The Changes

Haven't you always wanted to go to the landflll for the day?

I'm just as clueless as everyone else. I've been working in the industry for 4+ years and think I have seen enough. Day after day I report to work with immense guilt.

Yesterday we visited Bhat-Bhateni Super Store and stumbled upon a brand new environmental initiative.

Bhat-Bhateni is now encouraging shoppers to use re-usable plastic bags and is also selling re-usable branded bags. I quickly visited the Bhat-Bhateni web site and found their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) page which says:

I'm trying to get down to one small garbage bag a week, plus recycling.   

I am thinking things might get a bit messy here in Vancouver over the coming weeks. The City of Vancouver employees are all on strike. That means garbage removal personnel, librarians, dog pound workers and summer camp staff to name a few. San Francisco East Bay workers have been on strike since July 02 and it sounds like it is getting messy down there.

I am particularly concerned about the dogs in the pound and the garbage lining the streets (we already have mice at my home and can only imagine what garbage piling up will do to the mouse population) This would be a good time to consider how to create less waste... anybody have any ideas? Thoughts to share about the strike?

for a complete listing of city services affected by job action click here

What kind of city do we want to live in during the garbage strike? What are you going to do? Just ignore the growing smelly pile of bags around your dumpster or refuge bin, as the crows spread junk over your alley?

Well, I finally am ready to share my photo of three months worth of garbage (Jan 1 - Mar 31) I'm not going to show the contents because ... well it's kinda nasty. I emptied a few ancient items from my cupboard, plus I went through many tissues during 2 week flu. The "clean" items were the plastic/cellophane packaging. But I am proud to report that for April, I'm almost at literally zero in my garbage. Much better than before ... avoiding those bags of junk food really helps the cause ... in more ways than one.

I've recently been to two presentations about zero waste where some of our elected officials, NGOs and local government employees were present. Some interesting things to that I learned :