Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

A whole new season of The Power Of R is firing up this September and I'm taking bookings right now for free classroom and school presentations in the 2010-2011 school year. I'm looking really forward to making an impact together with the youth of School District 71 and 72 this year. Power Of R presentations and workshops can be specifically designed to work with your curriculum and PLO's so you don't fall behind schedule. Please ask about this option.  If you would like me to speak with your class please send an email to: powerofr@gmail.com. I'm looking really forward to booking with you soon. Photo by: Tash Baycroft

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

Franco Noviello of Shaw TV shot this story about Disposable - The Billion Cup Blood Bath. We're really excited about the trailer and the action people are taking to eliminate the use of disposable cups in their life. In this story Franco interviews some of the actors and creators of the special effects used in the short.

Watch this story and then see the full trailer by clicking here

It’s amazing how many batteries we actually use. It seems like everything these days is powered by a battery of some kind. Laptops, ipods, cameras, toys, flashlights, and watches are used in many households. The scary thing is that these amazing technologies, that fuel our appetite for batteries, are filling our landfills with poisons.  I’m not saying stop using electronics but I am saying let’s make sure that the dead batteries that run our gadgets stay far away from the landfill.

I found a few old batteries in my garage. You’ve likely seen old batteries before but it only adds to my point of being diligent with your disposal practices. Batteries contain different chemicals that can cause explosions and even burn holes in your skin. That’s not pretty. The batteries here in the picture are the most common sizes. Billions of them enter landfills each year around the world. I don’t know about you but that freaks me right out.

When a battery goes in the landfill it doesn’t take long before its metal casing gets crushed by heavy objects, it rusts in the rain, and then corrodes enough to release the toxic paste inside. The toxic paste dissolves into rain and ground water. Once the poison is in the water, animals and humans might drink it and contract cancer or sickness from the dissolved poison crystals.  

Collect your old batteries in a cardboard box and make sure that they don’t get thrown into the landfill. If you go to a school that has a battery collection program make sure you support it. Tell your friends and family about the dangers of batteries in the landfill. Once your battery box is full or every six months, take the dead batteries to your local Waste Management Centre recycling area. You don’t want to have batteries like the ones in the picture above lying around your home.

I’m really proud of all the schools that are participating in this program. Keep up the great work!

When I returned home from Cairo last year I began to see my world differently.  After witnessing the diligent activity of thousands of people harvesting, sorting and recycling garbage in Mokattam Village, or “Garbage City” as it is known around the world, it was hard not to be inspired every time I looked at a recycling box. Cairo is one of the fastest growing cities in the world with an estimated 15 to 20 million people. It produces a significant amount of waste that is collected each day by residents of Garbage City in donkey carts and run down trucks. The people of Mokattam have been doing this line of work for over 100 years. They recycle 80% of the waste stream by sorting the garbage into compost, saleable plastics, metals and fiber products like paper and wood. This incredible operation doesn’t cost Cairo a single cent and it’s arguably the most successful recycling program in the world. Now it’s all about to end because Cairo wants to be seen as a modern city.

Cairo is buying contracts with multinational companies to dispose of the waste in trucks that forces the master recyclers of Mokattam to find a new line of work. This backward story follows three boys through a complex, disheartening, and inspiring documentary of hope for the world’s future. It leaves you facing tough questions like: why would any city want to pay for garbage trucks when it has an entire suburb economy living on what Mokattam calls “a precious resource” and “a way of life?” There is a lesson in this documentary that the world needs to see to believe and there are messages we all need to enact before collectively burying our future with our waste.

Thanks to the initiative of World Community Development Education Society, the BC Council for International Cooperation, and The Power Of R, we were able to present an exclusive screening of Garbage Dreams to hundreds of Comox Valley students at Sid Williams Theatre in February 2010. I had the honour of speaking at the event, introducing the film and leading a Q&A discussion after the screening.

Garbage Dreams is a remarkable film that captures the essence of life in Mokattam Village and dives headlong into the politics of solid waste in Cairo and Europe. This special screening, that opened the annual World Community Film Festival, was an eye opening success. It sparked conversations for weeks after the event in schools and it gave every attending student a new appreciation for the value of what we throw away on a daily basis. Garbage is not garbage at all; it’s a renewable resource that is incredibly lucrative if it is handled properly.

Garbage Dreams continues to win dozens of independent film awards and it can be seen on PBS April 27th or by purchasing a membership to the extensive World Community Video Library at the Freakin Coffee Shop in TinTown.  To find out more about the film visit http://www.garbagedreams.com/

It’s that time of year again. It’s time to figure out what to do with the dried out, needles falling off all over the place, crusty pitch ball Christmas Tree in your living room. Well, there are a few places to take your tree to dispose of it properly for a good cause.

The Town of Comox will be chipping on Saturday, January 2nd and Sunday, January 3rd from 10am-4pm. They will pick up your tree for a minimum $5 donation Comox Firehall (250-339-2432) is located on 1870 Noel Avenue in Comox.

The City of Courtenay will be chipping on Saturday, January 2nd and Sunday, January 3rd from 10am-4pm. They will pick up your tree for a minimum $5 donation Courtenay Firehall (250-334-2513) is located on 650 Cumberland Road in Courtenay.

The Village of Cumberland will be chipping on Sunday, January 3rd from 10 a.m to 3:00 p.m at the Cumberland fire department located at 2679 Dunsmuir Road in Cumberland.

Campbell River will be taking trees in two locations on Saturday, January 2nd from 10am-4pm. Drop your tree with a donation for the Campbell River Hospital Foundation at the Sportsplex on 1800 South Alder St. in Campbell River or to the #1 Firehall on 675-13th Avenue in Campbell River.

If you cannot make any of these times or location please feel free to drop your tree, free of charge, to the Comox Valley Waste Management Centre on Pidgeon Lake Road in Cumberland or at the Campbell River Waste Management Centre on 6700 Argonaut Road in Campbell River.

Christmas trees that are cut in 3ft lengths can be picked up on regular yard waste pick up days in Courtenay and Comox starting on January 4th, 2010.

Thanks for making a difference by disposing of your tree properly for a good cause.

It’s the middle of December and I'm infatuated with lettuce. Romain, Green Leaf, Red Leaf, I’ll eat it all.  In fact, I try to eat lettuce on a daily basis because it’s healthy, full of fibre, full of vitamin C, and fun to eat! It’s crunchy and it can hold an infinite number of other vegetables or dressings in salads. I can roll up my lettuce leaves to make quazi taco’s, or put it in a sandwich. There’s no questioning that lettuce is awesome and I am obviously pretty amped (excited) about it,  but lettuce is also on my mind for other reasons lately. I'm rethinking how I go about things. How I waste, what I waste and what I can do to stop wasting natural resources. At lunchtime I thought about how amazing it was to be eating fresh lettuce in December with snow on the ground.  I can't grow lettuce at this time of year and yet, I'm eating it. Then I thought about how insects like to eat lettuce and that my lettuce leaves were flawless. They were actually so perfect that my attentioned then turned to the plastic box my lettuce came in. I knew right then that this would be no ordinary lunch and rethinking a simple head of lettuce was about to get complicated.

Some lettuce comes from the USA, Mexico or other countries warmer than Canada during the autumn, winter and spring months of the year. Amazingly, lettuce can be harvested, refrigerated, shipped thousands of kilometers, and put on the shelf for us to buy in one week or less. It’s incredible really and it’s all because of oil. Burning oil is the reason we can eat lettuce all year round. Big ships can carry tons of lettuce quickly. If we tried to ship lettuce from Mexico without burning oil or gas, it would be rotten before it left the country. Even if we could ship it by bicycle, we would only be able to carry a few heads at a time. That means that burning oil is essential to my consumption of lettuce over 250 days each year. Crazy. That equates to over one hundred thousand kilometers of gas burning transportation and tons of global warming gasses in the atmosphere just because I eat lettuce almost every day.

All around the world lettuce is difficult to grow because critters, insects, slugs and molds love to eat it too. That means farmers are forced to use poisons and pesticides to keep it looking perfect so we’ll buy it in grocery stores. Anyone who’s grown lettuce in their own garden knows that it can become a leafy hotel for earwigs, spiders and all sorts of whacky bugs. Most of these bugs don’t eat the lettuce but they do enjoy living on, in or around it. Bugs are natural though. It seems really strange to put poison on our food to get rid of those bugs, doesn’t it? Sure a few bugs might be creepy at first or holes in the lettuce might seem imperfect but really, poison, is that the only solution?

Recently I’ve been purchasing organic lettuce. It’s more expensive than regular lettuce but I trust that there’s no poison on it.  When I was making a salad the other day, I noticed that my head of lettuce had six dried up, crusty, dead lady bugs in it. At first I was taken aback, but then I thought it was pretty cool. Lady bugs are predatory. They eat other bugs – especially aphids. That means that the organic farmer who grew that lettuce was using insects instead of pesticides to keep the lettuce protected from other insects. Wow! Lady bugs are cool. I still wash my lettuce well before eating it but I feel good knowing that lady bugs are in my lettuce instead of disease causing pesticides.

Organic lettuce is now being packaged in fancy plastic containers or bags. Plastic is made from oil. I’m happy to see that the plastic boxes that lettuce comes in is recycled but something still seems weird about taking an organic product and wrapping it in oil based packaging. Doesn’t it? Sure the package keeps my food clean, the label looks really fancy and the lettuce comes out of the box all fluffy and delicious but ethically, I still feel like I’m hurting the earth when I eat it. The box goes into my blue box recycling bin; I eat the glorious lettuce, and then I feel bad for eating it. Why does lettuce have to be so complicated?

When I go to the grocery store I am still mystified that the grocery store looks almost exactly the same in December as it did in the July. The fruits and vegetables that I love are all there. Rethinking how I shop has become an interesting project. I want to reduce my eco-footprint every day so now I rethink the things I buy. I am rethinking food that’s wrapped in plastic or wrapped in non-recyclable packages. I am starting to use reusable containers for store bought bulk items. I am purchasing more locally grown produce and meat because it’s not packaged in plastic and it isn't shipped great distances before I eat it; that alone saves the atmosphere from tons of greenhouse gas. Naturally, I walk or ride a bike to the store to buy food whenever I can to reduce waste, energy use and keep my car off of the busy roads. I am looking for lightweight biodegradable bags made from organic materials to put my vegetables in - do you know where I can get some?  I'm doing what I can to lower my eco-footprint but even lettuce has become intertwined with my demanding "want it now - get it now"  lifestyle. I’m used to eating it all year round because it’s available all year round. Something doesn't seem right about that.

Lettuce isn't really that complicated but our lifestyles certainly have changed how we grow, transport, package and purchase foods like  lettuce.  What do you think? How are you rethinking actions in your life to reduce your ecological footprint? Send me your stories, suggestions and ideas about local solutions to global problems. Email powerofr@gmail.com and put “RETHINK - Beyond The Blue Box” in the subject line.