While O&R offers customers eco-friendly programs and services, we are also helping the environment with these green initiatives:

Hybrid Vehicles

The Company has six hybrid vehicles in its fleet, including a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid (PHEV) for research purposes. Additionally, O&R uses a 20% biodiesel fuel blend in its Spring Valley and West Nyack vehicles. This accounts for half, or about 110,000 – 120,000 gallons, of the Company's annual diesel usage. To further reduce its carbon footprint, the Company has purchased smaller four-cylinder vehicles, and continues to look for opportunities to use more fuel-efficient alternatives.

Smart Grid Pilot

O&R is launching Smart Grid pilot programs in the Nyack, New York, and Mahwah, New Jersey, areas to test how various technologies add intelligence to the electric grid and allow us to operate the system more efficiently and effectively. For customers, Smart Grid could reduce the number of service interruptions, and provide more information about customers' actual energy consumption so they can reduce excess usage at peak times. For O&R, Smart Grid will improve the efficiency of the system, allow us to respond more quickly to power outages, work in tandem with renewable energy sources, such as solar and customer generation, and defer system upgrades through more effective use of equipment. Lower usage and system losses mean less emissions from power plants.

Arbor Day Foundation

For every customer who enrolls in the company's eBill program, O&R donates one dollar to the National Arbor Day Foundation. Each dollar donated plants one tree in a National Forest damaged by fire. So far, customer enrollments have resulted in more than 14,000 trees planted.

ARC of Rockland

O&R's Recycling/Investment Recovery Program is an, award-winning partnership that employs workers from Rockland ARC (formerly known as the Association for Retarded Citizens) to break down retired O&R equipment into component parts for re-sale.

Since its inception in 1992, the program has saved tens of thousands of yards of landfill space, spared thousands of trees and earned O&R back some of the investment it initially made in the material. The program also provides a meaningful work experience for Rockland ARC workers. The program's successful environmental efforts have been frequently recognized with the Certificate of Environmental Achievement from "Renew America," a national environmental enhancement organization.