Greenwatching

with Lindsey Wiebe

• Who’s green now?

  If Manitobans are so lackadaisical on the green front, what are we doing setting a new record for e-waste recycling and buying up compost bins by the thousands?

  A couple of months after it kicked off, the provincial e-waste round-up has already collected a record volume of old computers, VCRs and other electronic trash: roughly 26 semi-trailers worth, or double what was collected at this time last year.

  View Full Post | 8/07/2009 10:57 AM | 5

• Get your compost bins here

  For those of you itching to give composting a try (or just upgrade your system), a reminder that today is the city's big compost bin sale, where you can get a $100 bin for $30. The sale also includes rain barrels, compost turners and kitchen scrap pails at pretty reasonable prices.

  Bins are on sale at the following places:

  View Full Post | 13/06/2009 10:41 AM | 6

• What to do with plastic bags

  Since this article ran, a bunch of you have written wanting  to know more about plastic bag recycling in Winnipeg. Some people honed in on Safeway -- if a big grocery chain can recycle plastic bags, why can’t the city? And can’t Safeway just take all of our bags while they’re at it?
   
  It turns out Safeway recycles 40,000 pounds of plastic bags per month in Manitoba, and their arrangement sounds pretty solid. Spokesman John Graham says all plastic bags left at their stores get recycled, and they’ll accept all bags, not just store brand. White plastic bags are the majority, and those get sold to a company called Trek Plastic that turns them into PVC lumber. It’s not a money-maker, but Graham says the earnings at least cover the cost of the program.
   
  So could Safeway recycle the city’s bags, too? Well, nobody’s officially asked them, but Graham said the biggest concern would be extra labour costs. And there’s still the issue of equipment. Part of the reason Winnipeg doesn’t recycle plastic bags is that they gum up the recycling machinery. It would cost around a million dollars to upgrade the equipment to handle bags, I’m told, but since there’s no real profit in recycling plastic bags, that’s a million our recycling program likely wouldn’t get back.
   
  So if you’re awash in plastic bags, one of your best bets is taking them to Safeway – or anywhere else bags are recycled. Know of any other stores or groups that take them for recycling, or reuse? Feel free to comment below or send me an email.
   
  And before you mention the library, it turns out they’re off the list. Libraries in the city used to take and give away plastic bags for free for people to carry books, but they stopped as of June 1. Library services manager Rick Walker said it’s part of a green initiative -- instead of single-use plastic bags, they’re selling reusable totes for $1.25 each.

  View Full Post | 7/06/2009 7:27 PM | 15

• The dead leaf debate

  There are some stories you know will get people talking. I can't say I expected a write-up about yard waste to be one of them.

  Five days and 37 comments later, what seemed like a pretty innocuous story about the equally innocuous Leaf it With Us program has clearly touched a nerve with some readers.

  View Full Post | 23/04/2009 10:32 AM | 2

• Hang onto your blue bags

  Thanks to all the people who wrote me about today's article on blue bags and recycling, pointing out (very rightly) that there is a legit use for the bags: shredded paper. A good number of you wrote to say that the city allows people to put out clear blue bags when you want to recycle shredded paper, so the shredding doesn't just blow out of the blue box.
  
  This was a misunderstanding and omission on my part - I knew the city allowed clear bags for shredding and believed that I'd mentioned it in the story (apparently not), but didn't realize that the BLUE bags were encouraged, as 311 seems to be telling many of you.
  
  At any rate, thanks for the heads-up, and sorry for the omission. Hope you haven't tossed those blue bags yet - though if you're the sort of diligent recycler who bought the bags in the first place, I'm guessing you weren't so keen to trash them.
  
   

  View Full Post | 6/04/2009 10:16 PM | 1

• The earth dims, and Winnipeg turns up the heat

  The Pyramids of Egypt went dark for Earth Hour. So did the Sydney Opera House, a remote Antarctica research station, and even Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium. But you'd never guess at the worldwide support in Winnipeg, where we marked Earth Hour by using even more power than normal.

  Close to 90 countries took part in the symbolic event to raise awareness of climate change. But while some Winnipeggers may have cut the lights, it looks like most people here countered by cranking up the heat.

  View Full Post | 29/03/2009 5:54 PM | 8

• Back to the land, in city limits

  I'm in the midst of an environmental journalism conference in the Dominican Republic (I know, it's a tough life), where some of the world's leading scientists are offering some pretty daunting assessments about climate change and environmental threats.
  
  There's talk about 'clean coal' in America (bad idea, says a scientist with the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies), melting Arctic sea ice and future droughts elsewhere, the development boom in China and India, and the fact that focusing on plain old energy efficiency improvements could mean a huge drop in emissions and cost savings for most everyone - but for some reason, that kind of action has been slow to take off.
  
  But there are some encouraging points, too.  A journalist from the San Antonio Express-News in Texas, for example, told me his city cut its water use in half over the years, due in large part to basic public education: teaching school kids about saving water at home, promoting low-flow showers and toilets, the sort of feel-good awareness-raising that doesn't always seem like it will make a difference.
  
  In a discussion about water threats from urbanization, there was mention of low impact development - neighbourhoods built without curbs, manholes or retention ponds, designed to mimic mother nature and conserve water. Environmental engineering professor Richard Vogel from Tufts University called it "one of the most inspiring developments" in his field.
  
  It's big in Maryland - think it could fly in Manitoba? Or is this apartment-dweller just unaware of these types of projects already happening closer to home?

  View Full Post | 17/03/2009 12:25 PM | 3

• Who's your hero?

  Helping the environment has its rewards – but they’re usually of the intangible, feel-good variety. When’s the last time you got a $10,000 thank-you gift for shopping with a reusable tote bag, or buying phosphate-free dish soap?

  Ok, so you might have to make a slightly bigger environmental effort to get that particular prize, courtesy of Earth Day Canada and the Alternatives Journal.

  View Full Post | 17/03/2009 12:25 PM | 0

• Down the recycling chain

  In the process of writing today's story on Manitoba's so-so environmental record (which I'd love to hear your thoughts on) I came across another interesting fact about plastic recycling that didn't quite make it into the story.

  I'd always had the vague notion that plastic, at least certain kinds, could be recycled indefinitely. But that's not the case, says the city's head of solid waste, Darryl Drohomerski. Turns out all those numbers on the bottom of your salad clamshells and milk jugs have a specific meaning. Each number can only be recycled up (or down?) the chain, meaning a #1 plastic gets recycled into a #2 plastic, and so on.

  View Full Post | 22/02/2009 9:37 AM | 3

• Passing on organic

  Attention organic shoppers: The Daily Green has an interesting post on fruits and vegetables they say you don’t need to buy organic. On the list: kiwifruit, avocados and bananas (the chemicals stay on the skins, which you don’t eat), as well as asparagus and broccoli (the site says they don’t need as much spraying in the first place).

  This argument probably won’t sway purists, and it seems to hold up only if you're driven by health concerns, instead of the environment. And if you question the whole organic logic, it seems like this could be seen as proof that it’s all a useless exercise to get more money out of your wallet.

  View Full Post | 11/02/2009 4:07 PM | 4

• Plastic you can't recycle... easily

  Stewart Fay has a bag full of old ammonia and antifreeze containers sitting in his garage - three years’ worth.

  There’s nothing wrong with the containers. They’re perfectly recyclable plastic. It’s just that the city can’t recycle them, and Stewart didn’t know what to do with them, short of throwing them away.

  View Full Post | 6/02/2009 6:26 PM | 3

• Sunshine on a cloudy day

  One leftover thought from this story on a Winnipegger who took his home office off the grid with solar power.

  After the story ran, I spoke with Frederic Pouyot with the Solar Energy Society of Canada. Pouyot said these projects generally aren't common - with some exceptions.

  View Full Post | 4/02/2009 10:51 AM | 0

• What to do with enviro-offenders

  What do you do with a pumping company that accidentally spills thousands of litres of manure onto the ground? Someone who lets too much trash build up on their property? Or, in the case of this story, an abattoir with a wastewater lagoon  on the verge of overflowing?

  Manitoba's approach to environmental offenses seems to be less stick, more carrot. Most offenders are either warned or ordered to clean up their act. Fines are infrequent and usually on the low side, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

  View Full Post | 30/01/2009 3:09 PM | 5

• Spending our green bucks

  So what exactly is green infrastructure? The new federal budget earmarked $1 billion for environmental building projects, but details on how the money will flow and what projects could qualify are still to come.

  As best I can tell, there's no hard and fast definition (correct me if I'm wrong). One can hand, the term can be used to talk about sustainable design practices for any building project. Or it can refer more to the type of project - when politicians talk about "green infrastructure," the words are often paired up with public transit, waste water or sewage treatment plants or renewable energy.

  View Full Post | 28/01/2009 10:25 AM | 0

• Tiptoeing through the e-waste graveyard

  If you have a basement, spare closet, or a dusty corner of a spare room, you probably have your own “electronic graveyard” – a cluster of old TVs, computers or other  electronics you don’t use, but don’t want to send to a landfill.

  Today Martha emailed hoping to find out what to do with the electronic graveyard in her basement. The good news: there are some environmentally friendly options. The bad news: it'll cost you.

  View Full Post | 26/01/2009 6:56 PM | 4

• Welcome to Greenwatching

  I’d like to welcome all of you to Greenwatching, a new Free Press blog aimed at tracking environmental news, events and ideas in Manitoba and beyond. I’m excited to take on this project, and I’d welcome any of your feedback, suggestions, or green-minded questions. Please feel free to post your thoughts in the Comments section, or email lindsey.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca. And don’t forget to bookmark this link!

  View Full Post | 25/01/2009 10:09 AM | 2

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