What do we mean when we’re talking about textiles?
Textiles refer to flexible materials made of polymers, films, fibres, yarns or fabrics [1]. Many items we interact with daily are textiles: clothing, bedding, towels, furniture upholstery, personal protective clothing or equipment, etc. Textiles can be made of natural fibres such as cotton, wool, and silk, regenerated fibres like lyocell or acetate, or of synthetic fibres like polyester, nylon, and acrylic.
Our clothing is made up of fibres that have been spun into yarns and woven or knitted into fabrics. Alternatively, clothing can also be non-woven as is the case with felted fabrics or leather. The fibre content, yarn type, fabric construction (woven, knit, or non-woven) and construction of a textile product will all influence aspects such as the function, comfort, appearance and durability of the item. For example, rain jackets are typically made from synthetic fibres with yarns that are tightly woven for water resistance while cotton t-shirts are knitted for greater stretch and comfort. Therefore, choosing a garment that is suitable for a particular function or activity can help your clothing last longer.
Our goal is to help you understand what textiles are, how they’re made, and how those fibres/processes affect the end product and its impact on the environment.
The move from plastic or metal garbage bins to automated cart collection can be a jarring one. We’re used to filling our garbage bin on a weekly basis with bagged garbage and familiar with the volume and capacity of our bins. When carts were rolled out and garbage bins became obsolete, many wondered what to do with them — we’ve come up with a list of ideas, with contributions from members of the Waste Free Edmonton community.
Here are 15 things you can do with your old garbage bins.
Turn it into a Composter
Upcycle your old bin into a backyard composter. Check out this tutorial for more information on how!
Already have a composter? Use it to make leaf mould!
Store Leaves for Your Compost
A garbage bin is a perfect place to store excess leaves for your compost, keeping them dry and on your property to easily supplement your compost year-round. Make a composter out of one bin and use the other bins to store leaves and other organic waste!
Store Your Empties
Garbage bins are perfect for storing empty beverage containers for recycling. If you use them for your bottles, you can eliminate the need for plastic bags when bringing them into the depot! Just bring the entire bin with you and empty it there. Bring the empty bin home, give it a rinse, and you’re ready for the next bottle run!
Collect Rain
Check out this simple DIY for transforming your old bin into a rain barrel! A clever way to keep your bin from going to waste AND cut down on your water bill. Keep it out of direct sunlight to discourage any leaching from the garbage bin!
Grow Your Own Produce
Use your bin to grow your own produce! Members of our facebook group have grown potatoes and corn in theirs. Do check if the type of plastic is food safe first, and don’t forget to drill drainage holes in the bottom. You can even cut your bin in half and make two mini raised garden beds!
Keep Firewood Dry & Accessible
Use your bin to keep your firewood dry. Perhaps you already have a dedicated space for firewood that’s a bit inconvenient to get to, but you could use your bin closer to where you will use it and refill as necessary!
Additional Storage in the Garage / Garden Shed
Garbage bins are great for storing any tall, awkward items. Perfect for holding shovels, rakes, and poles! And not just garden tools — sports equipment (skis, hockey sticks) works great too.
Transform it into a DIY Cat Shelter
Edmonton winters get really cold, and the strays will be thanking you big time for this one. Insulate your bin and use it as a cat shelter; you can find lots of DIY tutorials like this one online.
Recycling Container
Just because your bin was intended for garbage, doesn’t mean that’s all it can hold! Why not use it to store your recycling that you put out for pick up? Remember to put it in a blue bag!
Transport Loose Items
Your old bin could save you tons of trouble next time you head to the Eco Station to pick up free mulch! Load it up in the garbage bin to keep it contained.
Blend Your Soil
If every spring you find yourself mixing fifty tiny batches of soil blends because you just don’t have a big enough container… this one’s for you! Use your old bin to mix your soil in the spring, or even to store your soil all year long.
Flip it Upside Down!
If you are out working in the yard or garden and find you are in need of some counter space or a raised, flat surface, you might find that your bin is actually quite handy! Flip it upside down and use the bottom of it for some extra working space.
Mouse-proof Bird Seed Container
If mice have a way of finding your bird seed or grass seed over the winter, your old garbage bin might be just what you need to keep them out! Store any such items with the lid sealed to keep critters at bay.
Give Bins to Someone New
Remember, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure! If you still have no use (or perhaps, no space!) for your old garbage bin, try to rehome it. If none of your friends or family members are interested, post it in your local Buy Nothing group, list it on Marketplace, Kijiji, or donate it to a second hand shop. Someone else is just waiting to get their hands on it! As always, when passing an item on to a new person, it is important to clean or mend it beforehand.
Bring it to the Eco Station
As a last resort, make sure your bins are taken care of properly. Dispose of your old garbage bins at the Eco Station or wherever facilities exist. Learn more here.
Many of these ideas were pulled from members of the Waste Free Edmonton Group on facebook and from comments on our “Wheel Conversations” post about garbage bins. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed and shared their ideas!
Kaz Haykowsky was one of the owners of Spruce Permaculture, a local landscape design firm that brought sustainable, restorative landscapes to front yards and green spaces around Edmonton. Permaculture is a way of thinking about the environment that embraces the connections between humans and nature. Waste Free Edmonton interviewed Kaz to learn more about permaculture, its relationship to waste reduction, and how permaculture concepts can be incorporated into everyday lifestyles.
Andrew: Let’s start with the basics: could you tell me a bit about permaculture?
Kaz: I like to describe permaculture as a system of design that is inspired by nature, by patterns we see in nature, and how nature solves problems. Permaculture can be applied to ecological, physical systems like water or food catchment systems, but it can also be applied to social systems like communities and families. It’s an all-encompassing worldview, almost like a philosophy for approaching life.
It’s important to mention that permaculture originates in Indigenous thinking and teachings, that close relationship with land and nature lifecycles. A lot of people think that permaculture originated from a couple Australians, but they were inspired and drew a lot of their learning from Indigenous Australians, and how they live in harmony with nature and became a part of the cycles and patterns around them. Permaculture in its best, truest form is really Indigenous knowledge, and there’s a debt of gratitude to Indigenous peoples for preserving that knowledge over generations.
A: Are there any Indigenous practices that Canadians have adopted that we might not recognize as permaculture?
K: I think a lot of permaculture we interact with as settler Canadians is the kind of packaged permaculture taught to us by permaculture teachers and design courses. It can be difficult to see permaculture when practiced in other ways, but we could look to Central or South American Indigenous peoples that practice burning of the forests to control the successional cycles of the forests, participating in the lifecycles of the forest, supporting the growth of food for humans but also ecology and niches for a broad range of animals and plants, so that generationally these people manage the forests. The same is true here on the plains and aspen parkland of Treaty 6, where Indigenous people actively managed the bison across the plains and the grasslands by actively burning or by harvesting food ecosystems. When settlers first arrived here, unbeknownst to them, they were stepping into a managed ecosystem in which humans were a part.
A: I’ve seen people treating the reintroduction of bison to their traditional habitats as not just returning the species, but using them to further develop the ecosystem around, recognizing that the animals can benefit their ecosystem in a way humans can’t.
K: It’s valuable not just because it’s a bison, but because it becomes interlinked into this web, where it’s connected with the grasses, with the birds, with the water, and with building food-healthy soil, sequestering water and carbon. If you think about the bison on the plains, the bison didn’t exist without a relationship with Indigenous peoples. You can’t just have bison in isolation from all those systems, including the human system. It’s a crucial mindset to have when we think about how we can make the way we live more in harmony with these cycles. I think there’s a connection there with waste, in that our current waste system is linear, and we need to close that cycle before it’s too late.
A: What experiences drove you to permaculture? Culturally, I don’t think it’s a part of our education system or how we were reared to grow up in a consumeristic world — when did the unlearning begin?
K: For me, my family has always been pretty close to the land. In the last few generations my family has been living in Edmonton, but before then, my family were Ukrainian immigrants who arrived here in the late 1800s and started farming north of Edmonton. They were some of those first settlers who turned these ecosystems into monocultures, and over the past few generations my family has become city dwellers, but I’ve always had a garden.
My father really taught me how to garden and the beauty of taking food out of the garden and preparing it for a family right out of the land. I was always enchanted by that. So I was gardening from the moment I could walk. That was the beginning of my education and this connection with the land. When I went to university my degree initially was in botany, and I decided I didn’t want to be a scientist so I moved into political science and then human geography. It was the intersection of those disciplines, thinking about plant science and politics and how we relate to power and physical space; I didn’t realize at the time, but that is permaculture. Later on, some old friends of mine, Andy and Marcie came up to me with this idea, “we’ve got this idea to practice permaculture in people’s yards, more people need to be doing this”, and I drove right in. I didn’t have my permaculture design certificate at the time, I’d really only watched YouTube videos about permaculture, but I thought this was something I needed to be doing and I’ve been doing it for the past five years.
A: How would you say permaculture is connected to waste reduction?
K: I think waste is intimately connected with permaculture. Waste is an amazing starting point to think about permaculture. There’s this metaphor of a forest, where if you walk through a forest, there is no “waste” in a forest. The only waste you’ll see in a forest is the Coke can someone left or a plastic bag that’s blown in that humans have left behind, but in a functioning ecosystem, nothing is wasted. Everything is plugged back into those cycles. The waste that a tree produces, you can hardly call it waste, because it’s the stuff of life for the fungi that live on the forest floor or the excess seeds from the tree that become the winter sustenance for the mice and voles that live in the forest. Humans, in the last few hundred years, have become very good at producing waste. We haven’t remembered the lessons that nature has taught us for millennia, that you have a responsibility for the things you create from when you create it to when it’s disposed. You can make your waste not a liability to something else, but a gift. A tree that sheds its leaves doesn’t do that to mess up someone’s backyard, it’s a gift to the soil and the creatures that live on the ground, which benefits the tree. Thinking about waste is a great inspiration to start permaculture, because it’s about creating yields out of waste of connecting needs out of the waste that’s being produced.
A: Home composting is one way for people to reduce waste in their own ecosystem — what are some other ways people can apply permaculture principles to their own lives?
K: There’s a thought experiment in permaculture — a needs and yields analysis. It often comes up in permaculture, and it’s the idea of assessing any element in your system and finding out what it needs in order to thrive, and what it produces, whether it’s a net positive or a liability. Then you balance it out, connect elements in your system in a way that reduces or eliminates waste and work. Work is a waste of time — forests don’t have waste, and forests don’t have work. That’s the way we should be interacting with our ecological systems.
In a needs and yields analysis, you can think about anything in your yard. Something like the roof of your house — what does it yield? It yields shelter, heat mass, but it also collects water. When that water flows through your eavestroughs and down along your house, that can be a liability if it doesn’t get far enough away from your house. It could get into your foundation, unsettling your house, or activating your sump pump, which is waste. You can then turn that liability into a positive, collecting that water into a rain barrel near your house. It’s something we worked with quite a bit at Spruce Permaculture, creating water catchment systems. We also avoided buying any new plastic products, we were always digging landscape fabrics out of people’s gardens or collecting cardboard out of recycling bins and talking to shippers and receivers to get their cardboard. We were probably some of the only people leaving the Eco Station or recycling depot with more garbage than we came in with. Those were free resources that would otherwise be landfilled and was a really satisfying way of plugging waste back into the system.
A: On the topic of gardens, what do you think about weeds in a permaculture landscape?
K: Weeds are kind of a contentious issue in the world of permaculture. You always want to begin with long, protracted observation before you go in and change something. You walk around a yard and see a lot of creeping bellflower or purple loosestrife, something considered a noxious weed by the city or province. But what is that weed trying to tell you? What is it telling you about the soil, how it’s been worked with in the past? These plants are not nefarious, they are making an existence on this land, doing the best they can and filling a niche.
Some permaculturists might say that plant has as much a right to be there as anything else, so can you find a yield for it? Or is it so much of a liability that it does need to be converted, how can you make that process a regenerative one, turning that weed into something else. We can learn something about the growing conditions — maybe a site has a lot of water, so you try to grow something that outcompetes the weed. You accept the feedback and learn how best to use that part of the garden.
A: One final question for Waste Free Edmonton — why is waste reduction important to you personally?
K: Waste is one of the biggest products of our lives, if we really think about what humans make today — so few of us are actually making real, tangible things, but we are making a lot of waste and we need to take responsibility for it. It doesn’t have to be a nasty or bitter sort of thing, it can be inspiring to think about your waste, because our waste is one of the main ways we interact with our ecology whether we think about it or not. The waste we produce is probably our greatest impact on our land. By taking ownership of that, it can actually be quite empowering.
When we eat, when we live in our homes, when we give gifts to each other or ourselves — by doing that, are we leaving scars on the land? Are we mining the tops of mountains, deforesting ancient forests, drawing or poisoning water that’s been clean for millennia? Or, when we do those necessary human things, can we leave the land better, can we heal the wounds we’ve left? When the food we eat no longer sustains us or the home we live in doesn’t support us, does that become a scar on the land and lead to more pain or suffering? Or can that plug back in and become something valuable to ourselves and others?
To me, thinking about waste reduction and interacting with the land differently is almost an ethical or spiritual practice. It’s a beautiful relationship to be in, to own our capacity to be good actors in the world by living our lives. Waste reduction should be a joyful process, otherwise humans aren’t going to do it. Like composting: it shouldn’t be a chore, it should be fun and regenerative, doing it in communities and together. If we can start to do some of these things together and make them rewarding, we’ll have a much easier time addressing our problems of waste.
Permaculture can be implemented on a range of levels, from micro to macro. Whether it’s looking at your garden more critically or the way you consume resources from your broader environment, the lessons to be learned from permaculture are applicable to numerous concepts in your daily life.
Our team at Wine & Waste recently watched – and discussed – The Minimalists movie with our Waste Free YEG community. Minimalism can be a controversial and complicated subject, but it also has a strong connection with the “zero waste” movement. It is important to understand the origins of minimalism, how it links to the zero waste movement, and how it is practiced – and celebrated – differently depending on your race and economic status. Minimalism and zero waste lifestyles can’t exist without community, and sharing the knowledge each of us has will help everyone deepen our understanding.
To note: In this article we use the terms zero waste, waste free, low waste, and climate movement somewhat interchangeably. Currently it is impossible for folks living in our society to be fully zero waste, so these terms are meant to stand in for multiple points on the spectrum of waste reduction (personal) and climate action (systemic).
Minimalism started as a trend in art and music in the post-war period (OED). It was later adopted by interior designers to affect a certain monochromatic aesthetic. It has more recently evolved into the association with low waste lifestyles that we might be more familiar with, while often still maintaining an association with aesthetics.
MINIMALISM AND WASTE FREE
Here are a few basic similarities between minimalism and a zero waste lifestyle:
Buy less
Buy better quality items so they last longer
Use what you already have
Can become “buzz words” used by people looking to sell things
Some people might consider minimalism a gateway to a low waste lifestyle, especially for folks who don’t know much about the climate movement – or don’t know where to start – but follow mainstream minimalists. Minimalism advocates for buying less, which directly ties into zero waste, as often buying fewer items means we are throwing away fewer items as well. And if you’re buying fewer things, you tend to be more mindful of those purchases, often doing more research about longevity, origin, and cost (both monetary and environmental).
At the most basic level, minimalism (the lifestyle) is focused on having and consuming less. Which aligns with the zero waste movement, where the ultimate goal is to discard less things. At its simplest, if you purchase less you will discard less. Many zero waste folks find success with minimalism as well, because it can help direct and inform low waste habits. But our actions often have broader implications that are unfortunately not that simple.
Zero Waste Home has been a valuable primer for many people discovering waste free living.
THE PROBLEMS WITH MINIMALISM
Some of the main problems with minimalism are shared with the zero waste lifestyle promoted by social media influencers and lifestyle bloggers, and backed up by business interests. Is it still minimalism if a new product is heavily advertised and rushed to market every season? There is a lot of upfront investment advised to get the “right” things to do it properly. And there is a certain display of privilege inherent in the free choice to reduce or restrict your consumption of items. Or make what is often a more expensive “low waste”, or more environmentally friendly choice. And the conversations accompanying many of these public-facing minimalism journeys do not often focus on the low waste angle, or address consuming only what you need. They often focus on self-help, superficial aesthetics, or a combination of both.
Minimalism “encourages us to get rid of things for the sake of getting rid of them under the guise of ‘making space’ in our lives”. This often looks like trips to the local second hand store with boxes filled with donations, or extra garbage bags out at the curb. And then (often) back to the store to purchase matching glass jars, matching white baskets, with the aesthetic potentially becoming more important than the reducing and reusing. In the end, this is at odds with our understanding – and best practices – of zero waste.
If we drill down to the root of the concept, minimalism and zero waste are both advocating for less stuff. We should be able to stop worrying so much about what our belongings look like and think more about the purpose they serve.
There is a more insidious concern around both the minimalism and zero waste movements, which can be easy to spot when scrolling through the relevant hashtags on social media. The people in these photos are often very white and very economically privileged. And many of the “new” eco-friendly habits espoused by minimalists have been co-opted from the same or similar habits that Black, brown, latinx, and economically disadvantaged folks from all ethnic backgrounds have been doing for centuries, but were treated with condescension because of their association with these groups. When associated with white privilege, these habits are given a trendy “respectability” that was never afforded to the people who followed them out both of necessity and a deep connection to the environment.
That’s not to say that many white folks aren’t doing great things for the environment using the principles of minimalism and zero waste. But it is important to support and share the work of people of colour (POC) living and teaching these principles.
TAKE ACTION
No matter where you are at in your waste reduction or minimalism journey, there is always more to learn!
Here are some other ways you can take action depending on your ability and access.
LOW EFFORT
“Diversify your feed”. Find and support POC zero waste or minimalist advocates (share their work, pay for their work). Here’s a great list to get you started.
MID EFFORT
Before you purchase a new gadget for your life, see if you can borrow the item from a friend, family, or local Tool Library. Set yourself a time frame – 24 hours, one week – where you will wait to purchase that new item. And once that time frame has passed, re-evaluate if you truly need to purchase it.
MAX EFFORT
Set up a “no buy week/month” for yourself or your household. This one takes the most privilege and planning, so set yourselves boundaries and “rules” that fit within your budget, and make sense for your needs.
What are some ways you have combined ZERO WASTE and MINIMALISM in your life? Share in the comments!
Trying to find the right hair care routine is a journey, especially when incorporating plastic-free personal hygiene and/or a low-waste lifestyle. I don’t have a very high-maintenance routine, but even I have had trouble finding something that connects with my values, doesn’t break the bank, and actually works.
As I mentioned, my hair care routine is pretty basic: I don’t blow dry it, style it, use products, or dye it. Heck, I don’t even go to the hairdresser! All I do is tip my hair over my head and cut a few inches off about once every year when I start to sit on it, or it gets caught in my seatbelt. So I get that my routine isn’t for everyone and that everyone will have different needs.
I currently use bar shampoo and conditioner from Edmonton’s very own Jack 59, the Citrus Shine duo. I find that my thick hair has a beautiful curl when it air dries after shampooing and conditioning with these bars. I used to wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner every day, but I heard that this is unnecessary and even bad for your hair. So I have become more and more curious about the No Poo method. I have only just become brave enough to space out my washings to twice a week, as my hair has always become greasy pretty quickly after washing (like even the following day right before my next shower!) Now that I have been spacing out my shampooing for almost a year now, I find it takes a couple of days before noticing any grease, and it doesn’t get as bad.
The Jack 59 Citrus Shine bar
“No Poo”; seems to come in many forms. Technically speaking, this means not using “shampoo,” which is a specific type of cleanser designed for hair. Claimed by the No Poo’rs to strip the natural protective oils from your hair, shampoo supposedly leaves your hair needing more shampoo and more conditioner as your scalp produces oils to replace the ones you removed. No shampoo doesn’t mean you don’t clean your hair at all, though. Some people strictly use conditioner. Some people still cleanse their hair with vinegar or baking soda. (But hopefully not at the same time! Picture an elementary school science class volcano on your head.) Some people even treat their hair with things like flour, eggs, and porridge. Personally, I like to keep my breakfast in the kitchen, not the shower.
Vinegar, (most commonly apple cider vinegar) and baking soda are some of the most popular shampoo alternatives used by people to cleanse their hair. The problem with these particular products is that they are quite acidic and basic respectively and can easily cause your hair to become brittle, or leave you with some wicked dandruff and an itchy scalp. The advantages with these products, and probably why they are so widely trialed by those on a low waste hair care quest, is that they are cheap and easy to come by.
During my No Poo research, I came across the Scritch and Preen approach. In this method, you massage your scalp for five minutes or so (scritching). Then, using your fingers or a boar bristle brush, disperse the oils from the scalp all the way down the hair, section by section (preening). And otherwise, “wash”; it with water in the shower. This method intrigues me, and I think I will give it an honest go. My bar shampoo still comes with paper wrapping, and I sometimes get it shipped to me if I don’t end up crossing town to get it from one of the local vendors. So it still has some waste, if very little. And every little bit helps!
Holidays often mean an influx of new gadgets and technology into our homes. But what does that mean for the old, broken and unwanted items?
Unfortunately, many of those items will end up either in a junk drawer, or the landfill, which is problematic for a few reasons that we will explore below. This action – or inaction – often stems from a lack of knowledge and awareness about “e-waste”. Like many environmental issues, the concerns around e-waste – what it is, why it is a problem, and what to do about it – can get complicated. Let’s dive into these three areas today to help you make sense of it, and take action to reduce its impact in our communities.
WHAT IS E-WASTE AND WHY DOES IT EXIST?
E-waste is a broad category. Simply put, it is any item that can be plugged in or has a battery that has reached the end of its life by losing its value to the user or because it no longer functions to its original specification. Even more simply put, it’s broken or unwanted tech that we want to dispose of. Considering the speed at which tech companies release new products and the societal pressure to own the newest and best, it is the fastest growing waste stream (EWaste Monitor).
Much of the current e-waste exists because producers have made it impossible to repair these items. Many consumer advocacy groups have written about the concept of “planned obsolescence”. While we cannot be 100% sure this is taking place, the evidence continues to show that the lifespan of electronic goods is becoming shorter. (Consumers International). Adding to our inability to repair broken tech, traditionally, there is a very low percentage of e-waste that is recycled – about 17.4% globally (CBC News).
The Edmonton Waste Management Centre has a separate facility for electronic waste. (Source: City of Edmonton)
WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?
Similar to paper and plastic, much of our e-waste is recyclable. Reusing components can reduce manufacturing costs and prevent the need to obtain new resources. We also save landfill space when those items are diverted to recyclers, or for reuse. Canada alone generated 638,300 tonnes of electronic waste in 2017 (CBC News), and even if only a portion of this is diverted, it can clearly have a substantial impact.
Like with any system that impacts our environment, there are some mild to extreme negative consequences when we fail to take action.
E-waste is a health hazard, as many of those electronics contain toxic substances such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and more (City of Edmonton). When dumped into a landfill, these toxins can leach into the ground and contaminate our water supply, among other things. Unfortunately, even when we send our broken or unwanted electronics in for recycling, these toxic chemicals can have a devastating impact on other communities.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
In most industrialized countries (including Canada), it is illegal to send e-waste to “developing nations”, but some private recycling companies continue this practice (CBC News). And in the United States, there are no such regulations for export, which is why we continue to see electronic dumps across West Africa, India, and China. While many of these places have vibrant communities (Welcome to Sodom), they are also dealing with high rates of cancer and no occupational regulations to protect them or their families (PBS.com). And any items that are not profitable to recycle are still dumped, with no environmental recourse. On the production side of the equation, there are equal human rights abuses, including outright slavery or “forced labour” (Kevin Bales).
WE HAVE THE SOLUTIONS!
The good news is that we have many solutions available now. We just need to take them. Edmontonians have access to a network of Eco Stations that accept personal e-waste for recycling and disposal. There is a limit to what they will accept and aren’t accessible to all folks equally (individuals without personal vehicles, for example).
According to the waste hierarchy, e-waste collection and recycling should be our last resort (CBC Radio). We need to ensure that we are first and foremost reducing our waste, and then reusing individual or overall components. There are two systemic solutions that have been adopted in some countries to address the idea that we cannot rely on recycling alone.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is defined as a “policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of the product’s life cycle” (EPR Canada). EPR regulations are intended to push the producers of goods to consider – and potentially change – product design to make items easier to recycle or reuse once they have reached their end-of-life. Bottle depots are a simple and familiar example of an EPR. Ideally, this policy approach helps eliminate the accumulation of e-waste in landfills by redirecting those products back to the producer, and ultimately preventing e-waste once these producers take steps to ensure their products are better designed and longer lasting. Provinces in Canada have been working toward full implementation of provincial EPR legislation since 2009.
Right to Repair is a concept that is gaining traction in Europe, and made some headway in Ontario recently (Policy Alternatives). Environmental groups and politicians are focused on creating regulations and legislation to allow consumers to repair their own devices. This includes eliminating the use of proprietary parts, and demanding that companies redesign products so they can easily be taken apart. Consumers are often – if not always – forced to use a manufacturer-authorized repair service at greater expense, or ultimately replace with a new product because repair is unavailable or impossible. There are a number of benefits to these regulations in terms of employing them to prevent e-waste. By removing barriers and access to repair, more consumers will have control over the longevity of their electronic devices.
TAKE ACTION
Now that you have learned a bit about e-waste and its significance in our waste stream, here are some individual actions you can take right now.
Low effort
Evaluate your need to buy new gadgets, appliances, or technology. Consider instead: Can I borrow the item from a friend, family or local “Tool Library”? Can I buy this item secondhand?
If you are replacing an item that is still in working condition, consider donating it to a local organization who can refurbish it and get it into the hands of someone who couldn’t otherwise afford it. Look into the Electronics Recycling Association to start.
Mid effort
Before you replace an item, try repairing it instead. There are many local cell phone repair shops who will replace a screen or battery for a reasonable rate. Or if you prefer the DIY route, order parts or a repair kit online. Even without “Right to Repair” legislation in place, there are options available to consumers.
Write a letter to your local newspaper expressing your concern for e-waste, or make a complaint to the Office of Consumer Affairs (Canada) requesting Right to Repair or Extended Producer Responsibility legislation.
Create your own “Tool Library” or “Skills Library” by compiling a list of your big ticket appliances, technology, and tools that you are willing to lend out, or specialized skills you have. Then send the list out to friends and family.
Most effort
Work with your company, local community league, or homeowner’s association and organize an e-waste drive in your community or workplace. Offer a reward for the family/individual who brings in the oldest tech or the most items!
Start a dialogue with your neighbours — are you going to the Eco Station? Mention it well in advance and offer some space in your vehicle to help others get rid of their e-waste.
As consumers, we can take small steps in our homes and communities to combat these human rights abuses and help protect our environment at the same time. But as leading activists show (Guardian) the real change must come from governments to enact and enforce stronger laws and regulations, and corporations to design better and longer lasting products.
We all know people who are reluctant to embrace sustainability as part of their lives. Maybe it’s your mom, who is too busy to think about sustainability. Maybe it’s your friend, who can’t afford to prioritize beeswax wraps or organic produce. But as someone who cares, you want to keep your sustainable influence going. So how do you balance not offending your mom, and not seeming too ‘above’ your struggling friend? It can be tough to play your cards right in these situations, especially in the gift-giving season.
The best way to navigate slipping sustainable gifts into skeptical stockings is to find sustainable alternatives to items you would already want to buy them. With a little digging, you can almost always find an alternative to conventional items! So make your shopping list as you would always do, and then plan a little twist.
One of my favourite seasonal items is the candle. It’s a simple, crowd-pleasing gift that’s not too pricey, either. However, traditional candles have environmental consequences. Paraffin candles are known to emit greenhouse gases when burned, and are made from non-renewable petroleum. Fan favourites like Bath and Body Works contain fragrances that originate from petrochemicals, which are known to cause health issues when burnt frequently. It’s not in anyone’s best interest to invest in conventional candles, but what’s the alternative?
Beeswax candles are a great option- as a natural by-product of the beekeeping process, these candles are renewable sourced, and beeswax products are trending! Honey Candles is a growing BC company that specializes in pure beeswax candles, with no added petrochemicals. You can also ask your local beekeeper about beeswax. Backyard beekeepers may have leftover wax for sale- use this map to locate a beekeeper in your neighbourhood.
Soy candles are another option, and perfect for the true vegan. Soy wax is 100% biodegradable, and is sourced from renewable materials. Local company Wick’d Petals uses soy wax, paired with dried flowers, to create a clean, local, and delicious fragrance, all packed in a reusable tin! They have also implemented a container-return program, where the candle tins can be returned for a discount on your next purchase. This motivates people through savings, but in the end facilitates sustainability. It’s a neat product to gift, for sure.
Looking to combine environmental and social sustainability? Look into Misiyo candle company, an local brand that supports disadvantaged Rwandans with the sales of their beeswax/coconut wax candles! By purchasing a candle, you provide health insurance to widows and orphans in Rwanda, helping to boost social sustainability and keeping you involved in global citizenship. You are also purchasing a renewable-sourced product in a reusable tin that can be returned for a discount; it’s a win for the buyer, the receiver, the Edmonton company, and the Rwandans.
You pinpointed one item on your list; the candle. You found three local companies finding innovative alternatives to conventional candles. You have eliminated harmful petrochemicals. There is no more black smoke coming off your candle. You’ve cut down on packaging and shipping. You’ve found a reusable tin that gets you a future discount. And, your money has stayed within the community, helping Canadian artisans thrive. Why would you spend that money any other way? And the best part is, you don’t have to flaunt it as a sustainable purchase. Know your audience; do they care most about the local investment, or about the future discount? Do they love the dried flowers, or the cute tin? Play to their interests. It makes you look like a great gift giver, and it gets them interested in a sustainable product. You’re not stuck with a big-chain product. This holiday season, dig deeper into your shopping list, and dig up those sustainable alternatives to products that you already know your people will love.
Fall is here in Edmonton! Many people I talk to about composting think it’s not worth getting started right now. But fall is a great time to start a backyard compost system or pile! Composting is something that everyone should be able to do, but in reality not all folks have equal access to the resources required to do it. In fact, income is a direct predictor of which households are composting. Here are three cheap and accessible ways to get started composting this fall.
ONE – THE BEST COMPOST SYSTEM IS THE ONE YOU USE
The best compost system is the one you are going to use, feel comfortable using, and can afford. There are a lot of systems (bins, tumblers, etc.) available to purchase at home stores, but a good compost system can also be as simple as a pile in the corner of your yard. The only equipment I recommend folks pick up to help make their composting easier, is a good pitchfork or garden fork. If you don’t have one of these, ask a neighbour to borrow theirs.
TWO – BOUNTIFUL BROWNS
In the fall especially, a compost system does wonders to divert all of the leaves and other yard waste that comes with the season. Carbon-based materials – in compost lingo we call these “browns” – can be hard to get your hands out throughout the year. But in autumn, they are bountiful! This includes: dried leaves, sticks, dead annuals, prunings from shrubs. Larger materials should be cut down to a more manageable size. They will break down faster this way, while maintaining a good air-to-material balance. If you have the space in your yard, bag up all your autumn leaves and save them for your compost in those brown-lean months. A good way to make friends with neighbours is to ask them for their bags of leaves! Make sure there is no animal waste included.
THREE – TOO MANY LEAVES
If you find you have too many leaves and don’t want or don’t have the space to store them, you can easily start a leaf compost. Gather your leaves, a bucket of soil, and a tarp. For every foot of height of leaves in your pile, add a layer of soil. The pile should be wet but not soggy. Placing a tarp over helps keep the heat in, which is needed to break down the material, and prevents the pile from getting waterlogged. Leaf compost on its own isn’t super nutritious for your garden, but it can still be used as a soil amendment. And even better, you get the satisfaction of knowing you avoided the need for waste collectors to transport your yard waste.
Our now-shuttered EWMC composter in better times. MARCH 5, 2000: Aerial view of Edmonton’s new $100-million co-composter plant/ Darco Industries LTD.
IN LOCAL NEWS
Folks in Edmonton might also be wondering how their backyard compost fits into the City’s plan to “roll out” a green bin program in 2021. Smaller scale options like personal composters or community gardens offer huge benefits to our hyper-local economy and quality of life in our neighbourhoods. There are untold numbers of opportunities for community-building, for entrepreneurs and small business owners, and for folks to decide on a solution that best fits their neighbourhood’s needs. These made-in-the-community solutions are also more likely to support marginalized communities and BIPOC, who are often left out, forgotten, or ignored when top-down systems are imposed from often white-majority governments or stakeholders.
So, you’ve got your backyard compost systems set up, you’re excited, and you’re wondering what else you can do? Here are some next steps for folks who’ve got their toes wet in environmental justice and are looking to do more:
Set up a leaf drop off point in your community
Chat with the folks at your community garden, volunteer your time there, and drop off a bag or two of leaves if needed
Sign up on the ShareWaste app to accept compost materials from other people in your community
Talk to your friends and family about why you have a backyard compost system, and help them set up one for themselves
Volunteer your time with organizations in your community focused on food security and environmental justice
MILLIONS IMPERFECTLY
You might have heard the now-famous Anne-Marie Bonneau quote about zero waste applied to composting. “We don’t need a handful of people composting perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly”. This quote often is followed by a complicated list of all the requirements and expensive equipment to get a backyard compost system going. How can both of those things be true? Just like any activity, composting can be expensive and complicated if you want it to be. But there are also a lot of free and simple ways to get started. Composting should be available to everyone regardless of income, race, or background. By creating a compost in your yard or community you are directly participating in environmental justice, and helping to build beneficial systems far larger than your flower bed.
COVID-19 has changed almost everything in our lives this past year. We have experienced change in jobs, friendships, social lives, family, and our financial situations. A lot of us who work hard to be environmentally conscious have felt the need to make compromises during this pandemic in our attempt to put safety over sustainability. These changes were made with good heart, but now is the time to continue our progress, and keep advocating and practicing sustainable methods when we can.
This pandemic has brought to light that conflicts can arise between social sustainability and environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability is almost always the first thing you imagine when you hear ‘sustainability’. It includes hot topics like plastics, oil spills, or other things that physically affect our Earth. Social sustainability is a less discussed aspect of sustainability that includes protecting culture, education, or other big picture issues. It often includes a global perspective that includes people, not just the planet.
Social sustainability has taken precedence in light of the pandemic. We have shut down our economy, our social lives, and sometimes even our work in order to preserve our people and our culture. We emphasize the importance of our elders and those who are most at risk. It has been admirable how much compassion society has shown. However, as we begin to reopen, environmental sustainability starts to creep back into the spotlight. We are starting to see masks on the ground and gloves in our waterways. Our garbage at home is full of delivery meal packaging and single-use items. We go to fill our coffee mugs and discover there are now disposable cups only. Our lifestyles have changed, almost without us noticing, and we are ready to take that responsibility back and put it at the forefront.
What can the average citizen do about this? After all, it cannot be expected that sustainable practice should be held over public health. And yet in discussion, public health circles back to sustainable practice. It is confusing, both in terms of information and morals. However, we must remind ourselves that we are just one person. We do what we can. We change what we are able to. We can change our COVID habits, within reason and while being compassionate to ourselves.
The change we need stems simply from introspection. How has your life, personally, changed? What sustainable initiatives had you worked hard on, and now lost progress on? On the other side of things, what accomplishments have you made during this time at home? What have you been managing to do more sustainably than before?
My list looks a bit like this:
You can make your own pro/con list too!
I start from the accomplishments, things I would not have had time for or thought of before. For me, this includes things like upsizing my worm composting system, or growing celery from the celery stump. It reminds me of the fun things I have been able to do, and reinforces the motivation for doing them. Then, I move to the things I have been unhappy about. For me, this includes using a freely available disposable mask instead of digging up my reusable one. This one is entirely on me. It also includes some things I have no control over, like Tim Hortons not accepting mugs for refills. This sits a little better with me, as I did try, but is still something I am wishing will improve.
Take the things that are in your control and brainstorm. Why am I choosing a disposable mask over a reusable one? Do I need to invest in a better mask, rather than the one I haphazardly made at home? The answer is probably yes, and would reduce both my discomfort and consumption. For you, this may be ordering more takeout than you would like, throwing out leftovers that you’re not in the mood for, or any other bad habits you’ve gotten into. It’s totally understandable that you’ve gotten out of your sustainable groove, but it only takes some reflection to get back into it.
The things you can’t control are a little trickier. For example, using plastic bags at the grocery store is something that is easily remedied by bringing reusable bags. However, many stores stopped accepting reusable bags, and some still have not allowed them back. Accumulating plastic bags is not something that sits well with me, but it has still happened. So what can we do about it? Let’s connect back to social sustainability. How can we reuse these bags to make our society a little better? Plastic bags can be donated to food banks or zero-waste groupsfor others to make use of. You can find many crafts on the internet to use these bags for, such as placemats. If reuse is not feasible, bags can be used to clean out your cat’s litter box, take your garbage out in one instead of buying bags, or numerous other replacements. Finally, plastic bags can be put in for recycling at many stores or eco-stations. There are many ways to make use out of the things we never wanted. When life gives you lemons, right?
Finally, advocate where you can for the reopening of sustainable practices. Ask your local store if you can bring your reusable bag if you pack it yourself. Ask your cafe if they will refill your mug if you take off the lid. Keep pushing for straw bans, or whatever eco-initiative is important to you. COVID-19 has not killed sustainability, it has just shuffled our priorities about.
Take some time to think about which of your habits have changed. If you have kids, ask them which of their sustainable ideas they would like to bring back. Ask your spouse if they wouldn’t mind supporting you breaking one of your COVID habits. We are all in this together, and we can gradually return to our pre-COVID sustainable push.
