Friends of ours started a waste free project a couple years ago. They have since made a documentary of their efforts to produce no garbage in Vancouver, BC, and are currently (summer 2010) cycling across the country screening the film. Talk about inspiration!
We decided their goal was achievable, and that significant components of it were achievable without giant additional efforts. We were already composting and recycling our hard plastics, glass, aluminum & e-waste, but decided to step up our waste-reduction efforts and begin eliminating soft plastics, take out containers, single-use items, and using reusable produce bags. We also tried to reduce “external waste” like transport and manufacturing waste, by choosing more local, organic, and environmentally sustainable products. That was in Vancouver, where resources for eco-lifestyles are plentiful, ample, ubiquitous, and EASY(er). To paraphrase Dorothy: “Gee, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kitsilano anymore.”
So… this is the story of our waste-free journey in Iqaluit, a young, growing city on Baffin Island, just south of the Arctic Circle, roughly 3000km from Vancouver. Hopefully, it becomes a resource for others thinking of making the move up here, or wanting to find ways to produce less waste while living here.
I have a question about my soda pop cans, what address would i put to get them recycled?
The other thing is would I get a benefit for it?
Thank you
Sorry for the delay Valerie! If you live in any of the communities with a co-op store, you can give them to any local group who is collecting for the co-op’s new recycling project. 1)non-profit group (like a school or auxillary) collects lots and lots of cans 2) group gives cans to co-op, co-op gives money to group, co-op ships cans back south for recycling.
If you live in Iqaluit, there is no official place to recycle your cans. However, sometimes the schools collect them (hoping to use them for a future fundraiser). Try Joamie School. Alternatively, the guy who used to take cans for recycling may be doing the same. I believe he may be taking alcohol cans in this manner.
With either option, you will not get money back for the cans, it’s just to keep them out of the landfill.
Finally, I know that many people flatten their aluminum cans and take them in their empty crates when they go south, recycle them in ottawa, and fill the crates up for the return trip, with shopping, etc.
If you or someone you know is taking a trip south on work, you could always try this.
**Sent this yesterday with the wrong links. This one is correct!
Americans alone use and throw out 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour or over sixty million every single day. Six to ten million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, choking the life out of sea creatures. Millions of seabirds are dying from ingesting this plastic. In the Pacific Ocean, the great Pacific garbage gyre is now a permanent whirlpool of plastic garbage bigger than Texas leaking toxins into the food chain. The unnecessary use of disposable plastic also adds to greenhouse gasses. There are many efforts going on to reduce plastic garbage.
One man has a simple idea that he thinks might make a big difference—a simple pledge that he hopes millions of people will take to refuse to use three things: Plastic water bottles, plastic straws and plastic shopping bags.
The idea came to John Izzo, a business advisor and author, while writing his sixth book, Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything. He interviewed scores of people who had stepped up to create change including three women who tackled female poverty in Uganda to a group of ecologists and journalists who confronted the Russian whaling fleet leading to a ban on commercial whaling. “Here I was interviewing all these people who had stepped up to create change which got me thinking about what I could do about this plastic issue.”
But the tipping point came when Izzo watched the trailer for the forthcoming documentary, Midway Journey, a Chris Jordan film about thousands of albatross dying from ingesting plastic on Midway Island several thousand miles from any continent. “I was horrified as I watched the devastation. As I watched these newborn birds dying from eating plastic garbage I kept thinking there must be a simple way that the average person can do something and get engaged on this issue.”
Though Izzo admired people like Beth Terry, founder of http://www.myplasticfreelife.com whom he had written about in Stepping Up, he felt that going totally plastic free would be too much for most people as a starting point. “That is when I thought of the idea of this three part pledge, these three items that we use on a daily basis in the developed world that could easily be eliminated. First, I took the pledge myself and found that with a few metal water bottles, some cloth bags kept in my car and deciding not to use straws, I could easily make this change.”
Izzo funded the development of http://www.noplasticpledge.com which tracks the number of people who have taken the pledge, educates people about the issue of plastic garbage, and links people to other organizations that are tackling the issue. The site was launched on March 5th and he has already been joined by organizations like the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Beth Terry and the makers of the Midway film in promoting the pledge.
“In my book I try to counter the idea that one person can’t make a difference. One reason we think that one person doesn’t matter is because we forget the power of aggregate influence, which is what happens when one times many take a small action thereby making a huge difference,” Izzo says.
Izzo’s goal is ambitious—to get one million to take the pledge in 2012 and one hundred million by the end of 2013. “The hope is that entire schools, families and workplaces will choose to take the simple pledge. Even if people aren’t 100% pure, even if they reduce their use of these three products by 90% we can eliminate 170 billion pieces of plastic garbage every single year!”
We would love your support to help raise awareness and encourage others to take the pledge by blogging about this issue. http://www.myplasticfreelife.com and the Plastic Pollution Coalition have joined us, but we can’t do it alone. Check out the http://www.noplasticpledge.com for information. And watch the Midway trailer (http://bit.ly/AdpkbG) and visit their site http://www.midwayjourney.com to find out more about the documentary.
Please feel free to use elements of this in your blog or communication. To interview Dr. John Izzo about the pledge, contact Linda Parsons at 778.737.4991 or linda@drjohnizzo.com