Composting

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My girlfriend and I have recently started composting for our very first time.  We both came from families that composted as well, with my parents owning two composting bins.  You never really know how much of an impact composting has on your waste levels.  Since we are vegetarians, basically any waste that is produced from our food can go directly into the composting bin.  Since starting our compost we have seen basically zero waste going into the trash can,  we of course still have a gross amount going into our recycling.  The beautiful thing is that we also make vegetable soup stock with left peelings, and once we are done with that we can throw it into the compost, the ultimate recycling.

It goes to show that it really should be mandatory for cities to have to compost, the city of Edmonton already does this.  When the trash comes into the Edmonton waste facilities, the compostable materials are separated and contributes to Edmonton 60% waste recycle rate.

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We also have a great mini bin for the kitchen, so that you can collect more compost material, instead of having to carry the waste out to the composting bin every day.

What would your downtown be like today without transit?

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In this excerpt I would like to do a little bit of backwards thinking.  Lets imagine your cities of Edmonton and Calgary without the LRT running through our downtown.  A single LRT train running through either downtown carries up to 500 passengers every 5 minutes from two directions.  In Edmonton the LRT generates approximately 100,000 trips every day.  I acknowledge that not all trips are going to the same location along the 20 km line, however the majority of trips will terminate downtown.  For the purposes of this scenario lets assume that 75,000 of those trips make it downtown. 

Your typical automobile is 4.5 m long by 2 m wide and takes up 9 square meters of space. Lets assume that everyone takes their own car in this scenario (humans are creatures of comfort after all).  This means that you would need 75,000 automobiles in order to replace the trips normally made on the LRT.  If you were to line this many cars bumper to bumper it would ironically fill one lane of highway II between Edmonton and Calgary plus change at 335 km. 

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Approximately 45% of our cities are covered with road infrastructure so this includes parking, roads, garages, overpasses, interchanges.  The downtown Edmonton area is approximately 1.5 square kilometers, and approximately 675,000 square meters is dedicated for automobiles.  Of the 675,000 square meters of infrastructure approximately 250,000 square meters is dedicated to actual roadways.  The problem is that 75,000 cars take up 580,000 square meters of room.  This is more that double the roadway capacity in Edmonton's downtown.  You would need twice the area of Edmonton's downtown just to have room for all of the cars that would have normally been seats on a train.  You would need a 67 story block sized building or 27 twenty story normal sized building to provide parking for all of these cars. 

Image Credit: http://www.vollan.ca/asia/index.htm

You have to keep in mind that this is all in addition the normal traffic entering your downtown.  You can forget about having any sort of street life, you would need any available land to try and prevent the disastrous daily traffic jams.  Pedestrians would be forced of the sidewalks above, indoors or underground.  You would have massive unsightly twisting overbearing overhead freeways cutting concrete swaths into the sky.  The smog would be greatly intensified, and almost unbearable.  Your stress would never settle as you would be stuck in traffic for hours.

Thankfully this is not the case, several bright people in our cities past saw the value in transit and decided to invest in it.  You have been spared these horrific experiences due to the decisions of your ancestors.  So what can you do next time your councillor decides to invest in transit, well you can show them your support since even if you do not take transit it makes your life easier too.

Cars are not local

I heard this great argument for supporting sustainable transportation, cars do not support the local economy, and this is very true.  Since car manufacturers run with very centralized factories, this means that when you purchase a new car the majority of your money is not going to stay in the region and help support local businesses.  It is very likely that your car was manufactured in eastern Canada/US or oversees in Asia or Europe, and this makes very good business sense for automobile companies as you do not have to duplicate expensive manufacturing line equipment. 

However this is one against the climate and the environment and your local economy.  Since these cars weigh 1 tonne in its final form, it is no small feat to transport a fully built out car across the world and requires a large amount of fuel to run the semi that is most likely carrying the vehicles.  The majority of the money from your new purchase went to the car companies and their overpaid CEO's.  I am going to take a guess that the CEO of Ford or GMC do not live anywhere near Edmonton, or Calgary and thus will not be spending the majority of the money from the car in either city. 

The same can be said about the fuel that runs your vehicles.  Oil companies like car manufacturing companies are very centralized, and only provide a very focused economic benefit.  Often places in the third world countries such as Africa, do not even get to see any of the money produced from the oil leaving their own country, and yet these are the poorest places on the planet.  Again the oil companies and their CEOs are reaping the biggest portion of the money made from Oil, and again I will guess that the owners of the oil companies do not live in Winnipeg, and therefore will not spend their money and support the local economy.

Sure some jobs are created such as car dealers and gas attendants, however the bulk of the money being produced from automobiles and the fuel that runs them is not being reinvested locally.

Canada's Election Results and What it Means

Tonight was very historic in several ways:

1. Canada now has a green party in parliament, which means that the broadcasting consortium cannot pull a fast one on democracy and ban the green party from the debate again.
2. The NDP are the official opposition party with >100 seats.
3. The BQ cannot muddy the federal level politics as they won less than 5 seats.
4. Unfortunately the Conservatives also one a majority.

With the conservatives having full reign of parliament for the next 4 years, this means that we will see continuing billions of subsidies for billion dollar oil corporations.  This will see further spending on military efforts as opposed to peace keeping efforts.  This means that you will not see a dedicated force for providing guaranteed transit and municipal funding which is desperately needed.  This means that conservancy efforts will not be at the forefront.  The conservatives have no motivation to change our broken first-past-the-post electoral system.  They will increase penalties needlessly for petty crimes such as the possession of crime, more prisons will be built and more people will fill those prisons.  This means that when action is needed to fight climate change, it will not be done as quickly as needed.  The rich will continue to get richer will the poor can barely get by.  Finally Canada's reputation internationally will continue to be tarnished.

Bisphenol A (BPA)

Bisphenol A, what is that? 
It sounds complicated, and yet we encounter it every day, possibly ingesting it as well.  Bisphenol A or BPA is used to form the epoxy resin that lines our pre-packaged canned beans, tomato sauce, sodas, soups, bottled water and vegetables.  Basically if anything is canned you can guarantee that the inside of the metal can is lined with BPA. 

How do you identify if Bisphenol A is in your product?

Simply look for the symbol below.

Bisphenol Recycling Symbol

Why use BPA in the first place?

BPA`s are used a protective coating to ensure that the acidic contents do not rust away the metal shell of the can.  Our throwaway culture sets the precedent here, rather than using reusable containers, industry leaders are able to get away with creating waste with no responsibility for the mess left behind. 

What are the negative effects of BPA's?

BPA's can leach from the protective plastic lining into your foods.  BPA's have an effect on reproductive systems such as fertility, and has been identified as a hormone disruptor.  BPA's are also found to inhibit development for our kids and babies.  BPA's are also suspected to cause problems with our neurological systems, and obesity.

What has been done about BPA's?

One of the things that Canada has gotten right lately in our myriad of environmental action deficiencies, we were the first to declare BPA's as a toxic substance and ban it inside baby bottles.  The European Union followed suit and banned BPA's in baby bottles as well.  Japan's canning industry has already voluntarily phased out BPA's.  The US has recently voted to phase out BPA's for baby bottles, and reusable food/beverage containers by 2012.

How can we eliminate BPA`s from our society?

Recently Coca-Cola decided to shy away from eliminating BPA's from their products, even though 25% of their shareholders voted so.  As a temporary solution their are a few companies (such as Eden) that offer BPA free canning, simply just look for a label stating as such.  Most likely these products will be of the organic variety. On that note as a temporary solution businesses using BPA ridden products should phase out the resin/epoxy coating with a replacement.

Image Credit: www.treehugger.com

The fact that BPA's are present in our products underlines a problem with our current state of society, we are built for throwaway.  If we would replace the cans with reusable glass containers, or with a bulk system where you bring your own container, we would not have the need for the epoxy coating on the inside of the cans, thus we don't expose ourselves needlessly to a toxic substance.

Leading the Way Youth Summit 2011

In exactly one weeks time from today I will be in Edmonton participating in the Leading the Way Youth Summit 2011.  Myself and approximately 49 other delegates will be participating in a series of informative speeches, a LRT party, and a chance to submit ideas in front of a panel to correct transit problems.  I will be taking notes and will try and pass on any knowledge that I receive.

What is the best way to reduce your impact?

Image Credit: http://www.treehugger.com/

Over at Treehugger they have this great graph which breaks down the various ways you can reduce your impact.  The graph also provides a value of the benefit for each action.  If you were to change your diet by eating less meat, and choose to telecommute instead of driving to an office, you generate double the benefit than the majority of courses of action.  If you have no choice but to drive due to your work location, you can still generate a reduction of impact if you drive properly.  If you accelerate slowly, brake infrequently and follow speed limits you can dramatically improve your fuel efficiency.  You generate a respectable savings just by maintaining your vehicle. 

I just wanted to share this graph because it provides a direct comparison between various methods,.  The biggest thing to take away is that it shows just how much of an impact our eating and commuting habits have.