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Live Green Toronto Festival

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With the sun shining and the mercury soaring (30+ degrees), I think we can breathe a collective sigh and say, "summer is here". The July long weekend is the official start of cottage weekends, summer concerts, and events and street festivals in the city. From Pride Week to Taste of the Danforth, the Honda Indy to Caribana, there is no shortage of action this summer.

One of the festivals I am most looking forward to is the Live Green Toronto Festival at Yonge and Dundas Square on July 16. This is Toronto's largest outdoor green festival with hundreds of green products and services, outdoor vendors, and live music throughout the day!

I can't wait to check out the vendors, munch on some local (and wheat free!) food, and take in some great live music. I'll also bring some of my duplicate, or less loved, DVDs for the SWAPZONE. I'm always looking to update my DVD collection at home and at the cottage (I need to at least entertain the possibility that there might be a rainy day) and this swap event is a totally free way to add some new titles to my collection -- plus, unlike other no cost options i.e. holding up your local blockbuster or downloading titles online, it is legal! 

Meaning, after it's all said and done, I'll have some new movies and music, and some extra coin in my wallet for some more tasty treats or perhaps a local microbrew on a patio that evening…

Hey, get me out of here, I don’t want to go to landfill!

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Recently, there have been several changes at IRIS. Annette Dubreuil is staying on as a part-time project co-ordinator, and is giving up her duties as IRIS co-ordinator. She will be putting her sustainable business model for aboriginal communities into action. She has been working on this project for the past 2-3 years, voluntarily, and is going to pursue her dream of making it happen. I have asked her to keep checking in with us and to let us know how it's going.

We welcome, as part-time summer IRIS co-ordinator, Meagan Heath. Meagan is finishing her MES in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. She is an expert on garbage, was one of the organizers of this year's York U garbage survey, and works part-time for CSBO - Campus Services and Business Operations. She is a woman of many talents including being tri-lingual, and she is passionate about reducing waste. If you read my blogs, you will know, that I, too, am passionate about reducing, reusing and recycling.

Meagan is a very good sport, and I have challenged her, this summer to go head to head with me on coming up with ways of getting rid of the annoying items that we keep putting in our garbage, as opposed to recycling them. This could be, preventing these items from even coming into our homes, or coming up with novel ways of reusing them. Each week, we will post a photo and do a duelling blog. Readers are welcome to weigh in with other suggestions. If we can, we will add a voting button to the blogs.

Here is our first challenge - it's the common milk bag and associated milk bags. What can we do to avoid using them or to redirect them from landfill, in the case where they are not part of a blue box programme (other than having a cow in our back garden?)??

Dawn R. Bazely

(Read Meagan's response: Sack your bags.)

The quest for a sustainable writing tool

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Last Friday, I was one of the volunteer parent drivers for an excited group of school children that included my daughter. We went to the opening day of  the "Harry Potter" Exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. Like all trendy exhibitions, the cost of entry was pretty steep, and naturally, since this is a commercial enterprise which is all about making money, the exit of the exhibition led directly into the gift shop. All kinds of pricey Potter paraphernalia was on sale:  a Wizard Chess set for over $400 and a replica of the marauder's map for $45 (prompting me to keep asking myself, "Do J K Rowling and Warner Bros REALLY need another few million?"). Luckily, my daughter kept her selection on the less expensive side and settled on a $20 Parchment Paper Writing Set. "Heck, I thought" as I handed over the plastic, "I could put the kit together from stuff I have on hand at home, and make a quill from a gull or Canada goose feather..." [photopress:Harry_Potter_1.jpg,full,alignright]

Now, when it comes to consuming sustainably, we all KNOW that we should strive to avoid creating garbage that goes into landfill. The Parchment kit purchase got me brooding about my ongoing irritation at the mountain of used up ballpoint and felt-tip pens that I and all the students that I teach have been creating. I am extremely annoyed at how few pens are  recyclable or biodegradable (there are some that are) and at their limited use for  crafts. I have actually given this very serious thought and I maintain a huge collection of pen lids salvaged from pens that have run out, just in case some artist needs them for an installation project involving making a mosaic or collage out of old pens.

My irritation was recently exacerbated, because I was given a beautiful York University metal, rollerball pen. When it ran out, I tried to buy a refill for it, and found that this needed a "special order" from the bookstore. Only one other person had placed such an order, which led me to wonder what all the other recipients had done with their rather expensive metal pens once they ran out?

This seemingly small question of writing instruments had become, for me, yet another irritating example of our sustained unsustainable practices. And, I thought of a solution: I grew up using a fountain pen, and I would go back to it.  Through most of the 1980s, and early 1990s, I used a SINGLE pen - a Sheaffer, with a 14K gold nib that I simply refilled from a bottle of ink. Unfortunately, I am as hard on fountain pens as I am on everything else. On dusting the pen off, I found out that I had stopped using it  because it was very leaky and the nib was bent out of shape. After watching my forefinger and middle finger turn blue, I remembered...

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So, off I went on a rather desultory search for a new fountain pen that  has taken me  6-months, give or take. Staples did not really sell quality everyday-use fountain pens, but rather, caligraphy kits with specialist nibs. I then began a random check of stationery stores but failed to find inexpensive, good quality fountain pens. I did, however, discover that the only fountain pen for sale in the York Bookstore was DISPOSABLE. I did end up buying it, out of sheer fascinated horror at the concept, it and I have used it up - it gave a pretty smooth, if guilt-inducing write.

I was starting to become quite obsessed with the whole issue of  being forced to use single-use pens but did not have the time to do a really thorough investigation. But, today, while hanging around, waiting for my daughter , who was on a birthday celebration scavenger hunt at the Eaton Centre, I went on a hunt of my own. At Birks, and European Jewellers, I found Mont Blanc pens for $500-$1000. Gulp! I would lose it/break it/ drop it. Too expensive for me.

But, luckily, I found a shop called La Swiss, with a very patient young man, named Marc who was having a slow day. I drove him crazy, because here, at last was a shop full of not just Swiss watches but a ton of German, French and US-manufactured fountain pens. I left the store with 4 of them:

1. A Waterman, Charleston, Ebony Black model - nice weight, and heft

2. A Diplomat Excellence B Black Lacquer model - a little heavier and with a fine nib

Since they were both well under my target price point of $200 each, and I was so happy to have found a store with a whole range of fountain pens, I went crazy and bought a couple of inexpensive (around $35 to $60) pens from companies that I had never heard of:

1. An ONLINE Piccolo tri-colour fountain pen with a pink and purple lid. This German company, founded in 1991 by Alexander and Thomas Batsch, manufactures a line of eco-friendly, writing products for kids - and, has one of the most chic retail websites I have ever seen - WAY TO GO!

2. A Monteverde Jewelria resin fountain pen in brown. Monteverde is a US company.

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I expect to be just fine with these pens for the rest of my life. Like HP Reverse Polish notation calculators, I expect that most people will be unlikely to pick up a pen and use it if I leave it around. Do consider switching back to a fountain pen, and rejoin the fan club. If you did not grow up using one, give it a whirl with a disposable starter pen - you are sure to love it. Fountain pens write faster and smoother than any other pen that I have ever used, and I write a lot. The only thing to remember is to put the pen in a ziploc bag when you fly - the ink leaks - or, just don't fly.

Dawn R. Bazely

Pistachio’s Heather Reisman – “Buy less. Buy better. Buy forever”

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This past Christmas, I was delighted to find a great range of cards from Pistachio (the latest project of Heather Reisman of Chapters-Indigo). They were "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" cards, which thereby extended the Christmas card-sending season to March.  Plus, they were FSC-branded, 100% post-consumer waste fibre, Soya Ink, powered by Green Energy - Mohawk, Made in Canada.  Yeh!! Every kind of serious sustainability logo, right there. My decade-long lack of enthusiasm for cards has largely been driven by concerns about ecological footprints, as well as time crunches associated with grading 100s of final exams and essays at Christmas and attending untold numbers of "festivals of lights" school celebrations. But, I acknowledge that cards are an important means of staying connected and serve an important social purpose.  These Pistachio cards allowed me to do that, and simultaneously underscore my sustainability message to friends and relatives.

Pistachio was back in my thoughts today, thanks to Jennifer Well's article in the Globe and Mail Business magazine: "It's not easy being Pistachio - Heather Reisman is moving eco-products upscale. But will her aim exceed consumers' reach?" Reisman is quoted as saying: "Buy less. Buy better. Buy forever." Wow!!

Reisman has found that people are willing to pay a 5-15% premium for sustainable, ethically-sourced items.  This compares surprisingly closely with the student responses to question 9 of IRIS' Carbon Offsetting survey, in which just under 50% of those surveyed saying that they would pay 5-10% more for environmentally friendly products.  Only 20% said that they would be willing to pay over a 10% premium.

I wish Pistachio all the best, and recently stocked up on their thank you cards. But what I'd really like to see, and would buy, is a set of cards with the "Buy less. Buy better. Buy forever." slogan emblazoned across the front.

Dawn Bazely

E-Waste Dumping

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This video and a recent TIME Magazine article explores the consequences of our obsession with computers and tech gadgets and inability to recycle them in any viable way. Slag heaps of toxic chemicals are contaminating entire communities in China, India, Nigeria, and countless other poor countries where our electronic detritus is being dumped. While this problem has been around for years, the sheer volume of the ever more rapid obsolescence and replacement cycle is leading to a very dark Max Headroom-style cyberpunk future. Laptops and cell phones while smaller than the CRT computer screens of yesterday, contain an even more exotic and dangerous slew of metals and compounds, which groups like the Basel Action Network are struggling to cope with as noted in this audio broadcast.

Four quick tips on reducing your packaging

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You can save barrels of oil, lower manufacturing costs, and help the environment by shifting your spending to products that use minimal packaging:

  1. Buy products sold in recyclable or reusable containers that can be recycled again once you’re done with it
  2. Purchase meat directly from the butcher wrapped in paper rather than foam meat trays
  3. Instead of instant soup, buy fresh ingredients or soup stock in the bulk section in cellophane packaging
  4. Carry a reusable mug or cup for coffee, juice, etc.

Tons more info coming up when I discuss sustainable shopping and The Big Green Purse!

Trash Talk today, on CBC’s The Current, with MP Bob Mills

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[photopress:Capetown_car1.jpg,thumb,alignright][photopress:Captetown_car2.jpg,thumb,alignright]Wow! Bob Mills knows about garbage, land-fill, incineration and gasification, and he is passionate about them. His interview with Anna Maria Tremonti was really interesting. In the last few years, I spent 4 months of sabbatical and research time in Sweden, so I am well aware of what various European countries are doing with things like co-generation around incineration and mining of garbage dumps. The "con" position, to the gasification technology being expounded by Bob Mills, was provided by Clarissa Morawski, the principal of CM Consulting.

Bob Mills and his wife aren't the only people with a passion for recycling and garbage. In my Applied Plant Ecology and graduate courses, students invariably do seminars and papers on garbage, e-waste, etc. and, on my holidays, I always look out for how people deal with garbage and recycling.

In Cape Town, South Africa, you know that garbage is a valued resource for the very poor, who live in the shanties of the Cape Flats, because they turn it into unbelievable art, that they sell to tourists. Here's a true piece of modern, African art, that I bought from a street vendor in 2004. He and his family had walked into South Africa from neighbouring Zimbabwe, to escape the troubles. He did not make this, he was merely the seller, but I did not bargain with him for any of what I bought (and I do know how to bargain). This is a 15 cm long model of a VW Beetle. It's made from an aerosol can of bug spray. The wheels are made from bottle caps of Schweppes sparkling lemon, and Golden Pilsner beer. I doubt whether the average Canadian who, in 2002, was estimated to have produced 383 kg of residential solid waste, could be this creative with their garbage.

Dawn R. Bazely

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