waste reduction

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April 14, 2008

Earth Day Season Events in Ottawa, 2008

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, energy, food, household, organic, recycled, waste reduction
[3] Comments 

A few people have sent me press releases about Earth Day events in Ottawa and I promised to pass the information along, so here goes:

  • April 18 and 19 at 7:30 pm, Dancing the Earth for Earthday, the premiere of the Buddha and the Tree of Life, a dance performance by Anjali at Arts Court.
  • April 19, 10 am to 4 pm, The EcoStewardship Fair at the R.A. Centre. I’m a regular at these fairs, which provides a venue for eco-conscious consumers to find eco-conscious products and for eco-conscious citizens to find eco-conscious groups to support and join.
  • April 19, 10:30am Our Land Our Future, preschool Earth Day activities at Centennial Branch of the Library.
  • April 22, 7 pm, Global Warming, the Swedish Experience, a talk by the Ambassador of Sweden to Canada, Ingrid Iremark, at the Main Branch of the Public Library, 120 Metcalfe Street. Admission is free.
  • April 29, 11:45 am - 2:15 pm, The Six Sins of Greenwashing, The Hampton Inn, 11:45-2:15, presented by Scott McDougall, President and CEO of Terrachoice and the Canadian Marketing Association.
  • May 3, 8:30 to noon, the Sunoco Earth Day Tree Planting as part of the Riverside South Reforestation Project: the goal is to plant 2,000 trees that morning.
  • May 3, 8:30 am to noon, pancake breakfast followed by another tree planting at the Kilborn Greenspace in Alta Vista, between Featherstone and Prospect.
  • May 8, 11 am to 1 pm, EarthCARE Expo, on education and the environment, at Confederation High School.
  • Also, HGTV is having three days of Green television programming on April 19, 20 from 1 pm to 5 pm and on April 22 from 8 pm til midnight.

    If any of you know of any other Ottawa Earth Day events please post the information in a comment. (BTW, I have to manually approve comments because of all the spam this site gets, so please be patient if your comment does not show up right away).

     

    April 12, 2008

    Convenient Computer Recycling in Ottawa

    Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, household, recycled, waste reduction
    No Comments 

    Today I dropped by Heartwood House to drop off my old computer bits and pieces, all those obsolete electronics that have been cluttering up the house. Heartwood House, which is conveniently located in downtown Ottawa at Rideau and Chapel, is home to the Everybody Wins Computer Recycling Program.

    The Everybody Wins program accepts all types of computer hardware: towers, drives, mice, cables, keyboards, monitors, printers, speakers, disc-burners, even CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. Heartwood House ask for a donation of $2 each time you donate, to cover their administrative expenses. They also charge a $20 fee for each old-style CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors because of the special processing they require due to the lead and other hazardous chemicals they contain. (By weight, CRT monitors are composed of a shocking 25% lead). On the other hand, for each tower you bring in that is 6 years old or younger, they will give you a tax receipt for $15-$25.

    The actual electronics recycling is done by the local company RDLong Computers who have made it their mission to divert as much end-of-life electronics from landfill sites to alternative re-use and re-cycle streams as possible. Heartwood House, home to 16 charities, receives a portion of the recycling proceeds RDLong generates. RDLong also donates some of the salvaged, still usable computers to The Anti-Poverty Project, a local charity that provides computer systems, software and education services to groups around the National Capital Region that work with low-income individuals providing internet access and opportunities to improve computer skills and employability.

    Everybody Wins Computer Recycling Program, Heartwood House, 153 Chapel Street, 613-323-178

    Hours September to June: Monday - Thursday: 8:00am to 7:00pm, Friday: 8:00am to 4:00pm

    Hours June to August: Monday - Tuesday - Thursday: 8:00am to 5:00pm, Wednesday: 8:00am to 7:00pm, Friday: 8:00am to 4:30pm

     

    April 6, 2008

    The Quest for A Healthy Deodorant that Works

    Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, health, organic, personal care, waste reduction
    [3] Comments 

    miessence deodorant

    I’ve tried a great number of health food store deodorants, the ones that advertise being environmentally friendly and better for you than the run of the mill pharmacy ones.  I’ve tried a great many because they tend to work for a week or two and then fail miserably, usually on a high stress day when I really need them to work.  I was relieved to find that I’m not alone in this.  In her most excellent book, Ecoholic, Adria Vasil writes of experiencing the same problem.

    There are certain brands that in the past I found worked for longer: Nature’s Gate and Tom’s of Maine.  However, these brands have propylene glycol as their main ingredient,  which the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database lists as “moderately toxic,” 4 out of a possible 10.  BTW, I have recently discovered that Nature’s Gate Organics deodorants are propylene glycol free, but I have not tried them. I was disappointed to discover Tom’s of Maine uses propylene glycol since they were the first company to develop a “natural deodorant” back in the 1970s and Ellis Jones, in his “the better world shopping guide” rates them as #5 on his list of the 10 best companies in the world from an ethical, environmental and social justice perspective. But I was determined to make my armpits propylene glycol free zones, so I went back to trying out deodorants.

    Fortunately my environmentally-friendly hair dresser, Joy, recently introduced me to an Australian organic cosmetics company, miessence organics.  Their Aroma Free Deodorant is more expensive than your average health food store brand.  However, it has only four ingredients (water, aloe vera, sodium bicarbonate, xanthan gum, and grapefruit seed extract) all of which I am familiar with and comfortable using.  The deodorant works perfectly and has continued to work without fail for several months now.

    One last note about healthy deodorants.  I have also found that deodorant stones or crystals work extremely well, save on packaging, and are about the most cost-effective natural deodorants out there.  However, on doing a bit of research, I found that their active ingredient was an aluminum salt, potassium alum, which led me to stop using it, the deodorant aluminum scares of the 1980s being what had led me to change to health food store deodorants in the first place.  The Cosmetics Database lists potassium alum as having very low toxicity (a score of 1, with 0 being the lowest possible), however, it also lists data gaps for this ingredient, so I’m still undecided on the crystal deodorant issue.

    Incidentally, in preparing this post, I looked up grapefruit seed extract on the database and it gets a score of 3 on toxicity, mostly because of concerns that it might be contaminated with nasty chemicals.  So all I can do is conclude that being an informed consumer is hard work and the best path is never a clear one.

    Resources:

    Miessence deodorant available at Pure Joy Hair Studio in Westboro, Ottawa, open Wednesday to Saturday, phone ahead 613-728-4069

    Crystal Deodorant Stone available from the on-line Outouais store: Scentfree.ca

    Ottawa-based website on health and cosmetics: PureKnowHow

    International, comprehensive cosmetics database: Skin Deep

     

    March 13, 2008

    GreenBags versus Green-washing

    Posted by greenlivingottawa under climate change, energy, food, household, recycled, waste reduction
    [5] Comments 

    greenbag.jpg

    I’ve noticed a lot of local merchants using “biodegradable” bags lately. In fact I’ve even blogged positively about the phenomenon. However, a recent piece of news has led me to rethink the “greenness” of these biodegradable forms of packaging.

    Worldwide there is a shortage of grains, causing the price of basic foodstuffs to skyrocket.  While vulnerable people in the worst off parts of the world are starving, we in the rich North have taken to making disposable bags out of food, namely out of corn, to assuage our environmental guilt. While these biodegradable products do go some way towards solving some of our waste problems here, isn’t making disposable products out of corn pretty much the same as throwing out food?

    The downside of these biodegradable packaging solutions has been generally ignored. However, the so-called green-promise of biofuels (also largely made out of corn) has recently come under criticism from a number of sources: eg. UK Chief Scientific Advisor, and Greenpeace, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, WWF. According to a UBC geographer, the use of pesticides and fertilizers (mostly manufactured out of oil) to grow corn to make ethanol and biodiesel will increase the extent of the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico (a “dead zone” is exactly what it sounds like). Meanwhile, development groups have criticized the use of food-growing land to serve the overdeveloped world’s hunger for driving their cars. The Economist puts it starkly: filling an SUV’s tank just once uses as much maize as is required to feed a person for a year.

    The simple truth is our lifestyles are unsustainable. We can’t just exchange one product for another, we have to actually reduce our consumption. In terms of shopping bags, there is a very simple solution. Use a reusable totebag, preferably one made out of something that would otherwise be filling up a landfill somewhere. I’ve already blogged about Loblaws’ nifty recycled bags. Today, I want to blog about my favourite reusable bag: the Velcro GreenBag.

    The reason I like the Velcro GreenBag so much is its design. It is easy to keep in a coat pocket or purse because it packs up into a small flat pouch that velcros shut. When it is expanded to its full size, it can carry the equivalent of 2 to 3 plastic grocery bags worth of heavy stuff. Unfortunately it is not made of recycled materials. It is, however, recyclable. I’ve had mine now for nearly year and there is no sign of wear or tear and I do bring them with me always.  By the time my GreenBags are ready to be recycled, I hope GreenBag has managed to work out how to make a replacement out of recycled materials.

    In Ottawa you can buy GreenBags at the WheatBerry. Online they are available through www.ecobags.com.

    The Wheatberry, 206 Main Street,Ottawa, ON K1S 1C6,(613) 235-7580

    If you’d like to let the world community know that you think we should feed people not cars you can sign onto a global petition at Avaaz.org.

     

    March 8, 2008

    Coming Home to Organic Fruits and Veggies

    Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, food, household, waste reduction
    [7] Comments 

    As was recently pointed out in a comment, I have not been keeping up on my posts lately. My apologies, but these days all I want to do when I get home after an hour and a half to two hour bus-through-snow commute is flake out on the sofa.

    However, this weekend I’ve decided not to try to do anything outside of the house, but just to sit tight and weather out this latest storm, so I have time to post. I don’t even have to go grocery shopping because while I was at work yesterday afternoon, Ottawa Organics stopped by my house and filled the cooler I keep on the front porch with fresh organic fruit and vegetables, warm-from-the-oven bread, and milk in a glass bottle.

    Ottawa Organics and Natural Foods is a local company that started up in June of 2007.  They offer local and imported organically grown fruits and vegetables through a food box program or a la carte.  They also sell dairy products, local grains and flours, locally-roasted coffee, chocolate bars, locally produced condiments, and baked goods from two bakeries: Art-Is-In and Bread and Sons.

    Ottawa Organics makes an effort to offer a wide variety of produce in their box and to change what is included from week to week.  We find the medium-sized food box is perfect for a couple.  They also offer small and large boxes, or you can just pick from a list of fruits and veggies.  Everything we have ordered from them has been high quality.  I have also been impressed by the minimal packaging they use.

    While they do try to source as much as possible locally, at the end of a long winter such as we are having this year, most produce comes from elsewhere.  For a carless couple with busy lives, the best part Ottawa Organics is that for a minimum order of $25 they deliver to our door.  Orders have to be placed on-line by Tuesday evening for Thursday or Friday delivery.

    Ottawa Organics and Natural Foods, 333 Catherine St #215, Ottawa, (613) 234-1515, matt@ottawaorganics.com

     

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