The Green Room

Erin Watson from Montreal, QC writes:

I live in an apartment and have a huge Rubbermaid container filled with vermicomposting worms and the most beautiful, rich looking compost you can imagine. My worms can transform 6 pounds of organic waste into compost in just one week. I then use this compost to feed my house plants. I often get little volunteer tomato or pepper plants, which I then transplant into their own pots and grow on my balcony in the summer! Eating those tomatoes is such a great reward!

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.