The Changes

Next week on September 28th, the Strathcona BIA will host Sustainability 3.0 our 3rd annual sustainability expo for small businesses. The event is by donation and open to all, with the purpose of engaging and inspiring the greater communities of Strathcona and Vancouver.

Next week I'll be speaking at an event called "Trash Talk: Collaborations in Business Garbage and Recycling" with Louise Schwartz of Recycling Alternatives.

We'll be talking about our experiences in moving towards zero waste and how companies might work together to reduce their environmental footprint.

I've started to phase out plastic utensils and plastic wrapping out of my everyday lifestyle. I am working on opting out of using single use plastic wrap and any wasteful products in exchange for fresher foods, sitting down for meals, environmentally friendly alternatives and a plastic free life...

It's not as hard as you think

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 :

Will I reach my goal to be garbage free?  enough to be on national tv?  Well, one couple in Toronto is doing it by being in G&M, CBC Gill Deacon Show and CBC The Hour ... that I've seen.  Their blog discusses many of the same issues I'm going through.  Although I haven't resolved many of them for myself YET, at least I know I'm on the right track.  I'm not going to extreme of avoiding recyclable items like her, but I am shopping around, buying bulk, avoiding [some] items with non-recyclable packaging, doing without some things, preparing my work lunches instead of eating out, and of course reusing bags.

Hi y'all.. manufacturing plastics uses up tons of energy -- just like batteries, as mentioned in my 'change' for 2007. One website states that it takes 50X the energy to make an small non-rechargeable AA battery than the battery actually produces -- not to mention the waste disposal issues. Think of plastic as you would a non-rechargeable battery, then.

I'd going to try to be somewhat "plastic-neutral" by reUSEing my plastic. Everybody here can help become plastic-neutral, too. How? Give my summer school students your **clean** plastic salad boxes, tubes, PVC pipes (from construction renovation), plant pots, shoe boxes, salad spinners, yogurt containers, and any other object that could conceivably made into a musical intrument -- where they will be used to teach inventive, creative, recycling -- at the Sustainable Music Factory. I'll provide drop off locations - school and college locations in Vancouver, West Van, and North Van in a follow up post.