How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Hi!!

How green is Canada?, are you doing your bit?

What are residential areas doing as regards to recycling. Do you have a program in place to collect items such as paper, grass cuttings, glass, plastics, alum etc on residential bin collection days?

Here in the UK it is becoming very much part of every day life to recycling waste. Soon there will be parts of the country were you will be charged on what you throw out in your normal black bins. They aim to tag the bins with a chip.

I make every effort to recycle most items here in my home or go to the local tidy tip. My bin remains half filled most weeks and I always recycle plastic bags. I would love to continue this when we move over to Canada.:)

What options are there in your Provinces?

Angela

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Yip recycling is big in Ontario.....

Our blue boxes get picked up every Friday, one has paper the other has bottles, cans, plastics. We also have a food waste bin, this contains food obviously, napkins, egg cartons, paper plates, bones, hair to name but a few.

Other other waste is collected every two weeks and we are only allowed 4 bags.

I also use the reusable cloth bags for my food shopping.

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

The town of Cochrane in Alberta has a decent recycling facility for it's size. You may only put out two rubbish bags for your weekly collection and the rest is down to you. We recycle tons - and seem to be able to do more than in the UK because we can recycle the plastic bottles and the polysterene trays, yoghurt and margarine pots, for example, which my local authority in the UK could not take. It is down to you to get the stuff to the depot here though.

They take grass cuttings in spring and summer but no other garden waste. There is a seperate 'dump' opened up once or twice a year for all other waste like heavier duty garden waste, appliances, furniture, etc.

But where the recycled stuff goes I do not know. I do my bit and walk away and hope for the best I suppose.

The use of a deposit system on bottles and juice cartons is a good idea in theory and the ability to go to the bottle bank and reclaim the pennies some kind of incentive. It also gives the homeless some kind of income by trawling the city bins and taking their booty to the bottle bank.

The city dump in Calgary is a digusting, smelly, bird infested wasteland of an incredible amount of 'crap' - the amount of plastic up there alone is a sad indictment of our lives.

The sheer amount of packaging on foodstuffs here alarms me somewhat. And I've already vented elsewhere about the supermarket's "here, take home 27 of our carrier bags" style of packing my shopping :blink: I pack my own in my boring reusable bags!

I don't know if Canada is greener than the UK. They work hard to recycle a lot of stuff, promote energy efficiency in the home, care for the environment, etc, whilst driving down to the tip in their 5.8l truck ;)

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

People seem content with making small token efforts at being "green". But try suggesting that people drive sensibly-sized cars or reduce the amount of beef farming... nah.

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Yep, recycling is big where i live (just outside of Calgary) what you'd expect recycling all paper,cans bottles etc:etc:, we have our garbage collected weekly, at the moment we have a three bag limit (this may soon go down) anything over that, and you have to buy a special tag for the extra bag to be taken.

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Recycling is huge in Canada

But…… very little is done with it once its collected, the glass companies don’t reuse the cullet to make new glass its goes into roads and land fill, the board companies don’t use anywhere near as much recycled material as you’d find in Europe, and most plastics if your lucky will end up as filler in a park bench but most likely burned as fuel

Yes some municipalities do use the green waste to make compost but it few and far between

Everybody’s cars are oversized for what they need

And the guy with the big load of recycling on his suburban lawn will have his heating on at 25 deg throughout the winter and his air con set to 20 deg in the summer

So yes Canada thinks its green, when in reality its just behind it neighbours to the south, its carbon foot print is only offset by the huge amount of forestry it produces

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Well!

Guys you're making a effort, that what counts!!

Yeah same here to, people make an effort in one way but not enough in other ways. That's life!!

You guys love ya big vehicles, do you really need them? Whats classed as a sensible, practical cars, MID SIZE, what engine size? Who knows!!

Have you come across the Hybrid car, we have the Toyota Prius here, uses electric & petrol so it can produce low co2 emissions!!

Plastics well, if it has numbers 1 or 2 on bottles can be recycled here, trays NO! You can take old plastic bags to the local supermarket to be recycled or recycle bank. Most supermarkets in the UK offer to purchase cloth bags, a good idea, could make them cheaper though. Cost around £1 each bag!

I use the orange bag system here for paper, card, tin & bottles and I can use as many as I like!! Soon we will be having Orange Bins in two sizes, either size will be big enough for fortnightly collection.

Out local tidy tip tend to re-use between 70% - 80% material. That's pretty good going, so I think the locals really try to make an effort!! The manager gets really cross if you throw rubbish in the wrong bin :curse: (sorry sir)!!

Well I'm really pleased I can try and make a difference once in Canada, even
if its small!!!!

By the way, weather is brilliant here today & 2morr 22deg and its a bank holiday!! (as you know brits it usually rains on a bank holiday)!!

Angela

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Not green at all. apart from the cars mentioned already, have you heard of oil sands? Not good for ducks (or at least the 500 that landed in the waste last week).

It was probably one of the biggest suprises for me - Canada has some spectacular scenery but they won't hesitate to plonk a cement factory or pulp mill right in the middle of it.

Disappointing and although recycling of household stuff is encouraged and facilitated rather well, in the overall context of pollution and looking after natural resources it is truly pants.

Rant over:blink:

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

I would say not very in some aspects.

In Leeds, we had a green bin every fortnight that collected pretty much everything , apart from glass which we took down separately. Here in Calgary there is no kerbside collection, although one is in the planning stage. We live near a recycling depot, but there is nowhere to recycle plastics.

There is FAR more packaging on pretty much everything and standard supermarkets tend to pack goods for you , like in Safeway they only pack for you (i often now go in the self check out aisle), and they use a million bags.

The cars are simply not green by any stretch.

I think in the UK it is mainly driven by EU targets and legislation, without that driver it hasn't got the urgency. Plus they have more space which gives them less urgency.

Gryph

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

The environment, aka global warming, is one of the hot ;) topics - and politicians seem to be jumping on the band wagon.

We do have blue boxes for recycling and a limit to the amount of household waste that they will pick up (you pay to tag any bags over your limit). The recent regulations in Vancouver are restricting the kind of stuff that can be included in your household waste - e.g. no computers, etc.

But being green is a lot more than just recycling. We are on the left coast here and tree and whale huggers abound. No oil sands for us (yet). Measures that get adopted are the ones that are easiest to do. Leave blue box out once a week - easy! Stop driving my truck - no way! Even with tax breaks.

Sue and I both drive hybrids, for which we got a break on both Provincial and Federal tax. But as others have said, Canadians love their trucks and SUV's - most of which are driven with one person in them for most of the time. It is sad really that the high occupancy vehicle lane requires 2 people for you to qualify (at least in some areas).

Our real estate brokerage, Macdonald Realty, has a program that allows us to make all our deals carbon neutral. Which means that we pay to offset the gas we use in the process of making the deal. Sue and I have committed to make all our deals carbon neutral. Macdonald Realty also ensures that all of its premises and staff are carbon neutral. Even if this is for marketing purposes, it is a great idea and one of the reasons we feel comfortable working within their real estate brokerage.

There is a good deal of organic produce available, even in the big chain supermarkets. Not all of it is good quality and a lot has travelled a long way to get to us - so not necessarily helping the environment overall. But anyone who has tried the 100 mile diet (consume only things produced within 100 miles of home) knows that it is really hard to do.

The supermarkets here are gradually moving away from plastic bags, and you now see a few more people bringing in their reusable bags. In my experience you are still offered bags more than you need.

Canada does not have a spotless reputation but the good news is that you can do something about it.

Warmly,

Frank

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Toronto had a washing line promotion recently, the council gave away washing lines to encourage people away from using dryers. I thought that cute as washing lines are banned in the 'burbs.

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Of course, but it makes great headlines for the glad-handing baby-kissing types.

R.

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Hi! Frank & everyone

Well its nice to see whatever we're doing is a helping hand towards change!!

Some brilliant info and sad stuff too. Guess Canada can't change everything overnight. Thinking, your gov needs to do a lot more though!! GET TOUGH!!

I know you have vast land but doesn't matter when the world needs to change as a whole. I think the US is the worst of all evils!!

Glad lots of us have veiwed this thread and given their own views on 'being green'. Well, anyone moving over will know what to expect!! (good or bad).:):(

Angela

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

I'm not so sure, the US doesn't care and is more focused on its economy, Canda pretends to care whist still being focused on its (oil) economy

I'm realy not sure which is worse :(

Re: How GREEN is CANADA?
 

Oh, but there's still a bit of green in the distance....

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-con...pit_mining.jpg