson said. The greenhouse gases created by confined animal feeding operations and the fertilizers required to grow crops to feed them amounted to 6.3 percent of total US emissions in 2009, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Fertilizer and manure runoff to the Mississippi River has created a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico due to an overabundance of nitrogen, killing fish and other marine life.

Dedicated carnivores need not give up meat entirely, said Dr. Davidson. As demonstrated at the nitrogen assessment conference, simply reducing the amount of meat consumed each day or at each meal makes a difference, while satisfying hunger.

“It’s probably not a big enough difference for mitigating our local problem of nitrogen in our sewage. But for the Mississippi River or global climate change, one thing everyone can do is reduce the portion size and frequency of eating meat,” Dr. Davidson said.

What’s your nitrogen footprint? Calculate it here!

Step 5: Drive less, ride more

With gas prices topping $3.83 per gallon in Falmouth yesterday, people are motivated to find alternatives to driving, said Thomas S. Cahir, executive director of the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.

Since last July, the bus company has seen 16 percent more riders on its fixed route service over the previous year. Ridership on the SeaLine from Woods Hole to Hyannis was up by nearly 16.5 percent, while the WHOOSH trolley from Woods Hole to the Falmouth Mall was up by 15 percent.

“We’ve always felt the geography and seasonal aspects of the Cape really scream out for a vibrant and robust transport system. But it’s hard to get people out of their cars,” said Mr. Cahir, pointing to the CCRTA’s new hourly schedule and billing system on its B-bus service as reasons for increased ridership.

According to the American Public Transportation Association, cars and trucks are responsible for 33 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but a person who commutes 20 miles a day by bus instead of driving can reduce their carbon footprint by 10 percent.

Mr. Cahir said the CCRTA’s bus fleet uses 20 percent biodiesel, increasing the environmental benefits. The CCRTA plans to expand with a route in Bourne and Sandwich by October and a statewide public transportation pass that can be used from Logan Airport to the Steamship Authority and island bus systems by next year.

Step 6: Bike to work

But the most ecologically responsible way to get around is bicycling, said Edward S. Gross, chairman of the Falmouth Bikeways Committee.

“Biking is a non-polluting activity and contributes to our own health. It’s also a community service, reducing congestion on the road,” he said.

Since the Shining Sea Bikeway was extended in 2009, use of the nearly 11-mile path has increased by 50 percent, averaging 1,440 users on a weekend springtime day, he said.

Falmouth can certainly do more to become a bicycling-friendly community, he added, by painting bike lanes and “sharrows” on the roadways and routes to schools. It is something of a catch-22, however, because the town will probably not take these steps unless there is a demand— and until people think it is safe to ride a bike on the road, there won’t be as much demand.

In its annual bid to promote bicycle commuting, the League of American Cyclists has declared May as National Bike Month, with May 16 to 20 as National Bike to Work Week.

In Falmouth, bicycling advocates will be observing Bike to Work Day on May 18, with free coffee, pastries, and information at two booths along the Shining Sea Bikeway.

Six steps… and beyond

So, to recap, there are six things you can do today, this week, or this month to green up your life: don’t buy something that you can’t reuse or recycle;  turn off unnecessary appliances and sign up for a free energy audit; throw away food scraps in a bin and attend a composting workshop for the next steps; trade in some of your meat for fresh vegetables;  take the bus, carpool, or bike to work or on your errands.

Anything else? Let us know how you celebrate Earth Day!

While we have to take the issue of nitrogen (and other nutrient) pollution seriously, we also need to examine the unintended consequences of sewering the entire coast. What impact will pumping and discharging millions of gallons of water have on the aquifer, not to mention, on CO2 levels in the atmosphere? What are some ways we as residents can reduce our nitrogen output on an individual scale?

Last week, I went to an interesting talk by USGS hydrologist Denis LeBlanc, who described the role of the Sagamore Lens in supplying the Upper Cape’s fresh water.

I’d been skeptical that pumping wastewater all over town to a centralized location for treatment, and possibly discharging it through an outfall pipe off of Nobska Point, would not impact our groundwater levels. But according to Mr. LeBlanc, even at a rate of 3-5 million gallons a day, that kind of discharge is peanuts, compared to the volume of the resource.

Whether or not an outfall pipe is a good idea is still up for debate. Experts, including Mark Rasmussen of the Coalition for Buzzards Bay, say that the strong currents at Nobska would create enough “flushing” to dilute the wastewater (treated to tertiary standards) so that it would not impact marine life or public health. But still– in a world where water is considered to be “blue gold,” is it responsible to discharge it into the ocean? Even if we can’t drink it, couldn’t we reuse it?

Eco-logical design

At a conference at WBNERR last spring, environmental designers presented some very intriguing ideas on how to turn wastewater into a resource.

These weren’t pie-in-the-sky dreamers, or con artists trying to sell you back your own pee as drinking water. These were businessmen who had built their reputation on some common-sense notions: why should you flush your toilet or water your lawn with drinking water? Why should we still be using the 2,000 year-old Roman aquaduct system to sewer our communities?

To the speakers, the saying, “the solution to pollution is dilution” is simply not the case. Instead, they suggested a closed-loop system, in which gray water is continually re-used within a building, with minimal loss.

Patrick Lucey, president of Aqua-Tex, a water management consultancy firm in British Columbia, showed slides of a LEED-certified complex he designed on a working waterfront section of Victoria.

The system is designed to reuse the gray water from sinks and showers and collect rainwater from the roof. The “wastewater” is then treated in a centralized sewage treatment that one might mistake for a luscious garden.

Wastewater from toilets is treated to a standard that could be safely used for doing laundry or watering non-edible plants, Mr. Lucey said.

The system could go several steps further by including a bio-refinery to utilize solid waste and garbage as bio-fuels for heating; co-generation technology to create electricity; and removing nitrogen and phosphorus from effluent for use as fertilizer.

Engineered ecology

Closer to home, projects at the Wrentham Mall and Gilette Stadium in Foxboro (home of the Patriots) have achieved 75-95 % water reuse by employing ecological design principles. If every large public building could do that, we’d go a long way in reducing the 1,200 gallons that Americans consume on average per day (through showers, toilets, laundry, dishwashers, and food production).

Even closer to home, a Woods Hole-based firm, Todd Ecological Design, has set the standard for using nature’s principles to deal with wastewater. In municipalities, golf courses, factories, and campuses worldwide, the EcoMachines designed by Dr. John Todd, one the founders of New Alchemy Institute, use micr0-bacteria, plants, and invertebrates to effectively digest the harmful components of wastewater. Designs often include tropical greenhouse gardens that help make this process possible, even in cold climates.

However, as Falmouth’s wastewater superintendent pointed out after meeting with Jon Todd (Dr. Todd’s son), the EcoMachine cannot get the nitrogen content low enough to meet the limits set by DEP.  In order to prevent further estuarine degradation, some parts of Falmouth need to reduce nitrogen to 3 milligrams per liter– the equivalent of 1.5 drops in a bathtub– which will likely require the services of a modern wastewater treatment plant.

You are what you eat

But there are still possibilities for concerned residents to reduce their nitrogen output. Eating less meat is one idea proposed by Dr. Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center. While this might be a startling idea to some, consider the fact that the amino acids in animal protein are made up of nitrogen, and to a large extent, are passed out of the body.

If we’re eating meat three times a day, we have a bigger nitrogen footprint. For those who don’t want to be vegetarian, thinking about portion sizes, or whether they’re eating beef, or less nitrogen-demanding pork, chicken, or fish, makes a difference.

-Eric Davidson, sr. scientist, Woods Hole Research Center

Another reason to cut down meat consumption takes a global view: in places like Brazil, rainforest is being cleared at alarming rates in order to create cattle pasture. Cutting forests reduces the earth’s ability to process CO2, and also releases extra greenhouse gases (like NO2) into the atmosphere. So, if not just for the local environment, eating meat (or chosing not to) from these places can make a big difference in terms of climate change.

What else can you do?

Finally, debate over sewering sometimes leaves out small, yet significant components of our community’s total nitrogen output: stormwater and fertilizers. If we could eliminate chemical-based fertilizers from our lawns and gardens, Falmouth could reduce nitrogen in estuaries by at least 10 %. (For info on how to reduce your lawn’s N-footprint, see the Falmouth Friendly Lawns brochure.)

And if the town could install more catch basins to deal with stormwater, less nitrogen (and other pollutants) would flow directly from the roads to sensitive ecosystems. One fun fact to remember as you’re driving in a rainstorm: that first flush of rainwater from the road brings NOx emissions from your tailpipe directly to the nearest water source.

So, a few nuances to consider as we head down the road to figuring out how to create a wastewater design to meet demands of the next century. And we didn’t even get into I/A systems, such as Nitrex or RUCK.

Special thanks to David Dow for putting his two cents in on these issues. As always, we welcome comments, questions, and perspectives.

That was one of the questions that Neil D. Bettez, of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, spent five years as a doctoral student in Falmouth trying to answer. Working with Eric Davidson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, and colleagues at Cornell University, Dr. Bettez came across a local nitrogen source that is often overlooked: emissions from cars and trucks.

“We’d like to say it’s only the power plants in the Midwest [that are responsible], but the fact that a lot of cars driving on Cape contributes to local impacts. What we drive, and how much, really matters on a local level,” Dr. Bettez said.

‘The more you put in, the more you put out’

Those driving around down Route 28 between 2003 and 2007 may have noticed bottles with funnels on top sitting under trees at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Reserve (WBNERR) near the Mashpee-Falmouth town line, or on the lawn at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth. These contraptions collected rainwater dripping from tree leaves, which Dr. Bettez analyzed for nitrogen content.

His results showed that areas of the forest within 30 feet of a road contained the highest amounts of nitrogen. He also found more nitrogen underground near the road, pointing to a nitrogen source that is leaching into the groundwater, and eventually into nearby water bodies.

“Understanding sources of nitrogen is a key first step in managing and mitigating nitrogen pollution,” he said. “The more you put in, the more you get out. Even kids know that.”

The research conducted by Drs. Davidson, Bettez and their colleagues suggests that road runoff may have been underestimated in the past, and it could contribute as much as 10 percent of the nitrogen load to some local water bodies.

According to Dr. Bettez, atmospheric nitrogen has been on the rise since the Industrial Revolution. Through fertilizer production and fossil fuel combustion, humans now release as much reactive nitrogen (NOx and NH3) as is created naturally from lightning and nitrogen-fixing plants, such as soybeans or blue-green algae.

Due to cleaner emissions standards, power plants in the US now produce 29 percent less NOx than they did 30 years ago; and despite better emissions standards for cars, Americans also drive twice as much as they did in the 1970s, contributing 33 percent more nitrogen, said Dr. Bettez.

A hidden killer

Excess nitrogen in waterways can lead to eutrophication, resulting in low-oxygen conditions that makes it difficult for marine animals to survive. Algae thrives on the nitrogen, but sudden algal blooms can lead to smelly die-offs, unpleasant swimming conditions, and degraded eelgrass, an important habitat for shellfish.

Because most of the nitrogen that settles on leaves is retained in the forest, Dr. Bettez said, wastewater is still the single largest source of nitrogen in the water. However, he added, the forest’s capacity to hold that nitrogen is limited. In large quantities, he said, NOx and NH3 in the atmosphere can lead to tree “die back” due to acidification, an effect similar to acid rain.

While nitrogen deposition on the Cape is still too little to impact local forests, it could reach a saturation point, and end up in waterways, Dr. Bettez said. “My research points out that it will continue to be a bigger problem as people drive more.”

According to Ivan Valiela, of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Ecosystems Center, different parts of Waquoit Bay could receive an additional 31 to 79 percent nitrogen load from rain and snow falling directly on the water.

“There is an additional atmospheric deposition directly onto the surface of the water of the bay, and this can be large,” Dr. Valiela said.

“Management action such as sewering would not affect this direct atmospheric source… a consideration, given the current interest in installation of municipal sewers.”

In comparison to wastewater and atmospheric deposition, the nitrogen from road runoff is “trivial,” at about four percent of the total load to the watershed, Dr. Valiela said.

However, Dr. Davidson said that the nitrogen contained in road runoff is significant enough to warrant better management in coastal zones. Analyzing the runoff he sampled during storms from Woods Hole Road, Oyster Pond Road, and Quonset Road, Dr. Davidson found that even small residential roads contain significant amounts of nitrogen, from a combination of car exhaust, lawn fertilizers, and animal waste.

“Roads are conduits for moving all that nitrogen rapidly. Where roads lead to water bodies, they contribute directly to the nitrogen load,” he said.

To reduce road runoff, the town could install “wells” that shuttle water from storm drains through layers of soil, where microbes can break down nitrogen and other hazardous byproducts, Dr. Davidson said.

Global problem, local solution

Because nitrogen loading is a local problem, Dr. Bettez said that local solutions, such as driving less, or driving hybrid vehicles, will help reduce nitrogen emissions.

Another way to tackle nitrogen emissions would be to follow California’s lead in developing regulations that would limit ammonia, a compound that is created from NOx by highly efficient catalytic converters, said Dr. Davidson.

Dr. Bettez noted that NOx is responsible for smog and atmospheric ozone, while ammonia plays a role in creating haze. Ammonia is also deposited very close to its source, which means that emissions from cars can fall out onto nearby water bodies, Dr. Davidson said.

Both Dr. Bettez and Dr. Davidson added that dietary changes could make an impact on global nitrogen production, noting that it takes significant amounts of fertilizer to produce animal feed, and animals produce manure, another large source of nitrogen that is released into the environment

“If we’re eating meat three times a day, we have a bigger nitrogen footprint,” said Dr. Davidson. “For those who don’t want to be vegetarian, thinking about portion sizes, or whether they’re eating beef, or less nitrogen-demanding pork, chicken, or fish, makes a difference.”