Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

Now is your chance to get rid of those hazardous materials in your house. 

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management service (CSWM) is hosting household hazardous waste drop off days in both the Comox Valley and Campbell River.  The events will be held on Saturday, May 29th in the parking lot of the Driftwood Mall in Courtenay from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and in Campbell River on Saturday, June 5th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the parking lot behind the Ironwood Mall.

CSWM will be enlisting the services of HAZCO Environmental Services to manage these events. Acceptable materials include household hazardous waste items such as solvents, pesticides, gasoline, cleaners and batteries. For full details on the hazardous waste drop off events visit comoxvalleyrd.ca.

Items that can be diverted to other locations will not be accepted at the hazardous waste clean up event.

·         Residents can return paint in its original container to the Comox Return Centre – Paint Exchange at 678 Anderton Road, Comox or to the Campbell River Bottle Depot at 1580F Willow Street.  However, paint that is not deemed acceptable by these facilities will be accepted at the clean up events. 

·         Electronics can be returned to the Courtenay Return Centre on 1255 McPhee Avenue, and also to  the Campbell River Bottle Depot

·         Oil and oil containers can be returned to locations that are listed on www.usedoilrecycling.com

For more information on recycling other material and to find the closest recycling location to you call the Recycling Hotline at 1-800-667-4321.

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service is a function of the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) and is responsible for two regional waste management centres that serve the Comox Valley and Campbell River, as well as a range of transfer stations and smaller waste-handling and recycling facilities for the electoral areas of the CVRD and the Strathcona Regional District. The CSWM service manages over 100,000 tonnes of waste and recycled material and oversees a number of diversion and education programs. 
Media contact:
Koreen Gurak
Manager of communications
Comox Valley Regional District
Tel: 250-334-6066

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service invites residents to the Comox Valley compost education centre this month for free workshops covering a variety of gardening and lawn care topics.    

The Saturday workshop topics will cover creating healthy soil for healthy plants with Ron McNaughton from Trumpeters Landscaping and container growing with a demonstration by Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) contract educator Patty Rose. Wrapping up the month, the centre will host guest speaker Anthea Kennelly from the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) who will discuss the nutritional importance of fresh produce for a healthy community.   

Each workshop will start at 10 a.m. at the compost education centre located at 4795 Headquarters Road, Courtenay.   

In addition to the workshops, Megan Halstead A. AG., from the Garden Institute of BC Urban Agriculture project, will be on-site on Saturday May 15 and May 22 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to answer any of your gardening questions.   

Workshop Dates and Topics 

May 15 – Ron McNaughton of Trumpeters Landscaping shares his knowledge on amending your soil organically as part of the CVRD Nature Works pesticide awareness education program.   

May 22 –Patty Rose, CVRD contractor educator will discuss how to grow vegetables and herbs in small spaces.  No garden is too small try container growing.   

May 29 – Anthea Kennelly from VIHA will discuss nutrition in fresh produce and participates can receive a free package of organic vegetable seeds when they join the pledge to “Plant A Row – Grow A Row” for the local Food Bank.  Master Gardeners will be on-site throughout the day to assist in planting techniques of seeds and seedlings.  

For more information on workshops and presentations delivered through the CSWM’s compost education centres including this month’s features visit www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/backyardcomposting .

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service is a function of the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) and is responsible for two regional waste management centres that serve the Comox Valley and Campbell River, as well as a range of transfer stations and smaller waste-handling and recycling facilities for the electoral areas of the CVRD and the Strathcona Regional District. The CSWM service manages over 100,000 tonnes of waste and recycled material and oversees a number of diversion and education programs. 

Media contact:
Koreen Gurak
Manager of communications
Comox Valley Regional District
Tel: 250-334-6066

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service welcomes Vancouver Island author Carolyn Herriot to the Comox Valley and Campbell River this weekend for an engaging presentation on her personal experiences as written in the release of her new book ‘The Zero-Mile Diet’.    

The ‘Zero Mile Diet’ follows a year of sustainable, home-grown food production – growing healthy organic food, eating seasonal recipes from the garden, saving seeds for future harvests and preparing food for the winter.  She teaches audiences that growing the ‘Zero Mile Diet’ is a fun way to increase food security and an opportunity to contribute to regional food production while taking a load off the planet to grow more food.   

Carolyn will be visiting the CSWM’s Comox Valley compost education centre (4795 Headquarters Road, Courtenay)Saturday May 8 at 10:00 a.m. and will present an afternoon session starting at 2:00 p.m. at the City of Campbell River’s community centre (401 - 11th Ave.).  The session in the Comox Valley will be presented outdoors whereas in Campbell River it will be in the lounge at the community centre therefore pre-registration is required by contacting Strathcona Gardens at 250-287-9234 ext. 0. 

Carolyn Herriot is also the author of ‘A Year on the Garden Path, a 52-Week Organic Gardening Guide’.  She is a well-known columnist for GardenWise and CommonGround magazines.  After 20 years operating The Garden Path nursery she now grows certified organic ‘Seeds of Victoria’ at The Garden Path in Victoria. Carolyn’s new book ‘The Zero Mile Diet – A Year-round Guide to Growing Great Organic Food’ (Harbour Publishing) was released in April 2010.

For more information on workshops and presentation delivered through the CSWM’s compost education centres including this weekend’s feature the ‘Zero-Mile Diet’ visit www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/backyardcomposting .

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service is a function of the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) and is responsible for two regional waste management centres that serve the Comox Valley and Campbell River, as well as a range of transfer stations and smaller waste-handling and recycling facilities for the electoral areas of the CVRD and the Strathcona Regional District. The CSWM service manages over 100,000 tonnes of waste and recycled material and oversees a number of diversion and education programs. 

Media contact:
Koreen Gurak
Manager of communications
Comox Valley Regional District
Tel: 250-334-6066

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So I've given these re-useable produce bags a try the last few times I've been grocery shopping. They definitely work well and turn a lot of  heads in the broccoli isle. I'm actually very impressed with these little bags called TazzyTotes. I use them for a majority of my shopping in the produce section and I even put a couple  Chorizo sausages in one to see how well it worked for deli stuff. The woman behind the deli counter was confused, "can we use this... is this legal... is it food safe?" "That's an interesting question," I replied. "I promise I won't sue you for living on the edge."

It's really amazing to look around the grocery store and see all of the packaging, I mean, actually see it for what it is. It's insanity. When I got home with my reusable bags and put them in the fridge, I went out to the garage and perused my overloaded recycling bins. About 95% of the stuff in my bins is food packaging. I'm not sure what to say about that except I think something is wrong with this picture.

Food security is a huge issue in our country and you only have to contract dysentery once to figure out why. Clean food is not something we really have to think about every day, save the listeria outbreak last year in Maple Leaf meat products.  The thing that bothers me the most though is our obsession with wrapping foods, even vegetables, into a state of total plasticity. Fancy plastic packaging is taking over what used to be a very natural and  "organic" daily routine.

When the woman at the deli counter contemplated the possibility of being fired for giving me two pieces of dried meat in my own bag, I had to give my head a shake. Our society is so safe that we can walk around like a bunch of lemmings and never really worry about falling over a ledge. It is possible to go through the day to day in Canada without actually being present until American Idol comes on and you need to wake up and become an expert singing judge for an hour. The Canadian legal system has done a very efficient job of separating our own consciousness from reality. Especially when it comes to grocery shopping.

For me, the grocery store is like a zombie land most of the time. I walk around there, buy stuff, and I don't really know where I've been until I arrive home. It's at that point I snap out of my consumer hypnosis and remember the organic green onions in the thick plastic bags saying ,"buy me I'm organic and pretty," the cauliflower saying "I can double as a bowling ball and I promise that I'm tasty," the California strawberries saying "we're flavorless and watery so that's why we need a plastic fish tank to keep us together in shipping... buy us anyways"  Really, where's the choice when the produce talks to you. Our brains are being buried in synthetic marketing.

We just need to wake up and make the experience of shopping a discerning process again. At the very least, talk back when we're being told what to do by a pile of plastic wrapped cucumbers. Maybe if we peel all of the plastic off the vegetables before we buy them, the stores will put pressure on the suppliers to stop sending veggies wrapped in petroleum products.  The grocery store would amass so much garbage that things would have to change. Give a reusable bag a try next time you go shopping, they don't talk back I promise.