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Message from the Sustainability Manager

Dear Sustainability Champions,

As we head into the holiday season, there’s much to be thankful for — and even more to celebrate when it comes to sustainability in Boca Raton! Over the past few months, our community has achieved several impressive milestones that highlight our shared commitment to protecting our environment and advancing the City’s sustainability goals.

On October 27, the City proudly accepted its LEED for Cities Gold Certification, recognizing Boca Raton’s leadership in energy efficiency, waste reduction, innovation, and overall quality of life. Residents have also stepped up in meaningful ways: through the Unwrap the Waves program with Loggerhead Marinelife Center, we collected 11,550 Halloween candy wrappers citywide for recycling. Our Intracoastal Cleanup on November 6 brought together 21 volunteers, who paddled and walked along the shoreline of Rutherford Park to remove 109 pounds of trash and recyclables.

Sustainable Thanksgiving: Tips for Keeping the Feast, But Reducing the Waste

Nationwide, an estimated 300+ million pounds of food are wasted on Thanksgiving alone. Reducing even a small slice of that waste locally makes a measurable climate and community impact.

• Shop smarter with a “Guest-imator” plan. Use tools (or a quick checklist) to match servings to your guest list so you don’t overbuy. The USDA and food-rescue groups highlight that careful planning is the single easiest way families cut food waste and save money.
• Host a “Leftover Swap” station. At big family gatherings add a table for sharing leftovers. Guests should be encouraged to take home only what they’ll eat. Provide reusable containers and a return-bin for borrowed containers.
• Compost your Thanksgiving scraps. The Sustainability website has plenty of resources including a Composting 101 Video to help you get started.
• Repurpose — don’t toss. Turkey bones → stock (freeze for later). Stale bread → croutons or breadcrumbs. Vegetable peelings → vegetable broth. The fewer edible items you throw away, the less carbon footprint you leave behind — and you save money.
• Label & portion for safe future use. Put date labels and reheating instructions on leftovers; a surprising share of “food waste” comes from confusion about how long things last. Trusted guidance notes many leftovers are safe for longer than people assume if stored properly.

Sustainable Holidays: Gifts, Lights, Trees, & Celebrations with a Lighter Footprint

Household waste can spike substantially during the holiday season (analyses show roughly a 20–25% increase in household trash in December over other months). Lighting is also a meaningful part of seasonal electricity use — but switching to LEDs cuts holiday lighting energy by ~70–85% compared to incandescent bulbs. Reducing physical waste and utilizing more efficient lighting can make big differences in reducing your holiday footprint.

• Gift differently — “experience bundles” and local passes. Purchase gift experiences (FAU event tickets, Gumbo Limbo Nature Center symbolic adoptions, local restaurants and museums, concert and athletic events). Experiences create memories, support local organizations and businesses, and avoid physical waste from unwanted items.
• Sustainable wrapping alternatives — mixed tactics. Traditional wrapping paper often isn’t recyclable if it’s metallic / laminated. Utilize reusable fabric wraps, newspaper + twine, or repurposed maps/magazines. Collect used gift bags and bows at public libraries/community centers for reuse. This reduces the extra pounds of holiday packaging waste that the region sees every December.
• Holiday lighting challenge: switch to LEDs + timers + smart plugs. Replace incandescent holiday lights with LEDs (70–85% lower energy) and use timers or smart plugs to limit hours on. For a typical household display, LED conversions can cut the seasonal lighting bill from tens of dollars to single digits — multiplied across Boca that’s real grid and emissions savings.
• Shop local at Boca Raton’s next Night Market on Thursday, December 11. Gift local products! Buy from local vendors and reduce shipping/packaging emissions.

Creature Feature

An Otterly Abundant Thanksgiving!

On November 2, two playful North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) were spotted in the Lake Worth Drainage District E-3 Canal near the intersection of South Military Trail and Verde Trail South. This species is found throughout the state (where it is the only native otter) and inhabits freshwater rivers, lakes, marshes, and coastal estuaries. The otters tend to avoid heavily urbanized or polluted waterways, so their presence may be a good sign for the E-3 Canal water quality! Adult river otters typically reach 3-4 feet long (with a strong and tapered tail that acts like a rudder when swimming) and weigh 10-25 pounds, though males can reach up to 30 pounds.

The two otters viewed in the E-3 were certainly pushing to reach that maximum weight as they made a feast of apple snails from the canal. There were at least a dozen empty shells strewn across the canal bank in the vicinity of the otters. What a delicious and nutritious pre-Thanksgiving meal!



This was a fantastic opportunity to be able to view these adorable and inquisitive animals. Be warned, however, otters are highly intelligent and can be aggressive if threatened. They are wild carnivores, so treat them as such and enjoy them safely from a distance if you happen to see them. They will probably be just as interested in seeing you!

And thank you to five awesome student citizen scientists from Blue Lake Elementary School and Verde Elementary School for participating in our inaugural Blue Flag Beach Conservation on the Coast educational activity. Students (and their helpful parents) used quadrats (50cm x 50cm rope squares) to count and collect pieces of macro and microplastic on Spanish River Park beach. Their excellent data showed that there is an average of 24 pieces of plastic per square meter in the surface sands from the wrackline (roughly the highest high water mark) to the dunes. Since our Blue Flag beach is about 36,550 square meters, that means there may be over 877,200 pieces of plastic in its surface sands! This plastic can be directly ingested by coastal species and is an indication of how much plastic is in our ocean and being transferred up the food web. Participants learned that we can help the ocean ecosystem by cutting back on use of plastic, especially single use plastic products (like plastic water bottles and utensils). You can make those changes too!

Well done citizen scientists!

Are you, or someone you know, going above and beyond for sustainability in the City of Boca Raton? Submit them for the next edition! Email us at sustainability@myboca.us

www.myboca.us/sustainability

sustainability@myboca.us

561-393-7997