Climate Smart Program - KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News

Climate Smart Program

If you are looking for ways to offset your carbon footprint, PG & E may be able to help. The energy company is working with several environmental agencies, to dispose of old appliances that contain ozone depleting substances.

Each year, thousands of pounds of ozone depleting substances, or O.D.S. are released into the atmosphere through many common household appliances. As PG & E spokesman, Kory Raftery, explains, an O.D.S. is a chemical substance, typically found in old appliances, proven to eat away the earth's ozone layer.

"These substances emit a lot of carbon into the atmosphere."

For example, the O-d-S from an old fridge is just as bad for the environment as about five thousand pounds of carbon dioxide. That's like driving more than five thousand miles. In an effort to keep those damaging chemicals out of the atmosphere, several environmental agencies and pg& e are teaming up to collect and destroy nearly forty thousand pounds of O.D.S. statewide.

"The E.P.A. oversees it in different facilities around California, we'll basically destroy it one time, and then they will contain the ODS, they will make sure it is not released into the atmosphere in a harmful way," says Raftery.

PG & E customers can be a part of the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by enrolling in the Climatesmart Program.

"For the average home its about 5 dollars, and then PG & E uses that money to buy carbon offsets."

The program is expected to generate about one hundred sixty thousand metric tons of carbon offsets for PG & E customers.

"The benefit for the customers, through programs like this and neutralizing some of the fossil fuels we do use, they can rest assured we are moving toward a greener future."