The Garbage Patch

Do you know where a bunch of plastic garbage ends up? Floating in the Pacific Ocean!

Here's a quick video that summarizes where it is, how it gets there, and why this is a very big problem.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch from Project GreenBag on Vimeo.

Visit www.greatgarbagepatch.org to learn more.

Sustaining Our World - 2012 Highlights

The day was a little on the grey and drizzly side, but a little rainshine didn't stop our fun setting up the Sustainability Fair in the Britannia cafeteria! :)

We had a Creativity Zone for making crafty items with a wide array of recyled materials, a seed station, an area for mapping green stuff in the neighbourhood, a screening area for sustainability shorts (such as the Story of Stuff series), and we even had music to boogy to which was solar powered courtesy of the Vancouver Renewable Energy Cooperative!

 

We were also happy to have volunteers from Free Geek and BC Hydro who came out to share information and many fantastic ideas!

The highlight of the day was having two great teams signed up for the inaugural Britannia Race to Zero Waste - 'Felipe Squared' and the 'GangGreens' who brought plenty of keen-to-be-green team spirit!! Yay!

The whirlwind race had the teams following clues and completing challenges providing a tour of some great green intitiatives and inspiration in our community!

To highlight the food gardens that some of our students have helped to grow we began the race at the Britannia Urban Garden (BUG). The first challenge was turning compost with our food security guru Ian Marcuse.

Once their first task was complete they had to find the living wall at Grandview Park and let us know when it was unveiled. Those who live close by will know the park was re-opened in 2011, but how many have even noticed the lovely greenery outside the new washrooms?

The next clue was to find the business that sells 100% sustainable seafood and tell us what certification they require for all their seafood products. If you have yet to enjoy a fishy treat from The Daily Catch you may want to learn more about Ocean Wise which ensures that seafood is harvested in sustainable ways (no overfishing, no habitat destruction, etc)...and that's all they sell here!

Keeping the focus on water and shifting to conservation ideas, teams faced their next challenge at Victoria Park. Each member of the team had to take turns running water from one bucket to the other with a sponge and trying to lose as little as possible. Once all the water had successfully been transferred from one end to the other, they were off again!

Now they're on the lookout for a home that has taken advantage of new city by-law allowing backyard chickens. The generosity of people in this neighbourhood never ceases to amaze me as we actually had a family that welcomed our racers to explore their back yard counting chickens so they could tell us how many they saw before receiving their next clue. Though they have 7 chickens both teams only found 3 outside enjoying the misty air that day. Here's 2 that stood still long enough for a photo op ;)

The next clue was an investigation of savvy green re-design. Our local hub for theatre, The Cultch, is a historical building that has recently received a facelift. They now aim to be one of the first LEED certified arts centres in Canada. Teams had to tell us what LEED stands for to earn the next clue. Do you know what it means? Well, just in case you don't - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Around the corner teams were next on the hunt to find out who funded the herb garden at the corner of Adanac and Salsbury? Those of you with creative ideas for small neighbourhood projects might appreciate the 'Small is Beautiful' mindset of the Vancouver Foundation and their Neighbourhood Small Grants that have helped to fund small gardens such as this one, as well as community programming and other great projects. What bright green ideas could you use a small dose of seed money to help bring to life? 


Back on the Drive teams then had to find the place where clothing and household items are given a new life while helping a social enterprise supporting Women Working with Women. What is the name of this business? misc'cel'la'ny
 

If you've ever felt like you're swimming in garbage then the last challenge was for you! Set up near the pool teams had to sort a bag of garbage to see how much they could save from the landfill by sorting the waste into recycle and compost alternatives.

Along the way the teams were able to earn extra points by answering bonus questions, such as "what kind of alternative energy can you find on the fence beside the WISE Hall?", as well as for taking pictures of a team member with something from the list we provided. The GangGreens provide a couple of great examples with team members standing next to a recycling container and next to a vehicle that belongs to a car share program such as Modo, Zip or Car2Go.

 

We would really like to thank our racers for taking on the challenge and being the first to complete a Britannia Race to Zero Waste! Both teams completed the race with incredible speed and awesome team work! Thanks to People's Co-op Bookstore and Havana for their support and contributions to our prizes for the winners!

 Saving the best for last - all great events require many helping hands to pull off, so our organizing team is full of gratitude for all of the volunteers who came out to help us celebrate the day! (We're sorry some volunteers had left before we thought of the group photo idea!)

  

A couple of months ago we had an idea to organize an event that focused on Sustaining Our World, and we are happy with the day we were able to provide. And we are already planning for next years event so we can showcase even more amazing efforts being made at the local level - this community is full of them! :D

Many thanks to Latin American Youth Project and Britannia Secondary Environmental Club for helping the Britannia Green Team with a great day!

The Clean Bin Project

The easiest way to manage waste is simply not to create any, right? Well, the Clean Bin Project began as a competition between a couple and their roommate to see who could produce the least amount of trash in a year, and their movie highlights how difficult this actually is. Here's the trailer for your break time viewing pleasure.



You won't be surprised to find out these green keeners are Vancouverites, and their web site has lots of great resources on waste reduction for all of us. cleanbinproject.com

One of my favourite posts was the response Jen writes to a question she hears all the time when presenting to students in schools: "What can I Do? I'm only a kid!"

This post has a list of great ideas everyone can do and great ideas some Britannia youth may want to try out. The Green Team is here to help! : )

I have found #6 on the list, which is to do one new thing until it becomes habit (and then another and another...), has been our family key to success in the steady reduction of our waste each year. Plastic reduction became a particular obsession when we did a family walk around our neighbourhood one day (a few years back) to pick up all the plastic garbage we found. After 4 blocks we had 2 full bags of random plastic bits! We try to bring as little packaging into our home as possible, and also to make sure what packaging we do obtain is recyclable. Maybe one day I'll even be able to get my family to do a clean bin project too! How about your household?

What are your favourite tips and tricks for reducing waste at home?

Creative views on plastic for you to view

Here are a few video treats to enjoy on your next coffee break.

One Plastic Beach highlights the creative life journey of one couple who make art from the tons of plastic they collect from a 1 km stretch of beach near their home which they have enjoyed since their first date. This clip provides a lot of wisdom and inspiration in under 8 minutes, and might even help you see some beauty in plastic bits washing up on our shores. If only every kilometer of beach had artists lovingly searching for trash they can turn into treasures!


One Plastic Beach from High Beam Media on Vimeo

The Majestic Plastic Bag is a 4 min satirical mockumentary which examines the life of "one of the most clever and illustrious of creatures: the plastic bag".



Then finish off with a very quick Plastic Seduction before you get back to work. ;)

random recycling we do

In the spring I took a walk around to talk staff in all the areas of the complex and find out what was happening with our recycling for starters.

Here are some photos of some of the random recycling we have around our centre. Aside from the paper recycling bins, the majority of recyclable stuff saved from the trash has been going home with staff as it is not picked up by the City here on site.

The Preteen Centre

The Skating Rink

 In the lane

Hastings Education Centre

The library has an all-star team who not only minimize the waste in their area, they compete on who is reducing their waste the most at home! That's the kind of green team spirit we love!!

Pool

Info Centre

For us to improve on all this we need some new containers to keep things organized, and for staff to do their part in making sure things are put in the right containers. Cross contamination and pest problems (like ants!) are easily mitigated by taking amoment to think about what you are putting where and making sure food and drink containers are rinsed. None of us need to be green police keeping a watchful eye on each other if we all take responsibility for what we put in the containers ourselves!

The City of Vancouver is working on transitioning 30 libraries and community centres into Zero Waste zones very soon, and one day Britannia and all the other public sites will be set up too. For now we are implementing things on a trial basis so we can see how much work this actually creates as well as make the transistion easier when its time for us to join in.

Busch Systems is the company that the City has chosen to purchase these waste reduction zone bins from, and they have created a little video to showcase the ease of their systems.

Before we order our bins and get things going, I've been making my way around to all of the various areas of our centre to make sure each area will get what it needs, and looking into various means of pick up for the waste reduction streams to travel off site. I will post more when the system is ready to roll!

One thing the Green Team would love to hear some comments on is how we should deal with bottles and cans?  Currently we have an informal economy of recyclables like these just being left outside for binners to collect as they pass through. (Gone in no time) This is efficient and fulfills a need in our community...so do we bother trying to implement bins and recycle pick up for them?
The students also set up collection programs to make money in the school year, but sometimes this leads to bags of cans accumulating and leaving sweet trails for ants to follow and no one wanting to take responsibility for them while students are out of school...so should we put all of our cans outside for the binners instead?
Don't bottle up those feelings on cans! Please share your thoughts in the comments!

What does your water taste like?

The Britannia Healthy Eating Committee has been exploring healthy vending machine options and wondered if bottled water is really necessary in a facility with water fountains. I stumbled upon this image and wondered if perhaps we should have a water taste test challenge as a means to educate and engage our community on local water quality and plastic waste problem that bottled water creates. What do you think green keeners?