Audited! A waste and consumption inventory.

It is difficult to assess how much stuff you accumulate. A lot of it comes in the door without a second thought: Groceries, toiletries, clothes, shoes, office supplies, electronics, and cleaning products. Then there are the big ticket items, such as your car. When I look around my house, with a waste and consumption audit in mind, I am blown away by the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by stuff. There is stuff everywhere! I’ve got stuff for every occasion! I’ve got stuff I need, stuff I want, stuff I need to get rid of, stuff I am bored with, stuff that I’m keeping just in case I need it, and stuff that I’ve forgotten I even had! So how do I even begin to do a stuff audit? It is overwhelming.

Cars: So I begin with a few simple online tools for stuff evaluation. First, let’s start with the obvious, big stuff, like my car. I drive a Smart fortwo convertible. It has a diesel engine and is a 2008 model. According to the Greener Choices website, (you can find here http://www.greenerchoices.org/products.cfm?product=greencar&pcat=autos ) the Smart fortwo Passion is the #2 ranked make and model for fuel economy. Less fuel should equal less carbon emissions, so I feel like I am off to a good start. However, this tool only assesses the Smart fortwo Passion model, so I will check another source, just to be sure. The second car assessment tool I will use is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Vehicles website (found here http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Index.do ). They have my year, make and model, but unfortunately are just assessing the gasoline engine Smart. If my car used gasoline, it would rank 7/10 for air pollution, with 10 being the best score, and a 9/10 for greenhouse gas score. It would get 33/41 for fuel economy (mpg). Since the diesel model for Smart is generally considered more fuel efficient, I am going to assume I am doing well in terms of my waste and consumption audit for my car.

Computers: Next I will move onto my computer(s). I am a bit ashamed to say that I own two laptops. In my defense, my new HP mini got a screen crack within two weeks of purchasing, but unfortunately, although it was a manufacturing defect and no fault of mine, HP refused to repair it for me unless I paid them. Since the mini only cost about $300 to purchase new, I was hard pressed to fork out over a hundred dollars to repair something that wasn’t my fault. I was also concerned about the flimsy screen cracking again after repair. I opted to use the computer with a cracked screen, until the crack got worse. When it did, I bought a Lenovo laptop, which is lovely. However, when I assessed how ‘green’ each of these laptops is, using the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, (found here http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/Guide-to-Greener-Electronics/ ) I discovered that HP is the greenest computer manufacturer scoring a 5.9/10 on the site’s ‘green report card’. You might think that a meagre 5.9/10 couldn’t possibly be the highest score, but sadly, computer manufacturers are pretty environmentally unfriendly. My lovely Lenovo ranked a meagre 3.8/10, a failing grade, even though they scored the highest on sustainable operations. This is because Lenovo’s carbon emissions and energy consumption are high. If Lenovo could figure out ways to reduce their carbon emissions and use more sustainable energy sources, they could become a more environmentally friendly computer company. Although I now own two laptops, I am converting the HP mini into a desktop computer by hooking it up to a stationary monitor, so it is not going to the landfill.

And then there is the rest of my stuff.

Clothes: I am not a big shopper. I tend to buy at thrift shops, or occasionally new clothes, but it is infrequent. I also tend to use clothing items for many years, after which I repurpose them by sewing them into other things, or donate them to local charities. I almost never throw clothes away. Although this may not be the most ‘fashionable’ way of using clothes, I think I am doing well in this area, in terms my waste audit.

School supplies: I used to use a lot of paper for University. Between printing out class powerpoint slides, or handwriting notes, I would easily use up hundreds of sheets of paper per semester. Lately, I have been doing most of my note taking on my computer (go Lenovo!) and not printing anything out. I have stopped carrying my binder to school, in favour of my laptop. This also has drastically reduced the amount of pens, pencils and erasers that I use. In addition, I have been able to purchase most of my larger textbooks in PDF or ebook formats, so I am not contributing to waste and consumption in that way.

Groceries: This is an area that I feel I need to input a disclaimer. I don’t do the grocery shopping. My husband does. He buys mostly in bulk, large quantities, and includes a fair share of processed foods for himself. Fresh veggies and fruits are usually purchased at a local veggie market. When I shop, I bring cloth bags to use, but since we occasionally use our woodstove for heating in the winter, he likes to get groceries in paper bags to use for fire starter. In this way we don’t have any grocery bag waste.

Packaging: Of all of the packaging brought home, we recycle every item which is recyclable in the blue bin. I know that we could pay to recycle some of the other items, but having to drive them out to another location where we may or may not have to pay to recycle them is often just too inconvenient for us. I know. Not so sustainable. I had a look at the Recyclopedia tool available through the CRD ( found here http://myrecyclopedia.ca/ ) and I found I was far more inclined to reuse an item for the same or for a different purpose, than to cart it off to some facility to have it recycled. For example, I am far more likely to follow their suggestion of breaking up Styrofoam and putting it in with potting soil to aerate the soil, rather than driving it to the Hartland Landfill for recycling. I think this tool is useful, because it not only tells you where you can recycle an item, but how you could reduce your use, and reuse or repurpose that item. I am a big fan of repurposing, being an artist and crafter at heart, so this hooked me on this tool.

Composting to Reduce Waste: I am not a composter, and I feel bad every time I throw a banana peel into the garbage. I know this is an area where I fail in terms of my waste audit. So, I checked out the Greater Victoria Compost Education Center (found here http://www.compost.bc.ca/ ) to learn about some easy composting options. I am currently reviewing my options, since there are a surprising number of different ways to compost, and am leaning towards vermicomposting. Vermicomposting involves a simple plastic tub filled with red wiggler worms and newspaper. You add your vegetable kitchen scraps for the worms to eat, and end up with worm castings which make nice, rich fertilizer for your garden. Composting would also go hand in hand with using poly 3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) biodegradable plastics and packaging. Manufacturers could make their products more environmentally friendly by switching over to using biodegradable packaging materials, such as PHB plastics. These plastics, (such as sandwich bags) which would ordinarily end up in the landfill or at best in a recycling center, can be completely biodegraded by composting. My only concern about using ‘environmentally friendly’ plastics is the vast number of companies which market their plastic products as ‘containing PHB’, but in fact only contain a very small percentage of PHB - not enough to actually biodegrade. Therefore, I can reduce my waste by reading the labelling on the products claiming to contain PHB, and making sure that I am only buying products that are truly biodegradable.

Overall, we all accumulate stuff. Some stuff is worse than other stuff. By choosing how much stuff we buy, who we buy our stuff from, what kind of stuff we buy, and how we reuse and recycle our stuff, we can decrease our levels of consumption and waste. There is a trend going on right now which asks people to vote with their wallets, which I agree with to some degree; however, this is only part of the solution to the stuff-called-waste crisis. The other, equal if not more important part of the equation is learning to buy less stuff, use the stuff we do have for longer, and recycle the stuff when we are finally done with it.

Images Obtained From

http://www.smartusa.com/

http://vermiculture.ca/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=32

What is sustainable development?

     Sustainable development is a concept that is used to refer to a plethora of ideas, depending upon who is using the term. According to the Brundtland definition, sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of today’s generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Brundtland’s definition is in agreement with the first nation’s concept of 7^th Generation, which is an ethos referring to the mode in which the current generation should govern their resources in order to leave a natural world which is  in as good, if not better than the current condition. Although opinions vary on which elements should be included in the sustainable development model, I agree with those that believe it is built on a triad foundation: society, economy and ecology. If one area is lacking, the overall goal of sustainable development will fail.

      To sustain means to maintain the same level, be it quality of life, economic stability, or the health of the natural environment.To develop is either to grow or improve the social, economic and environmental landscape. This means to build a society based upon the values and cultural practices that individual communities believe in, to create and improve upon a strong economy based on the use of renewable resources and  which provides for the basic needs of the individual and maximizes personal utility, and to not only minimize harm and degradation to the natural environment, but to improve it via reclamation and remediation. Sustainable development is a very exciting phrase. To me, it is the concept of uniting the forward progress of society, economy and environment towards a future which promises a cleaner, healthier environment, a strong economy based on resources which are renewable, and a thriving society where human culture, ethics and the natural world are in synchronization. Imagine Victoria, my city, moving towards a more sustainable way of life. 

     Recently, I received a letter from the Capital Regional District which asked me to cast my vote on which sort of garbage/recycling/compost system I would like to have in my neighbourhood. Three different options were outlined: basically the same with small changes in pickup frequencies or locations. The exciting part was that recycling and composting of kitchen scraps were as integral to this new system as garbage collection. The size and amount of garbage allowed per household will be decreased, and people will have to pay more to produce more garbage. There are no extra costs associated with increased recycling and composting as far as I can tell. The “green bin” for composting is set to become as ubiquitous in Victoria as the “blue bins” which are seen neatly lining the streets on “recycling day”.

      On the surface, it seems like a small step. A raindrop in the bucket of creating a more sustainable future, but that raindrop is like a drop of catalyst into solution. It will react and perpetuate and eventually it will change the way that people think about “waste”, about what is right and wrong. Like a good social marketing campaign, it will create a new norm, a norm that says that less waste is better, that just because you might be done with something doesn’t mean it has ceased to be useful, and most of all a norm that subtly changes the buy, consume, throw away, buy more way of life that has become so common. Little changes like this inspire others to find ways to reduce waste further. I would be thrilled to see local businesses and manufacturers working together in a sort of industrial symbiosis where the waste from one business was the input for another, and so on like an industrial biofilm mimic. An exciting project that embodies this sort of recycling is the Hartland Landfill Gas-to-electricity plant. The plant, located at the Hartland landfill, uses the methane emitted from decomposing garbage to generate electricity. Using garbage from the surrounding community, it generates enough to power 1,600 homes (CRD http://www.crd.bc.ca/waste/hartland/lfgelectricity.htm). Imagine, rotting garbage being used to heat homes! It is a perfect example of the usefulness of waste, or as I like to think of it the “waste is gold” mentality: a phrase coined by my biology professor, Edward Ishiguro. What Ed was trying to get at is the fact that most of what we throw away is still useful, if only we could imagine a use for it. Thus, our ability to reduce waste is limited only by our ability to innovate (So, it is pretty much unlimited!).

     Another example of sustainable development in Victoria is Solar Colwood. Solar Colwood is a community associated organization working to promote solar power in its municipality. They are doing this by creating awareness, educating the public and funding homeowner grants for solar technology. They have a vision of a community with a smaller carbon footprint and they are moving forward with it, promoting “green” industry, becoming a leader in sustainability and inspiring other communities along the way. http://www.solarcolwood.ca/solar-colwood.php

     These are just a few of the many ways that Victorian’s are working towards the goal of sustainable development. My hope is that this “green revolution” will continue to build momentum, that community-based sustainability projects will continue to grow and shape the Victoria culture, that individuals will gain pride and a sense of identity and belonging within this greener community, and that local green industry will thrive as people choose to buy locally and with an environmental conscience. I wish for Victoria to become a model to the rest of Canada, a model for a new norm where sustainable development is simply a way of life.