Vibrant Green Inspiration from the Bronx

The vision, passion and energy of this teacher is truly inspiring! All of you will feel full of hope and enthusiasm after watching this TED talk given by Stephen Ritz, a teacher who empowered children and youth by connecting them to the beauty of seeds and growing food. Their efforts have evolved into the Green Box Machine and his story on the efforts of his kids is a thrill to watch!

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?

Pitch In Britannia - pt 2

Yesterday, the Latin American Youth came out and did their part for our Green Team by donning pretty green gloves and helping to clean up the side streets around our complex.

Many thanks to our Pitch In Britannia volunteers Maria, Leilany, Kadeesha, Jorge, Ricardo, Alexis, Manuel, Brenda!

In less than an hour we were able to clean up litter from 10 blocks nearby, and once everything was compiled we had 3 full bags of garbage, and a bag of things to recycle as well.

With all hands in we were able to make a small difference for our community and be a part of the Pitch In Canada week as well.

Who's up for another clean up event in May so we can be a part of Keep Vancouver Spectacular month?

Let's talk about bins

Over the Earth Day weekend I enlisted my family to participate in the Green City Race, organized by Evergreen (an uber cool environmental group that brings amazing green projects to cities and schools across Canada). I wrote about our amazing family adventure in my Tales of a Green City Racer on our family blog, but I first want to thank Sandy and Kia (Info Centre staff extraordinaire) who both took a quick turn trying to help us answer clues on our racing journey.

As our cell phones are not the smart kind we needed 'phone-a-friend' back ups with internet access that we could call upon. In true Green Team spirit they both patiently tried to look up what we needed to move on when we called - and our family really appreciated them sharing a moment to help keep us going! :)

Not only was my Green Team brain actively imagining all the wonderful places that could be mapped out around Britannia for a similar community-scale green race event (one day my friends), I also found myself thinking about our recycling challenges!

One way we could earn bonus points during the race was to take pictures of at least one teammate posing with an item from their recommended list - and one was 'posing with various garbage/recycling containers'. So, I actually had a reason to take pictures of garbage and recycling bins that day (as opposed to all the times I do it just for fun)!

If  I could wave a magic wand to transform the Britannia complex into a landscape of holistic waste management that everyone could love, the number one thing I would wish to appear with a blink of an eye is containers everywhere they are needed.

Alas, I have no fairy magic. I pretend I do every day with my daughter, but haven't yet figured out how to make my fairy magic abilities into 'reality'.

There is magic in the sharing of ideas though, so here is where I ask all of you green keeners to recommend what kind of bins and things we might want to consider as possibilities for our site.

I'll start the discussion off by sharing random photos of some of my favourite bins, and you can all share your comments below with what you like, or don't and why. While it's all hypothetical is the perfect time to air out all the pros and cons of each bin model, and perhaps have fun with the debate around them.

Today I'll start with bins we need for the public spaces on our site. Don't worry, I will get to the bins we need for staff areas and other spaces (and compost bins too) in another post or three that I know you all can't wait for! ;P


People that use the various facilities on site have nowhere to recycle most things. We have vending machines on site, but not a lot of places for people to recycle those drink containers unless they ask the staff.

We have places for people to sit and read, but nowhere for them to recycle their newspapers unless they are in the library.

It should be easy for the users of our facilities to dispose of things responsibly and by increasing the number of bins, odds are they actually will. So an option I would love to see in public areas is something similar to:this RIO*CAN model on the left; a simple 3 bin option found in Creekside Community Centre;

or one of these totally awesome Big Belly Solar Trash Compactors with side attachment for recyclables.







Please don't be shy about sharing photos of your own favourite bins! What do you think of a something like this one that Robert shared with me?

Our community complex is also full of people during the year when we host our amazing events like the upcoming Stone Soup Festival. So what do you think of a Zero Waste Station like this one for Britannia events?






Many people say "why not just call the City and order some bins?" - but actually placing bins on site is only one part of the solution. I have realized this topic is one of many opinions, so we might as well get the dialogue going around these things together in various ways (like here on this blog where comment threads can provide space to unravel ideas), and once we've contemplated what kind of bins we need and why, we can start to consider what will be needed to deal with any of these potential new bins on site.

While working our way towards something truly magical - the perfect place to dispose of every thing in a convenient way. I aim to work with all the varying relationships and community partnerships on site, because it is due to all of them together that make this place so amazing. By showing respect and consideration, we can ensure this change will be a stable, happy and long lasting one. 

So what do your dream recycle bins look like? C'mon...I can't be the only one that dreams about this stuff can I?
Even if you don't dream about it, your thoughts are still welcome here - so share away green keeners!