Columnists

The Story of Stuff project is back with a great new video on e-waste and electronics recycling!
The Story of Electronics explains how electronics, particularly those that we replace often, are harming our health and our environment. The video, and the site linked above, also share how we can demand more durable, safer, fixable goods, what a life-cycle approach to recycling looks like and how to handle the e-waste we have now.

When choosing a phone, music player, speakers, a TV or other electronics, you can choose products that are safer for you and your family (and the people who will make and disassemble your gadget) by avoiding harmful chemicals. Look for the manufacturer’s statement on the use of toxic materials, such as PVC, flame retardants, mercury, lead and others. Here are links to what Apple, Dell and Nokia are doing.

And here’s the Greenpeace guide to Greener Electronics, a handy explanation of what major manufacturers are up to with respect to chemicals and recyclability.

My wish list for better electronics:
- Fewer styles of chargers. Surely we don’t need hundreds of styles and sizes of connectors. Perhaps the mini-USB connector is all we need?
- Chargers that don’t draw phantom power. They’re much better than they used to be, but they’re not ideal yet!
- More repair and upgrade options. Hopefully we’ll start upgrading our phones and other smaller gadgets, for example, with new software, rather than simply replacing them.
- Local materials reclamation, done in a safe manner. I find it’s hard to know how our electronics are being recycled, but at least there are a lot more places to drop them off, and some municipalities are even doing curb-side recycling.

What changes do you think would make electronics less harmful to the environment – and better for you?

Powered by recycling. Literally!

We’ve figured out how to turn trash into treasure. Not the wooden chest of gold coins-type treasure, but treasure for our modern world: clean energy. The evidence: my city, the city of Toronto, has a new garbage truck with an engine (a Cummins Westport ISL G) that’s capable of running on compressed natural gas, including biogas. And where are they planning to get that source of biogas? From composting operations that handle the green bin waste (kitchen waste) removed from Toronto curbsides by… Toronto garbage trucks.

“Our two green bin processing facilities have the potential to produce enough natural gas to take our entire fleet of 300 waste trucks off diesel,” says Geoff Rathbone, the City of Toronto’s General Manager of Solid Waste Management Services. “Creating natural gas from kitchen waste will be the first operation of its kind in North America.”

Replacing diesel trucks with lower-emission biogas trucks is all a pilot project at this point, but the city is motivated: its Green Fleet Plan calls for new medium and heavy-duty trucks in order to reduce fuel consumption, fuel costs, smog and greenhouse-gas pollutants. For more information on the plan, click here.

Next, let’s hope that Toronto and other municipalities tackle incineration to deal with all that garbage waste that cannot be composted or recycled. Burning this material generates energy as well, and the processes can be controlled in a way that doesn’t contaminate the environment (read about it here). That would save us a heck of a lot of money (and, of course, climate-impacting CO2) compared to trucking garbage to landfills. C’mon Canada, Japan is doing it, Denmark is doing it… we can do it!

My lunch today. Nothing disposable!

Every once in a while I take a look at the way I live and I try to identify habits I could change that are good for the earth and good for my health and wellbeing. I see this not as avoiding eco guilt, but as making change that makes my life better, because, as David Suzuki says in the recent documentary, Force of Nature, the environment is part of me, and I am part of it. Choices that protect our world enrich me, today and in the future.

Here are five things I’m trying to change in my life right now.

1. Bring my lunch. In an attempt to dramatically reduce the packaging I use, I’m going to try to bring my lunch to work every day. I’ve tried before and I can tell you, this one is a real challenge for me, but there aren’t many healthy lunch options near my workplace, and many take-out eateries still use petroleum-based packaging such as plastic boxes and cutlery, and styrofoam.
Make it fun: Bringing my lunch doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get outside for some fresh air and sunshine!

2. Make my own cuppa. I often make my own tea at work, but I’m going to do this all the time so I don’t end up with a paper cup. I’ve also brought in a jar of granulated maple sugar from Gibbons Family Farm near Frankville in Eastern Ontario. No more paper sugar packets!
Make it fun: I like to splurge on fair trade, organic tea in delicious flavours!

3. Drive OR carpool to work every day. Once in a while I end up driving by myself. I’m trying to avoid that, since I have transit and carpool options.
Make it fun: Walking is a healthier way to get there; whenever I make time to walk, I always see interesting things on my journey. I’ll try to build in some time to walk to my appointments, even if I’m just getting off the subway a stop earlier.

4. Commit to my butcher. My partner and I eat vegetarian several nights a week, but we are meat eaters. I believe it’s possible to do so sustainably, but it means ensuring that the animals were raised locally on smaller-scale farms, and it means eating beef and pork less often than fowl. I’ve found an environmentally minded butcher on my transit route home from work.
Make it fun: My butcher often has interesting marinades and spice blends I don’t use at home, so I’ll give them a whirl!

5. Review my investments. I don’t do a lot of investing – right now I’m focusing on paying off my mortgage – but I will make time to review the holdings of the funds I have to ensure I don’t own any mining and mineral stocks, nor any companies I suspect are eco offenders.
Make it fun: Well, I’m not really sure how to make this one fun, but I’ll get a sense of satisfaction knowing that I’m not investing in environmental exploitation!

What do you think? Which of our common habits is hardest on the environment, and how can we do better?

I haven’t brought a plastic shopping bag home in a very long time now, but I’ve noticed that my garbage pail still has a lot of plastic bags in it: bags that have housed foods such as bagels, carrots, rice and milk.

Of course I try to avoid buying things that come in bags — my food delivery service is great about using paper bags for produce such as potatoes and beans — but it’s not always easy. Besides, I’ve recently realized that those bags can come in handy in a second life.

While visiting my grandma and my aunt recently, I asked if they had any tips for keeping carrots crisp. I love the sweet, crunchy snap of fresh carrots, but I’d found that after 12 hours or so in the crisper, they would always become a bit wobbly. My family-endorsed solution was simple: put carrots in a plastic bag. When I said I didn’t have any — that I’d been using reuseable bags for a long time now – they pointed out all the other sources of plastic bags I’d be likely to have. And it worked — my carrots now stay crisp for a week or more. (I can’t say how long they last, really — they get eaten too soon!)

If this reusing idea seems a little gross, know that I often rinse out my bags with a little soap and water, then turn them inside out to dry. But a good bag – perhaps one with a resealable closure – could come in handy in a few other ways.

Here are more ideas for reusing plastic food bags:

- Take them to the farmers’ market or grocery store to collect produce such as potatoes, apples, beans and more.
- Pack your lunch in them. Cleaned up milk bags are great for sandwiches; just slit open the end, then clip or tape them shut.
- Use them to pre-portion snacks for your purse, or for the kids
- Drape them over frost-sensitive plants on cold nights.

Do you have any more ideas for reusing plastic bags?

I’m no eco saint when it comes to electronics. While I don’t go through devices as fast as some people I know, I am a bit of a computer nerd and I love to understand and use the latest and greatest (no, I don’t have an iPad, although I’d love one).

But electronics require many metals, plastics and other things we commonly extract from the earth, and they’re usually made, and shipped, a long way from home. Those facts hit my top two environmental concerns: habitat degradation and carbon emissions.

How can we lessen the effects of our global obsession with TVs, phones, computers, and all those other must-have digital gadgets? First, we can try to squeeze life out of them by getting them fixed when they break, passing along old computers and other electronics along to others who can use them when we’re through, and, finally, recycling them when they’re no longer of any use to anyone.

And that’s where Chuck and Vince come in. Some municipalities are getting into free curb-side electronics recycling, including the City of Toronto. I’ve heard that this hilarious pair actually does work for the city. Thanks, Chuck and Vince, for showing us what we can recycle!

I joined leagues of litter-gatherers yesterday in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, a national event held each September. I registered to join cleaner-uppers at David A. Balfour park in Toronto, one of dozens of the city’s sites that were cleaned up yesterday.

I’ve never seen a bunch of people so happy to be picking up trash. As we braved the stream, muddied our clothes and broke a sweat lugging heavy garbage around, we were grossed out by what people had tossed in the park, but delighted in our achievement: making the park a nicer place for everyone and everything.

For me it was more than that – it felt really nice to be among a group of like-minded people, concerned not only with the trash but with the wildlife trying to make a go of it in a city ravine, and in awe of the natural beauty all around us. I’ll be back next year for more shoreline cleanups!

So what kinds of garbage did I pick from the mud, the stream, from among the forest-floor vegetation? All kinds of litter people had thoughtlessly tossed from a bridge, from their car, let slip from their hands. The trash included:
- Cigarette butts and filters (the No. 1 type of litter picked up in 2009)
- Plastic packaging from cigarette cartons
- Beverage bottles and cans
- Plastic bags
- Many bottles’ worth of broken glass (I really tried to pick up all the little shards, motivated by the image an fox running through the park, slicing its paw on the glass)
- Plastic straws (Remind me why we need those?)
- Bits of clothing
- Part of an aluminum bed frame
- The base for a construction sign
- Bits of plant pots, plant trays and plant markers

I often do little garbage cleanups of my own. Click here to read my previous post on the gear you need to do your own.

Have you ever helped clean up a public space?
Do you have any ideas about how we can reduce the amount of litter in our communities?

Across Canada, teams are getting ready to clean up our shorelines (and parks, ravines and more) in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. I’ve signed up to help clean up litter in Toronto’s David A Balfour Park, which is where the Yellow River flows through to the St. Clair Viaduct.

The Shoreline Cleanup, a partnership of World Wildlife Federation and the Vancouver Aquarium, this year sponsored by Loblaw, has been running since 2003. Last year, the largest cleanup effort yet, nearly 57,000 volunteers cleaned up 1,568 sites, cleaned across 2,457 km and collected 15,930 bags of garbage. When I look at their list of top items collected, it’s surprising how many of those are related to smoking: The top collected item was cigarette butts and filters (367,010 of them in 2009), but tobacco packaging and cigar tips also show up on the list. Eco villains plastic bags (74,276) and small plastic beverage bottles (37,618) also took prominent spots on the list. Let’s hope the number of plastic bags is down this year as many cities have banned or imposed a surcharge on them.

It’s easy to participate removing trash from the environment: just visit the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup website and register for a cleanup near you. And hope for good weather!

Depending on what’s recyclable in your municipality, choosing better packaging can mean less in the landfill. Here are 10 switches you can make:

1. Choose juice boxes over juice pouches. When shopping for back-to-school lunch items, go for juice boxes. Tetra paks are recyclable in many areas, while pouches are not.

2. Select loose tea or tea in paper tea bags over pyramid bags. Loose tea and conventional tea bags can be composted or added to your green bin, whereas pyramid bags, often made with nylon, have to go in the garbage. See my earlier post on this here.

3. Try milk cartons over milk bags. I wasn’t sure about this one, since it no doubt takes more energy to produce a carton than a bag. But, at least where I live, cartons can be recycled while bags cannot.

4. Choose popcorn over chips. OK, this might be harder if you really love chips, but chip bags and tubes aren’t recyclable, whereas microwave popcorn bags can actually be composted, and air-popped popcorn has no waste at all (especially if you buy the popcorn in bulk using a reuseable bag, such as this type. Besides, popcorn is a healthy whole grain, so as long as you take it easy on the butter, your waistline will thank you for making the switch!

5. Go for cookies loose in a bag, or make your own. Plastic cookie trays (and cracker trays) are not recyclable.

6. Buy loose fruit and vegetables. Plastic clamshell packaging isn’t always recyclable, and when loose produce is available you can pick and choose each piece and reduce your plastic consumption. Skip the thin plastic bags at the store and put your produce in one of these reusable options.

7. Buy meat from the butcher counter. Skip the foam trays and plastic wrap and get your (locally raised) meats wrapped in butcher paper. While some places can recycle the foam trays, the little absorbent pad that goes under the meat is simply garbage.

8. Select eggs in paper cartons. Again, many municipalities can’t recycle plastic egg cartons, and foam cartons may be recyclable but are made from petroleum. Paper egg cartons are often made from recycled paper! Alternatively, you can use paper egg cartons for seed starting.

9. Paper trumps plastic for bread. Not only are plastic bread bags not recyclable, nor are those little clips that hold the bag shut.

Do you have any tips on shopping a little greener?

Let’s share our garbage-reduction tips. I have a great prize in store for your winning idea!

I’ll share mine first, to get you started.

In the past I’ve had trouble keeping some kinds of packages out of the garbage because of the stuff left in them. But these days I’m trying to use my green bin to the fullest, and that means getting icky spoiled food out of the bottom of containers so I can send the spoiled food for composting and the container it was in to be recycled.

During Toronto’s garbage strike last year, I started freezing my green bin material; a big part of my freezer was devoted to waste by the time the strike was over. I learned something: when you don’t put smelly stuff in your green bin – particularly in summer – raccoons won’t tip over your bin in the middle of the night and make a big stinky mess.

So I started freezing my green bin waste regularly, taking it from the freezer to the bin on collection morning. And I also found that freezing leftover, spoiled dips and sauces, the remainders of pie stuck to a pie plate, and other food I should have eaten earlier makes it a lot easier to separate the food from its package. Last night I took a spoiled container of hummus out of the freezer, and I just stuck a (dull) knife into it and pulled, and the whole disc of frozen hummus popped out at once. Shhhhpock! I put it into the green bin and put the hummus container in the blue bin.

So there’s my tip for keeping more food – and containers – out of the garbage (while thwarting raccoons). Do you have a garbage-reduction tip to share?

I have a great prize to get you started. The Eco-Clean Deck by Annie B. Bond (Random House, $18.99) is not a book, it’s a deck of tabbed cards with recipes for homemade green-cleaning solutions.

Instructions: Simply post a garbage-collection tip below to win. That’s it!

Rules: You must live in Canada and be at least the age of majority for the province or territory in which you live. Not open to employees of Transcontinental media, nor their families or anyone they live with. Prize will be drawn randomly from all entrants who comment with a garbage-reduction tip. Contest closes Monday, July 19 at 12 p.m. EST.

Good luck! I’m looking forward to hearing your tips!

Communication about a new “eco fee” on some goods sold in Ontario has been less than stellar. I’m usually contacted about environment-related announcements, and I’m always on the lookout for this kind of information. But I didn’t know about this program until it was mentioned on the TV news last night; the news crew showed people at a hardware store surprised by the new eco fee on their receipt. It seems that all we’re hearing from the government about it is, “This is not a tax.” OK fine, but what, specifically is the fee meant to do?

Here’s what I’ve learned so far: On July 1, Stewardship Ontario launched the “Orange Drop” program, a hazardous waste collection program. Consumers in Ontario will now be asked to take household hazardous waste to a collection point, and we will also see an “eco fee” added to the purchase of 22 types of goods, from household detergents to fire extinguishers, syringes to pharmaceuticals.

From what Stewardship Ontario says, I’m gathering that the program’s reason for being is to more effectively divert hazardous waste out of landfills, and safely handle hazardous waste. Of course this is a very good thing in terms of protecting our water supply, among other benefits. The program provides drop sites across Ontario for our hazardous waste; you can search for sites here. That’s a lot more convenient than the infrequent collection opportunities offered by some municipal governments. Who wants to keep that kind of waste around for several months?

The fee side of the program is applied to companies’ products to cover collection, transportation and processing of this hazardous waste, essentially spent containers and other product packaging of various kinds. The fees Stewardship Ontario is charging each company are based on the number of units of product they distribute in the Ontario marketplace; the fee amounts are approved by the Ontario minister of the environment. So why are fees showing up when you buy certain goods? It appears that some companies have decided to pass the fee on directly to the consumer.

So how will we know if the program is really keeping hazardous goods out of landfills? And how will the nasty waste be dealt with exactly? I’ll pose that question and get back to you!