The Green Room

Cheryl from Regina, SK writes:

My children deliver paper in our neighbourhood – or should I say they did deliver. They are quitting because of the incredible amount of waste produced by paper routes – especially flyers. Is there a way to make our voice heard on this issue? Who do we contact? We do not get the paper for this very reason and have posted a "no flyers" sign on our mailbox.

Lindsay responds:

Funny you should write in about paper consumption. We just released our monthly newsletter about how being a conscious paper consumer can help Boreal Birds! You can start by 1) sign up for David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and 2) sign the Boreal songbird petition.

You’ve instilled an excellent lesson here by having your kids re-evaluate their well-intentioned job. Simple things anyone can do is sign up for the Red Dot Campaign . This will allow you to take your name off unaddressed mail lists, like flyers. Within the newsletter link above, click on "Some things you can do right now." It’s one of the first things I did when we bought our home – get yourself off all the wasteful junk mail lists!

You’ve highlighted your frustration with newsprint. However, newsprint often makes its way to the recycling depot; it’s from recycled sources and not bleached – but flyers? Not so much. You could write to the companies that send you colorful flyers and ask that they print on 100% post-consumer waste paper with vegetable dyed inks.

See our e-newsletter above to learn about types of paper. Better yet, your family can do a total overhaul of your home’s paper use (if you haven’t already) by taking a look at the toilet paper, paper towel, tissue, and packaging that you buy. Oh yes, and change to paperless, tree-free billing too!

Teya Tamsen from Vancouver writes:

I’m wondering what the public can do to reduce the now overwhelming crow population in Vancouver? All the tiny birds are swiftly disappearing; it’s very sad to witness.

Lindsay responds:

Crows are a very smart bunch. Naturalist author David Quammen has pointed out that they will be all we have left (along with other generalists like coyotes and pigeons) if we don’t change our consumption habits and destruction of ecosystems.

Think of it this way, crows can tolerate living with us (in our concrete jungle, eating our garbage, etc.) and not many species can. I suspect if there has been a noticeable increase in numbers it’s due to last year’s garbage strike. Like the rats, crows would have benefited from a surplus of food items as people’s trashcans were overflowing!

This brings me to the low number of songbirds living in our urban green spaces and backyards. The rat population explosion (maybe you’ve had more rat sightings or seen their droppings at your bird feeder) likely resulted in more predation attempts on bird eggs and nests. The other major culprit in Vancouver and other cities more often than not is domestic cats and not crows.

I’d suggest you contact the local naturalist club as they spend a lot of time bird watching and could offer more advice.

Another suggestion would be to contact your local wild bird store because they’re experts on this sort of topic as well.

Finally, since you are aware of birds, do sign up for David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge where we give you tips to live with as small a footprint as possible.

You can of course reduce the amount of garbage you put out and ensure that your garbage bin is sealed. This will deter not just crows but coyotes, skunks and raccoons. All of this urban wildlife does provide us with a host of services – it’s just sometimes behind the scenes. We’d really miss them if they were gone, that’s for sure.

If I haven’t armed you with enough reading already, a recent report shows that many common bird species are at risk of going extinct, including crows.

C.D. from Vancouver writes:

I have some old cleaners that I don’t use such as Tilex, Orange Glo, etc. What should I do with them since I now use natural cleaners? I don’t really want to dump them down the drain, but perhaps that’s the only way to get rid of them?

Lindsay replies:

Great question! So now that you’ve made the switch you need to safely dispose of the toxic stew of products. They are likely labeled as flammable, toxic, hazardous, etc. and this means they have to be treated as such — hazardous waste, that is.

Depending on your city or town, you’ll have to check in with your respective depot. Each city or town has a municipal waste facility that will accept batteries, paints, and Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) like toilet bowl cleaner. See if you can drop it off there and good on you for not pouring it down the drain!

Have you considered making your own home cleaners? It’s a lot cheaper and very effective. See our issue of the David Suzuki Nature Challenge newsletter where I show you via video how to make your own and give you the recipes too. Check them out at queenofgreen.org .

Got extra food you can’t use? There are lots of agencies across Canada who will give it to people who can, including Toronto’s Second Harvest , The Vancouver Fruit Tree Project , North Vancouver’s Edible Garden Project and the Lower Mainland’s Quest Food Exchange . Readers - who in your neck-of-the woods provides this service? Let’s all do what we an to share the bounty and avoid food and water waste.

City dwellers Ray and Vanessa from Burnaby, BC share thoughts on waste management:

My girlfriend and I live in a high-rise condo and have been diligently watching and separating all of our garbage materials that go down the garbage chute.

We send our organic waste to a friend’s house near-by for composting. We use the recycling bins for everything else. What’s left? The bulk of our waste is packaging. If we really look at what is going into our landfill, it is shocking how much non-biodegradable Styrofoam and hard plastic packaging is going into the earth.

We recently went to WalMart to pick up a bottle of air mattress repair. We purchased the bottle, went out to our truck and opened the package, took out the 1 1/4" high by 3/4" wide glass bottle, repaired the mattress, then proceeded to throw the 12" x 6" clear, hard plastic package into the WalMart garbage can.

A glance into the garbage can - and our consciences - told us that what we just chucked in there would end up in the landfill. Are consumers solely responsible for this situation? We feel we partially are, despite all the effort we make at home.

So, solutions we came up with:

1. Add organic waste bins to all apartment/condo recycling programs.

2. Make it the law that retailers and producers of harmful packaging be responsible for the waste created after the consumer takes the product home.

Debby Harris from Richmond, BC writes:

We are a Richmond, BC company that has been producing and selling guestroom amenities (toiletries) to upscale hotels, resorts, airlines and cruise ships for 20 years. We have been concerned about the environment for numerous years. In fact, in 1998 we developed and patented a compartmentalized recycling basket called the "Waste-Not-Basket" to drive guest recycling in hotel rooms. These are now sold to over 200 properties throughout North America.

More recently, we have been introduced to a new material called PSM (or Plastarch), a biodegradable product made from cornstarch resin. Today it is being produced for products such as shower caps, utensils, golf tees, garbage bags, toothbrushes, etc. However, we are concerned about its ability to biodegrade in landfills, and certainly don’t want to produce more methane gas or other noxious emissions than if we continued providing recyclable plastic bottles for our amenity programs.

Can you guide me to an authority on plastics who can give us the straight-goods on PSM and other biodegradable materials? We certainly want to contribute to improving our environment and value your opinions.

Lindsay replies:

Your business initiative to get hotels and others recycling sounds great. There are quite a few hotels that market themselves as "green" for this very reason. With respect to your question on bioplastics, it’s a good one, although not something the Foundation has researched. I can give you some information to get you started and then you’ll need to do a bunch more reading and asking around.

Issue 1: Using cornstarch or soy instead of petroleum to make plastic uses 3-4 times less Co2, and the production uses about 68% less fossil fuels.

Issue 2: Most bioplastic bags, containers, etc. won’t biodegrade under the conditions of a backyard composter. You’d have to quiz your supplier about this in detail. How biodegradable is it? How long does it take? Can people put it in their home composter or does it need to go to a specific facility? For instance, I’ve seen claims that one product that was 100% compostable and biodegradable breaks down within 3-6 months in a commercial composter or 4-5 months in a home composter. How long will they take to breakdown in a landfill is unknwon.

Issue 3: Cornstarch-based bioplastics can be made from GMO (Genetically Modified Organism). Half the corn grown in the U.S. is GMO. This is yet another layer.

It sounds like you need to find out how long these materials take to break down in a typical landfill, unless you’re certain they will go to a specific composting facility. Best of luck with your quest!

Naomi sent in this question:

Our compost had rats so we had to get rid of it - how do I avoid this if we want to try composting again?

Here’s Lindsay’s response:

Rats you say? I’m assuming then that you’re in a city setting. Most municipalities have issued compost bins to avoid smart critters like crows, rats, raccoons and skunks from getting in. Check your municipal waste website and see how you can get one. They’re often about the size of a large garbage can, with small air holes, a locking lid and holes to peg it down.

Trouble shooting for rats would also mean that you want to make sure no cooked or meaty foods get into the compost. These are quite fragrant and tempting for critters like rats.

Also, you can add pet hair right to the compost. It’s supposed to give your bin that “predator” smell and keep the vermin away. I add my cat and dog hair from their brushes as well as dryer lint (it’s mostly pet hair) and haven’t had a problem with rats for three years here in Vancouver. And I do know they’re around. I’ve seen them with my own eyes scrambling my fence and trees!

Some municipalities (including Metro Vancouver) are trying to convince people that burning is the best solution for so-called ‘residual waste’ (the stuff that can’t be composted or recycled). Lowering consumption, reusing and cradle-to-cradle regulations for manufacturers are less-toxic alternatives. Go to http://blog.zerowastevancouver.org/ and http://americanhealthstudies.org/index.html for more info.

I operate www.reyouzd.com which supports and profiles businesses who sell used, second-hand, reclaimed and recycled goods. The focus of the website educates that used goods require no new agricultural and industrial practices, no new manufacturing processes, no new packaging and no transglobal transportation to marketplace yet these goods serve our purposes more than adequately.

Lynne Taylor, Kincardine Ontario

Although I have replaced all the incandescent light bulbs in my home with CFL’s I still have about 10 pot-lights that only take the 50w halogen light bulbs. Does anyone know if the burned out halogen light bulbs can be recycled in Toronto? Any recommendations of stores, etc is welcome. I see that Home Depot recycles CFL’s but not sure about the halogen bulbs.

Michelle B, Toronto Ontario