Tag Archives: recycling

Holiday Trash

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xmasbinIt’s true.

We generate a huge amount of trash during the holidays, all in the name of giving.

Metro Vancouver is encouraging us to cut down on our holiday trash.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Give great gifts, but don’t buy garbage. When trying to decide between two gifts, choose the one with the least amount of packaging.
  • Give the gift of time. Offer your services or expertise as a present. Make dinner, knit a sweater or plan a special day out.
  • Give an experience. Dinner, tickets to the movies or a hockey game, or passes to the local skating rink.
  • Give a gift that lasts. Pass on a family heirloom or start your own tradition.
  • Give a group gift. Pool resources with a few people to give a high quality gift.
  • Give a gift wrapped in newspaper. Reuse a ribbon to fancy it up.
  • Give your garbage can a break! Visit www.metrovancouverrecycles.org for a comprehensive list of things that can be donated, reused or recycle.

If you’ve got some holiday waste tips, you can share them with others on the Metro Vancouver website.  Here are some waste tips already submitted.

Here’s the video they did to get the point across:

Dec 8 | Trash Talk – Innovative Approaches to Garbage and Recycling

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Loco BC’s hosting  this even at the Granville Room
957 Granville Street.

5:30 to 7:30 pm

You must register – and their last even sold out, so do it soon !

Register here

Details:

Trash Talk: Innovative Approaches to Garbage and Recycling for Business

There’s been a lot of talk of waste management and zero waste in the region, as Metro Vancouver updates the Solid Waste Plan that guides how the region deals with its garbage. Although we have one of the highest diversion rates in the country – diverting 55% of the garbage we produce to recycling or composting – this is a far cry from the target of 70% by 2015 and 100% (Zero Waste) eventually…

Small and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) contribute significantly to the region’s overall trash burden, and yet waste diversion systems and services are not typically well-suited to the needs and realities of smaller businesses. SME businesses need to get creative and collaborate to reduce waste and the greenhouse gas emissions from waste decomposition. This event will focus on how businesses can collaborate to work towards the 5 R’s waste hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and manage residuals.

Join Us!

This event will introduce you to innovative ways to reduce, exchange and divert your business’ waste. A short panel will be followed by dialogue on how small businesses can collaborate to reduce waste and how LoCo can support them.

Louise Schwarz of Recycling Alternative (RA), will share the results of RA’s Zero Waste Pilot. The pilot has worked with a hotel, a restaurant and an office building since May 2009 to divert 100% of waste from our region’s landfills. RA has offered businesses the systems and training to divert recyclables, compostables and electronics from their waste streams. Come and hear the learning from this exciting project by RA, a leader in the waste management industry and in green business practices.

Toby Barrazzuol, Eclipse Awards and Chair of the Strathcona Business Improvement Association’s (SBIA) Sustainability Committee, presents the work of the SBIA’s Materials Exchange Network. The Network connects SBIA businesses to reuse materials, reduce waste, reduce costs, and recycle materials. Come and hear about their early successes and plans for expansion.

Appetizers will be provided. Cash bar.

Podcast – JER Envirotech

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Unless you work in the industry, it isn’t likely that you think much about thermoplastics.

But thermoplastics are used in hundreds of items in your home, your car, and your workplace. Anything around you that is made from extruded or moulded plastic is a product of the thermoplastics industry.

JER Envirotech is a British Columbia company at the forefront of new technology that’s changing the thermoplastics industry and helping the environment at the same time.

When JER Envirotech was first founded ten years ago, the goal was to find a way to use organic materials in thermoplastics.

The idea was simple – instead of sending waste wood to the landfill or burning rice hulls – why not make use of these products by combining them with polymers to create a new kind of thermoplastic.

While the idea may have been simple, the science is not. With help from the National Research Council of Canada, JER Envirotech has been able to find a way to do it.

Edward Trueman, JER’s President and CEO, believes his industry is on the verge of a paradigm shift because of this new technology.

VanGoGreen’s Robert Ouimet spoke with him at the company’s head office in Delta, BC.

 

Edward Trueman
President and CEO
JER Envirotech

runs: 13:40

ISBN: 978-0-9809054-6-5

© Bigsnit Media Consulting Inc. 2008. Podcasts are available for re-broadcast by contacting info@bigsnit.com