Sustainability

We have a goal to reduce our municipal emissions to 50% of 2010 levels by 2030. This means we operate our buildings and fleet to reduce our carbon footprint, and we don’t stop there. From the way our streets are engineered to the trees you see around our city, we’re making conscious decisions to make Wauwatosa sustainable, because our residents shouldn’t have to choose between an efficient or beautiful community.

What does this look like in Wauwatosa?

• We have installed solar panels on several municipal buildings and facilities including City Hall and Wauwatosa Public Library, Department of Public Works, Police Department, Potter Road pumping station, Firefly Grove Park, and the Muellner building at Hart Park. These panels generate carbon-free electricity on-site in support of our climate goals and significantly reduce energy costs. The installation investment payback period varies by system and can pay for itself in as little as nine years while continuing to save taxpayer dollars for the 25-year system warranty. In 2026, solar panels will be installed on all Fire Department buildings and the Administration building in Hart Park, meaning that all public buildings in Wauwatosa are generating renewable energy.
  
• We have replaced 99.7% of street lights with energy efficient LED fixtures. These lights improve visibility while lowering costs by using less electricity and requiring less maintenance than the older high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures.

We don’t just focus on collecting garbage and recycling; we work to ensure Wauwatosa is moving towards sustainable materials management. We want to keep valuable items like food, paper, and metals out of Wisconsin’s landfills and ensure hazardous items are managed safely and responsibly. We all play our role in achieving this goal by diverting as much as we can from landfills through reuse, donation, repair, recycling, and composting.

What does this look like in Wauwatosa?

• In 2024, Wauwatosa’s Department of Public Works collected nearly 7.5 million pounds of paper, cardboard, metal, and plastic for recycling and over 14 million pounds of yard waste and leaves for composting. Additionally, Wauwatosa residents opting into private compost collection from Compost Crusader diverted another 12,413 pounds of food scraps to be composted locally.
• We are committed to continually educating Wauwatosa residents and businesses on how to reduce waste. We have created the Waste Wizard resource as a one stop shop for all recycling and waste management questions and have developed an educational cart-tagging system when any recycling contamination occurs. The more we correctly manage materials, the better our recycling and composting streams are and the less we send to landfills. Learn more about organic waste prevention and composting.
  
• We are home to the volunteer-run annual Tosa Green Summit, which offers residents the opportunity to safely and securely manage items like hazardous waste and medication as well as recycling or reuse opportunities for items not accepted in curbside recycling like textiles, scrap metal, and shredded paper. In the 2025 Tosa Green Summit, the team collected:
  • 46,759 pounds of hazardous waste
  • 6,000 pounds of sensitive documents to be shredded and recycled
  • 233 pounds of medication
  • 4,676 pounds of textiles
  • 40 bikes to be refurbished
  • 2,000 pounds of scrap metal
  • 1.5 garbage bags of toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes
  • 34 bags and 45 boxes of food and personal items to be donated to Tosa Cares

Wauwatosa is proud to be a community where pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users all access what our city has to offer, and we’re working hard to ensure each transportation option is safe and convenient. For city operations, we choose electric vehicles where we can, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and benefiting our local air quality.

What does this look like in Wauwatosa?

• Wauwatosa is home to 49.5 miles of bike lanes and 189 miles of pedestrian sidewalks and trails, and these numbers continue to grow in support of safe and multimodal transportation options.
  
• We host several stops in Wisconsin’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line, providing efficient public transportation between Wauwatosa and downtown Milwaukee and supporting those who live and work in both communities.
• There are currently nine publicly available electric vehicle charging stations in Wauwatosa with additional stations planned with partners in the region to support transportation without tailpipe emissions.

Our goal is to achieve community-wide carbon neutrality by 2050. Wauwatosa residents and business owners have options — and support from the city through programs and resources — to make their homes and businesses more environmentally friendly, affordable, and comfortable through energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and electrification.

What does this look like in Wauwatosa?

• Wauwatosa has been recognized as a leader in renewable energy through designation as a Gold-level SolSmart community. We received this designation by reducing zoning and permitting barriers for residential and commercial solar projects.
• We have implemented an annual first-come-first-served permit fee waiver for the first 15 residential and 5 commercial solar installations (starting March 1 each year) to further support solar on homes and businesses in Wauwatosa.
  

Interested in lowering your energy bills and carbon footprint? Visit Focus on Energy to learn more about free energy saving packs, rebates, and more.

We protect Wauwatosa’s green spaces and other natural resources to ensure our community remains for generations to come. As we deal with the impacts of a changing climate, including severe precipitation events and extreme heat, resources like trees, native plants, permeable pavement, and green stormwater infrastructure help keep us all safe.

What does this look like in Wauwatosa?

• We are a proud Tree City USA and are home to over 25,000 publicly owned trees. Want to learn about the species, age, carbon storage, pollution removal, and avoided runoff of your favorite tree? Visit the Tosa Tree Dashboard to learn more.
• Wauwatosa’s newest city park, Firefly Grove Park, is centered around sustainability (including Mama Rosa, our 24-foot Thomas Dambo Troll made of reclaimed materials) and stormwater management best practices. The park features an engineered wetland, a biofiltration basin, and porous pavement walkways. Together, these systems capture, store, and filter nearly 580,000 gallons of stormwater before it flows into the existing wetlands nestled along the park’s east side. These stormwater features help protect the neighborhood from flooding, improve water quality, and revitalize a once-overlooked property.
  

There are many sustainable actions that residents of Wauwatosa can take to contribute to improved environmental quality. The links below give suggestions of actions and organizations (local and state) which address the principal areas of sustainability.

• Waste Wizard – type the name of an object to discover how to properly dispose, recycle, or compost it.
• Eye on Water – track your water consumption and get alerts if a leak is detected.
• Focus on Energy – Home Energy Rebates (including Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Home Energy Rebate Program HOMES))
• Energy Star calculator – discover products that help you save on energy costs
• Rain barrels
• Composting
  • Curbside – The City of Wauwatosa partners with Compost Crusader – a company that offers curbside compost collection in our area. Check compostcrusader.com for availability in your neighborhood.
  • Home composting 
• Transportation
  • Bus
  • Bike and walking routes around Wauwatosa 
• Solar energy in Wauwatosa
• No Mow May – during the month of May in Wauwatosa, homeowners can choose to participate in this optional program.
• Tosa Green Summit – an annual sustainability fair held in September with Exhibits and Speakers to Create Awareness, and several recycling opportunities to Take Action, including hazardous waste collection, medication disposal, paper shredding and more.

The Wauwatosa Sustainability Committee:

• Champions environmentally sound practices
• Advises the Common Council and City staff on sustainability matters
• Fosters city’s long-term livability and economic goals
• Advances city’s environmental goals
• Collaborates with residents, businesses, and other partners to advance the City’s environmental goals

Who makes up the volunteer committee:

• Seven to 11 members who are City residents, plus a common council member and a non-voting city staff member.
• Members are appointed by the mayor, approved by the common council for three-year terms, and provide a broad range of expertise on energy, recycling or sustainability issues

Links:

• Members, meeting agendas, and minutes (you may have to filter by committee or date)
• Annual report
• Community events to meet the committee: Tosa Farmers Market, Tosa Green Summit, Tosa Night Out, Tosa Community Fair, and other opportunities.