GC 2020
657 results found
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Partner with non-profits for manufacturing using waste materials
As the landfills are all filling up, create manufacturing opportunities in partnership with non-profits using waste. Examples: waxed produce boxes make enviro-friendly fire logs; so do recycled newspapers; plastics can be mixed and molded into playground equipment and park benches
10 votes -
Let's kill the whole plan
This whole initiative is misguided nonsense that will wreck the city and cause taxes to scream upwards. Regular citizens aren't interested in this. Collect the garbage, provide services to citizens and get off this expensive ideologically driven pap.
4 votes -
Recycle Hotel Soaps and Bottled Amenities
Every year in British Columbia the hotel industry deposits over 250 metric tones of soap and bottled amenities directly into our landfills. What if that soap could be cleaned, sanitized, and re-purposed for humanitarian emergencies and communities around the world where hand washing with soap can reduce by up to 60% the deaths of children under the age of 5. www.cleantheworld.org
Mission Possible, a agency in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is employing women at risk by recycling hotel soaps and bottled amenities. www.mission-possible.ca
5 votes -
Protect Urban Farming by changing the laws that get used to shut it down
Five years ago I moved to Vancouver and started turning the house I rented with friends into an urban farm. But a neighbour (one, out of dozens) thinks food gardens belong in the back yard and used the city's vague and undemocratic "Untidy Premises Bylaw" to have us ordered to remove it.
If Vancouver really wants to be green, it should start by looking around at the amazing things that ordinary people are already doing to make it that way and stop putting up barriers to their work. This bylaw needs a specific exemption for food gardens, or it needs…
56 votesThe draft Greenest City Action Plan includes a review of relevant bylaws that enable or inhibit urban agriculture.
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printing
Green up the Citys Print Communications - we know the city needs to communicate, let's do it smarter. Ensure that any communication vendors have been pre-qualified with a number of Environmental and Social minimum standards. Ensure that any print is done with leading sustainable practices, Carbon Neutral, Recycled paper, Zero VOC inks, with companies that actively support the communities social and green needs. Print Less, Print smarter.
3 votesA corporate sustainability framework is currently being developed and implemented; this idea has been shared with that team, and zero waste is an aspect of their framework.
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power monitoring
Power Monitoring - Commercial Buildings
1 vote -
pharmaceutical plastic packaging
Drugstores produce lots of plastic waste. All players should be responsible for there proper disposal,
4 votes -
Poonergy
Have city staff invent a machine to capture/burn the heat from your poo and transfer to hot water tank, or sell it into the city grid I mentioned earlier, exploiting a very domestic source of energy.
1 voteThe Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU) in Southeast False Creek provides space heating and domestic hot water to new buildings in the area. The system uses sewage heat recovery to supply most of the annual energy demand (70%). This approach is being considered in other areas. Read more here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/building_neu.htm
Metro Vancouver is also exploring opportunities to generate energy from liquid waste. See also: http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/ILWRMP.pdf
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Urban Farm Coop
Mandate urban farm coops in backyards. City Hall would then collect taxes in the form of fruits and vegetables. This could be as successful as it was under Stalin. It resulted in an unexpected benefit -- the reduction of the population by 15 million people. Vive La Revolution Vert!
5 votes -
Permeable pavements
Use permeable paving in suitable areas with lower traffic volume (e.g. big block parking lots or smaller side streets)
4 votes -
To stimulate food waste recycling, offer a monthly bin cleaning service.
Since food waste will be in a bin for 2 weeks before collection, it tends to become smelly and full with bugs. This could be a major drawback for a lot of people, especially during the summer months. Therefore, offer a monthly or bi-monthly cleaning service on the day the waste is collected. In this way, recycling will become a lot less smelly! This service is in use in the Netherlands where food waste recycling has been around for a long time, and works perfectly!
1 vote -
Water Reclamation and Re-use
Use a local sustainable technology such as Solar Aquatics to clean waste water for re-use within our communities. Decentralizing our waste water treatment and using fully aerated biological systems will reduce energy (pumping) costs, eliminate greenhouse gas and water pollution that come with conventional sewage treatment, reduce the amount of fresh water we need to take to take off the mountain and clean, and provide an abundance of recycled water for use in parks, gardens, green roofs, fire suppression, or a host of other needs we have.
6 votes -
3 votes
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2 votes
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Travel Plan Partnerships
Develop a City – Business- not for profit – Translink partnership, to implement a comprehensive travel plan for the area. Include ideas such as small business car share / transit pass co-ops, subsidised cycle equipment & training, cycle rickshaw taxis, timetabled walking school buses etc. Only through working on a large scale with a number of interconnected projects will things be successful. You can also bring in the Health Authority to promote the health benefits of active transport.
4 votes -
planted buildings
Use hedges or vines that cover buildings completely, roof top gardens, to help regulate thermal radiation. AC unit areas should be covered by plants or shaded so the energy wasted to cool the air is less.
10 votesCurrently exploring an approach to addressing cool roofs, green roofs & walls.
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free public transport downtown
like most greener cities, public transport is free downtown!
10 votes -
Force downtown and other high density areas to be automobile free.
Many dense cities force this upon their downtown areas.
Since transit / bike / walking options are good in high density areas, using cars is not needed.
The area can start small (like the areas directly around skytrain stations), and gradually increase once more infrastructure is there.This will provide multiple solutions. Greenhouse gasses will be quelled, infrastructure costs will be lower, and most importantly, these area will become more appealing as public areas, which creates a higher sense of community and city identity.
32 votes -
Diaper recycling plant
Some stats : 27.4 billion disposable diapers are consumed every year in the U.S.
Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill.
Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste.
No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.5 votes -
meatless mondays
Like the title say, reduce meat consumption on Mondays. This would help reduce out footprint enormously. Furthermore, we would be the first city in Canada to adopt such a policy, the second in North America (after San Fran.) and the third in the world. It would be non-binding, that is great if you do it, OK if you don't. Read more here: http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating-recipes/blogs/san-francisco-joins-meatless-monday-bandwagon
Thanks!!!42 votesLow footprint food choices are not the same as vegan food choices in all cases, the analysis is more complex than this. Generally a low footprint diet is local, seasonal food, and limits consumption of red meat, dairy, and some grains. Low footprint food choices is included in the draft Greenest City Action Plan and will be discussed in ongoing community engagement work.
