By
Diane Selkirk
| Image:
kidskonserve.com |
Published: August 31, 2010
Before you shell out for disposable pens, toxic art supplies, or non-recycled paper, be on the lookout for greener options
By
Diane Selkirk
| Image:
Flickr / sergis blog |
Published: August 26, 2010
Tips for getting an A+ in the three 'back to school' Rs—reducing, reusing and recycling
We were talking with a friend the other night and he mentioned that fall seems to be in the air. It caught me off guard; it’s been a beautiful summer and I’m not ready for autumn, nor back to school. And I’m really not ready for the big consumer push that is happening in all the stores.
By
Diane Selkirk
| Image:
Adbusters |
Published: December 03, 2009
Imagine a society so obsessed with consuming that it actually needs to dedicate a day to take a break from shopping. Oh wait, it's ours
When I told Maia about
Buy Nothing Day she was puzzled by the idea.
By Rob McMahon
| Image: Rob McMahon |
Published: May 07, 2009
This week, Art Darts blogger Rob McMahon hits the Island to attend his brother’s art show.
By Lesa Dee Tree
| Image: iStock / morganl |
Published: May 05, 2009
Vancouver, it seems, is drowning in waste. And it’s up to all of us to work together to rescue our city from a most stinky end.
That is the message that Peter Cech of Metro Vancouver’s Zero Waste Challenge will convey when he presents the Metro Vancouver Recycling Workshop: Is it Really Garbage? as part of EPIC, the sustainable living expo sponsored by Vancouver Sun at the new Vancouver Convention Centre, May 8–10, 2009.
“Waste and recycling is a vision everybody has to take on,” he says. “People have to change their mindset and make choices at the purchasing level.” For example, buying quality, reusable, locally made products ensures a practice conforms to the green marketplace.
The workshop is child friendly, Peter says, “having kids participate by going through piles of clean garbage provided to see what can be recycled.” This is a fun way to illustrate to kids and parents how much of their home waste can actually be diverted from the landfill—an important aspect of training future generations to be more savvy.
“We need to impart the importance of recycling,” says Peter, and address our addiction to convenience. All city residents need to shift their mindset so that “recycling becomes the norm, rather than just something done by marginal early adopters of the green shift… If you bring out your blue box and you see everyone else doing it, and you notice one house is not, you wonder why,” he continues.
Granville Online caught up with Peter to ask him some questions about garbage and recycling in Metro Vancouver. If you have more questions, add them to the comment field below and we’ll be sure to get the answer.
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By Granville
|
Published: February 26, 2009
Reaching for bottled water might be a hard habit to break, so why not take Metro Vancouver’s tap water pledge, and fill your water bottle from the tap instead? You’ll be doing your part to help keep plastic water bottles out of the landfill and assisting Metro Vancouver in reaching its goal of reducing bottled water use by 20 per cent by 2010.
By Davinia Yip
| Image: Hilary Henegar |
Published: December 15, 2008
As if the mad dash to find the perfect—then good, then good-enough—gift for everyone on our lists and the juggling of all the party commitments as guests and hosts aren’t taxing enough already, our minds can’t help but wander, even as we sip on eggnog lattes in a rare break, to the looming question that seems more pressing every day: What are we going to wear to all those parties without breaking the budget or falling victim to the “conspicuous consumption” holiday bug?
By
Valerie McTavish
| Image:
Nik West |
Published: June 03, 2008
On a trip to Toronto this past winter I found myself complaining about the cold and wiping my dripping nose. As I went to dispose of my tissue, my friend snatched my hand and chastised me for not putting it in the green box. The green box? I was quickly schooled – a green box is like a blue box, but for food and other organic recycling (like my used Kleenex). Imagine the shame I carried on behalf of Vancouver when my friend discovered that my oft-bragged-about city did not have a similar curbside compostable-waste collection service.
Vancouver is one of the last of Canada’s major cities to provide its residents organic food waste removal and recycling. It is five years behind Toronto, eight years behind Edmonton, and almost ten years behind Halifax. This means that an estimated 200,000 tonnes of food waste continue to end up in landfills each year instead of being converted into useful soil. Collecting and treating the city’s organic food waste could reduce garbage by 13 to 25 per cent (depending on the restrictions imposed).
The move toward recycling organic waste became more urgent last January when the Metro Vancouver board voted to abandon its plans to find a replacement for the Cache Creek Landfill, which is expected to reach capacity in 2010. With the pressure on, Metro Vancouver can’t ignore the important role composting will play in future solutions. And yet, Metro’s Waste Management Committee seems to be taking one step forward and two steps back. In late 2007 it announced plans for a composting demonstration project at the Vancouver Landfill in Delta, but that project was scrapped before trials with food waste were concluded. Metro relocated the demonstration project to its Langley wastewater treatment plant, and those trials were concluded in March.
With Metro Vancouver issuing a “Zero Waste Challenge,” the need for organic recycling is now more urgent than ever. So, why is Vancouver still stuck in the dark ages of waste removal?
Helen Spiegleman, a waste reduction activist and coordinator of Zero Waste Vancouver, blames our prim ways. “Our garbage system was created in the Victorian era,” she says. “It hasn’t really changed since then. It’s very prudish. The reality is that garbage stinks.” Spiegleman believes that we’ve grown accustomed to the convenience of sealing smelly trash in big plastic bags and letting someone else deal with the mess.
