New Castle County unveils first comprehensive sustainability plan

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New Castle County has released its first-ever comprehensive sustainability plan to reduce the county government’s impact on the environment.

The new plan continues work to reduce climate change emissions in Delaware’s most populous county. It includes planting 55,000 trees, preserving 250 hectares of open space, protecting almost 2,000 hectares of land, creating new parks and expanding the 100 EV plug plan with 22 additional charging stations.

County sustainability coordinator Kristie Arlotta says the new plan focuses on several fundamental principles.

“Those are equity, environment and economics. Those are the three basic pillars of sustainability and kind of thinking about equity and economics, all encompassed by the natural resources and the resources that we have available to us in our environment,” she said. “We also wanted to break it down a bit by topic. So we have six theme areas. We have entire communities, energy, waste, natural resources, climate resilience and environmental justice.”

The plan includes nearly 200 items, such as expanding the county’s farmers market program and making more rain barrels available to residents.

“We already host four farmers markets in the province, and what I’ve heard from community services is that they want to expand our farmers market programs,” Arlotta said. Other priorities include expanding the province’s Clean Streams Champion program, which encourages residents to take simple steps to protect the province’s waterways. Those steps include collecting pet waste, reducing the use of household chemicals and not throwing grease down the drain.

While not all of the project’s priorities have been finalized, Arlotta highlighted the county’s efforts in energy sustainability. The goal is to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. There is also a new emphasis on waste reduction, including plans for composting and expanded recycling efforts.

“We are trying to achieve coherence in our goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030,” she said. “The biggest problem that we haven’t thought about much in recent years is waste. How can we reduce our waste in the coming years?”