One day in August a visitor to Victoria stopped to chat recycling at Recycle2shop’s market stall on Government Street. Jim is a teacher in Montana and he told me about a Japanese scientist who has invented a machine to turn plastic trash into oil. Jim promised to send me the information so that I could share it with you guys. So here it is - courtesy of YouTube and Jim.
The Green Capital of Europe, Stockholm in Sweden aims to use only non-fossil fuels for heating by 2050. They already heat most of Stockholm with biofuel. BC’s landscape could be a twin to Sweden, except we have more land which we take for granted (or at least our government seems to-allowing old growth forests to disappear, for instance and pipelines threaten our shores).Here’s a thing - biogas from 100 banana peels can fuel a small car for 9k. Victoria could do with banana fuel…our landfill is soon going to overflow. Which reminds me, I need to bury my own anaerobic compost as my bucket is also soon going to overflow.
Here is a video meditation to help us achieve calm in the face of uncertainty and fear.
Produced by Steve Wollaston with support from Ian Mowll Courtesy of Greenspirit.org.uk
Music from Journeys into a Gold Horizon by Rafael Szaban www.indigoseamusic.com
Victoria CRD (Capital Regional District) has the best resource for ‘where to recycle’ at myRecyclopedia with how to recycle cassette tapes (does anyone know what those are anymore?) to how to recycle your dishwasher.
Annie Leonard and The Story of Stuff Project made this great little video that reveals the real story of trash.
There are more recent videos on the Story of Stuff website that explore more of what happens to our electronics and plastics. Annie advises us to take care of our gadgets - make them last, don’t replace them.
PPR - the French conglomerate parenting Stella McCartney, Gucci, Puma, Yves St Laurent et al - has announced a sustainability program and will offset its 2010 carbon footprint. Now this is a good thing of course, but why start with revamping the Puma cardboard shoe box? Cardboard is a perfect recycling material - it can even be composted in our back garden pile. Puma has substituted a mix of plastic and cardboard and is calling it a revolution in packaging…does ‘Emperor’ and ‘new clothes’ come to mind here? The packaging is a lovely red colour though.
Trench composting is a way to compost food scraps such as meat, dairy, breads and processed foods(cooked etc). Bury your waste in an 18-24″ trench or hole. It has to be deep to deter rodents and flies (including those pesky raccoons). So get shoveling. For more details go to Recycling FAQ.
I have been burying my scraps this past year. I didn’t bury them deep enough and the raccoons dug up some bones which our puppy just loved!
I suppose burying scraps in winter wouldn’t work so well in my sister’s backyard in frozen Saskatoon (she hates it when I tell her I can garden all year round in Victoria).
Victoria regional district (CRD) has compiled a list of recyclers for just about everything. You can find out where to take your ’stuff’ at myreclycopaedia.ca Anything you can’t put in the ‘blue box’, this website will help you find it a home .
News just in - Sunday Government Street Artisan Market may have to leave the streets (Victoria city council wants to give the street back to the motorists-bah humbug) and move to Centennial Square this summer. If this does happen, Victoria will no longer have a “street” market.
view from the street
Government Street Market
Meanwhile, good news - the Winter Covered Market at Market Square (every 3rd Saturday) is a success story for locavors - free range chickens, eggs, veggies, mushrooms of all varieties, artisan breads and goats cheeses.
Finally, funky Fernwood is hoping to become a Transition ‘Town’ - the perfect place to downsize the gas guzzler. Fernwood is also the home of the Compost Centre - a recycling triumph.
“Downtown waste collection for small businesses” by bicycle and tricycle all with bin trailers and containers. See the whole story at reFuse.ca
"The double A train rides again"
Aaron Bichard started his recycling business in Duncan and along with Jason Adams from reFUSE has now brought this great idea to downtown Victoria businesses as reCYCLISTS.
His company was featured in The Globe&Mail on October 4 in the BC section.
According to Shannon Moneo writing for G&M, the Downtown Business Association has partnered with reCYCLISTS to further the cause of low-emission and composting waste. So good news for our landfill site if all the downtown businesses take part.
Way to go reCYCLISTS…a real Green company.
A great recycling weekend at weekend markets in Victoria and hello to all the visitors who are now checking out our website. A weekend of sunshine is always welcome to market traders. This holiday Monday, I was planning a day of gardening - now I will need wellies and rainproofing - perfect weather for planting winter greens seeds and garlic cloves. The compost is just about ready for piling onto the rest of the beds to overwinter…unlike the rest of Canada, Victorians can compost all year round - so lucky. This does mean of course, that when I talk to friends and relatives on the prairies in Winter, they crow about their wonderful days of sunshine and blue skies (ok so it’s 20 below) and pity us folks as we trip through puddles with our umbrellas at the ready.
We are also ‘lucky’ in BC to have comparatively low electricity costs, unlucky in that we lack the incentives to change to green energy. Solar panel installation (photovoltaic) costs are high and are only cost effective in remote locations in BC. However, solar thermal (passivehot water collection) gives a decent return, especially if used in the summer only, which is a consideration in a city like Victoria where winter means cloud cover. This system is explained simply (for those of us without an engineering degree) on the BCSEA BC Sustainable Energy Association website.
A company in the UK has invented an autoclave system that takes all household waste (including black bin bags) and turns the organic waste into biomass for compost or fuel and at the same time retrieves, sorts and steam cleans inorganic waste for recycling. The biomass fibre powers their plant as green energy. Could be one of the solutions we need.
After two wild and windy market weeks, we finally had a calm and dry day at Government Street Market at the Victoria Chinatown Gates. The sun even came out behind some pretty heavy duty clouds later in the afternoon. We had visitors from as far away as Germany, Wisconsin, Florida (90 degrees there so they were glad to be cooler), and Castlegar (wet we hear)…and all supportive of our recycling ethos.
Oceans Day Society hosted a blue jean event here in Victoria, to raise environmental awareness - blue jean art using 1,500 pairs of recycled blue jeans. My question to the organizers is what happens to those jeans after the event? Recycle2shop can upcycle every last pair into loved objects that extends blue jean life indefinitely (well, until the denim completely wears out at which point the shredded material can be composted with the zippers and metal buttons going straight to metal recycling).