Transition Brockville              

Think Recycle is a cost-free fundraising program that rewards members with money and environmental incentives for the collection of unwanted electronics including laptops, tablets, cell phones, digital cameras, inkjet cartridges and toner cartridges! Organizations that are eligible to participate in Think Recycle include schools, charities, institutions, churches, teams, clubs and even businesses.

Think Recycle works with more than 20,000 members, across the United States and Canada, to meeting their fundraising and environmental goals.

[ WEBSITE HERE ]

Queen's University News Centre / 13 December 2011

Staff at the Tea Room recently celebrated a major milestone: the café is now 100 per cent consumer-waste free, meaning all of the products customers use can be recycled or composted.

“It’s been pretty much one of the goals of the Tea Room since it opened in 2006,” head manager Andrew Dean (Sc'12) says of eliminating consumer waste. “It was a pretty cool moment to just actually get rid of the garbage bin we had. You can’t really find any other businesses around where you’d walk in and not see a garbage.”

The Tea Room is a student-run initiative of the Queen’s Engineering Society. Since it opened in 2006, its staff has focused on the three pillars that are the driving force behind the business: environmental responsibility; education; and fiscal sustainability.

[ FULL ARTICLE HERE ]

EMC St Lawrence / Jill Hudson / 24 November 2011

Leeds & Grenville Computer Technology Centre recently won the Green Award during the Brockville and District Chamber of Commerce (BDCC) Gala.

LGCTC has been doing its part to significantly reduce the amount of electronic waste that makes it to the landfill and refurbishing computers and other electronics - passing the savings along to the consumer.

"We repair or refurbish. We also provide low-cost equipment to businesses and individuals, senior citizens, students, people on social assistance, medical issues," said Paul Donovan. He and David LeSueur own LGCTC.

The facility is part of Ontario Electronic Stewardship Organization (OESO) - which covers east of Kingston, south of Ottawa, right to the Montreal border as LGCTCs refurbishing jurisdiction.

OESO is an organization that is mandated to handle E-waste around Ontario. It consists of a number of components - collecting the E-waste, refurbishing the equipment, consolidating the E-waste and shipping the remainder.

[ FULL ARTICLE HERE ]

Documentary on planned obsolescence (2010)

[ Hat tip to Green Communities Canada! ]

Energy Bulletin / Christine Patton / 28 October 2011

Growing up in America, my generation was taught that any and every need could be met by a particular product or service, all of which were just waiting to be purchased. To afford these purchases as part of a "lifestyle," the proper career path for middle class people was to attend college, learn an intricately detailed specialization in order to make a salary, and buy whatever we might need or desire, from childcare to lawn services to fast food to psychiatric services.

While specialization can certainly make economic sense, the pendulum swung too far. We grew up to be thoroughly knowledgeable in a very narrow field, yet helpless and unempowered in every other walk of life, at the mercy of a cheap-energy growth economy supported by underpaid or slave labor and ongoing environmental destruction. While we grew up believing that having the money to purchase all of our needs equaled independence, many of us have learned that we've inherited a thinly-disguised dependence on the vast, complicated systems needed to support us.

In order to reclaim skills once lost, regain a sense of control over the process of your life, and withdraw your support from the often-immoral, often-unsatisfying industrial economy, consider becoming a producer of the things you want and need - in your home, your garage, your workshop and your garden.

HeadsUp CIPEC / September 2011

Opened in January 2008, [Walmart's] Burlington environmental demonstration store is expected to use 60 percent less energy than the company's typical supercentre store and to reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 141 tonnes. It is also expected to divert an estimated 85 percent of its waste from landfill through a variety of recycling programs. Walmart plans to take key learnings and roll out best practices and technologies to all next-generation Supercentres across the country. Environmental features of the Burlington store include:

Yes! Magazine / Bea Johnson / 14 September 2011

A few years ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted a better world for our two boys, now 10 and 11 years old. We embarked on a journey to do our part for the environment: My husband quit his job to join a sustainability start-up; I tackled the home.

I started by adopting reusable water bottles and shopping totes, but slowly took it further by replacing disposables with reusables (toilet paper excluded), shopping in bulk with cloth bags, bringing glass containers to the store for wet items (meat, deli, fish, cheese, oil...), and even testing more extreme ideas, like shampooing with baking soda and vinegar for 6 months. A year's worth of our household solid waste now fits in a quart size jar.

What we discovered along the way is that the benefits of the zero-waste lifestyle go well beyond the obvious environmental impact. It has not only made us healthier (since the healthiest foods do not come packaged), but it has also saved us a great deal of money. Most importantly, we now have more time to do the things that matter most to us, like spending it with our kids.

We find that we have become a closer and happier family in the process. We have found balance without compromising our goals, aesthetics, or sanity. Zero-waste living is on auto-pilot.

[ FULL ARTICLE HERE ]