2009-04-02 - 2:44 p.m.
Since we actually attend our condo association meetings each month and have made overtures of needing to make the place more "green", I am in the process of figuring out what grants, tax rebates, and general financing are available for installing solar panels or other such equipment in our building.
The process has been somewhat exciting, yet thoroughly disappointing. Yay - there's a City of Chicago grant program. Boo! They've all been awarded. Yay! There's a 30% of the installation price grant from the state of Illinois. Boo! It's not funded. Yay! there's a similar federal grant. Boo! Not funded.
So it all comes down to an up to $2000 tax credit for our share of the condo association's installation price. I guess the other alternative is to get the condo association to allow each homeowner to do their own - which then means nothing will happen either because nothing is funded, except that $2K tax credit.
At least we got them to start recycling. One small step...which actually was quite a fight. Our association president is quite the character - the main argument against having recycling (seriously all it costs is $40/month more than our regular garbage pickup in the form of renting a recyclables dumpster, I assume) is that not everyone would want to. Who the hell cares if everyone recycles? It's freaking embarrassing that we don't even have the option. It's a selling point if we do. Yeesh.
That and the other bizarre argument against coming from the prez was that there would be more garbage now. Um, why? The amount of garbage and recyclables is going to be the same as when we didn't have recycling. It's not like people throw more shit away when they recycle. Same amount of stuff leaving the house - now just in 2 bags.
