Friday Feel Good News

It's Friday, and in my books, that means it's time to feel good. Let's set aside the doom-and-gloom stories for a moment and focus on some good news!

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It wasn't a Friday, but last weekend I felt really good volunteering with Live Green Toronto at the Community Environment Day that was held in my ward only a few blocks from where I live!

My fellow volunteers and I staffed the Live Green booth to share information about environmental programs in the city. Some of the most popular documents that residents requested included the blue bin and green bin usage guides, cycling route maps, and the complete list of Community Environment Days for 2011. Each city ward hosts one at some point between April and October, and these events are quite popular - some people actually go to more than one a year!

What can residents do at Community Environment Days? For one, they can trade broken curbside green bins or kitchen containers for new ones for free or buy backyard compost bins, rain barrels, and indoor water efficiency kits. The blue truck behind this booth is for donations of arts and crafts materials. There was a second truck devoted exclusively to clothing and household textile donations.

Almost every person comes to a Community Environment Day to drop off household hazardous waste, including paints, propane tanks, batteries, motor oil, CFL bulbs, expired medication, and toxic cleaning supplies. Look how happy these guys are to collect HHW - how could you not want to make their day and give them your poisonous products?

This is one of two containers holding electronic waste. I saw people drop off computers, scanners, TVs, speakers, VCRs, even turntables, all within this four-hour event! On the one hand it's impressive so much e-waste is being diverted from landfills and incinerators, and on the other hand, we generate too much e-waste!

Every City Councillor places an order for leaf compost for her/his Community Environment Day; some more, some less. Residents are entitled to one cubic metre's worth. In my neighbourhood, many people grow vegetable gardens, so the demand for compost is high. You can tell by the picture above that the pile was reduced to a fraction of its original size. That only took one hour! Shockingly, 20 minutes later only small mounds the size of ant hills remained. Many were disappointed that there was none left before the event was even half over.

Community Environment Days make me happy - hence this Friday Feel Good News post about them. These events allow us to divert waste (in some cases toxic, in other cases reusable), save water indoors and out, add nutrients to the soil we grow our food in, and even have a chat with our City Councillor (Cesar Palacio is pictured above). Parents model good behaviour to their children, new neighbours get to know one another, residents learns a few new things about green living in the city, and everybody wins!

If you don't live in Toronto, does something similar exist in your area?

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum...

Walking home from my trip to the post office today I noticed a number of my neighbours have dragged their Christmas trees to the curb, in time for tomorrow morning's garbage pick-up... and the first of two Christmas tree collection days in January!

Don't mock me, I'm allowed to be excited about this. You see, according to the City of Toronto's Waste Wizard, Christmas trees must be removed of all decorations and placed on the curb as is (i.e., not in a bag), as the trees will be shredded and turned into compost. What a good deal!

Please check your collection calendar to find out the dates for your neighbourhood, and if you live elsewhere, I strongly urge you to do the requisite research for your area! Don't just dump your tree with the rest of your trash. It will only end up on a landfill, and that will make me sad.

Photo credit.

Biodegradable materials are sitting in landfills, and that sucks.

Only two posts in and already there's a recurring theme in my blog: when people don't buy reusable water bottles and travel mugs, they often justify their consumption by proclaiming that plastic bottles are recyclable and (some) paper cups are biodegradable. "I'm doing my part", they say while complimenting the local corporate coffee house for bringing in those new recycling stations (don't get me wrong, I'm glad they've taken that step). We need to work harder at educating each other about what works and what doesn't when it comes to waste diversion initiatives, and make sure certain issues are being properly addressed.

Let's think about those fancy new biodegradable paper and plastic cups that can be found popping up at the office, often for catered meetings. My first concern is that the shiny green "biodegradable" label may only suggest that some fraction of the material can break down (which also makes me wonder if they used vegetable-based ink?), or worse yet, that the item could take centuries to decompose. I'd rather not even consider the possibility that some products marketed as biodegradable could break down only to release harmful toxins. As far as I know, there is no official definition for the term, no standards for making a biodegradable claim, and no regulatory body to separate the good from the bad and the ugly.

Another issue with these feel-good cups is what happens to them after the water and coffee has been consumed and the meeting is over. Off the top of your head, how many compost bins have you spotted scattered around your office building? I'm willing to bet the number is smaller than one for most of you. I'm also willing to bet that a lot of people out there think this is a non-issue, ignorant of the fact that the fate of a biodegradable cup is not so glorious when mixed with plain old garbage. Trash is compacted so tightly that biodegradation, if it occurs at all, takes place very slowly because of the anaerobic conditions of the landfill it ends up on. Add to that a relative lack of light and water in the middle of the heap, and a definite lack of the microorganisms that actually perform the biodegrading magic, and what we're left with is lettuce from the 1960's that has not decomposed. Ew.

The alternative? Bring biodegradable items home for municipal curbside green bin pick-up, which, unfortunately, is not without its share of problems. This program was designed with two important facts in mind: (1) people are prone to laziness, and (2) people can be easily motivated by money. I happen to believe in the universal application of these tenets - because I'm often one of those people! There are lots of communities where residents now have to pay if they set out too many garbage bags for collection (threat of losing money), which encourages waste diversion actions like separating compostables from inert trash. So, in the absence of a burning desire to get dirty in the backyard with a garden compost bin and so many possible uses for healthy soil (threat of physical activity - let's face it, we all like getting sweaty at the gym and only at the gym), people happily fill their little curbside green bins. Out of sight, out of mind, as is so often the case. Let's pretend there haven't been issues with organics sent to landfills because they were held in non-biodegradable plastic bags and simply because workers have been mixing them with regular trash.

But once again I'm letting my cynicism get the better of me. Every new program, green or otherwise, is implemented with lots of kinks that need to be ironed out, and eventually they will be. In the meantime, talk to your employer about setting up a composting program at work, or approach your condo board about getting in on the municipal organics collection program. If you're really keen, show up at the management office of your local mall and demand that they commit to setting up green bins alongside the recycling bins in the food court.


As for me, in September I look forward to moving out of my overpriced high-rise apartment and into a walk-up with a friendlier landlord in a quieter neighbourhood. There are many reasons for making this change, including the prospect of setting up a composter on the property and encouraging my new neighbours to help me turn vegetable scraps - and the occasional biodegradable cup - into rich soil. Next summer, get ready for backyard tomatoes!