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How can we reach our 2020
Greenest City Targets?

GC 2020

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96 results found

  1. Make waste a waste of money

    Metro Vancouver is on the right track by increasing the cost of garbage disposal. Businesses listen when they are affected in areas that they understand, rising costs and decreasing profits. If recycling is cheaper than waste disposal there will be real incentive to recycle.

    20 votes
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  2. Composting Program for Buildinga west of Denman

    Use part of Stanley Park to start a small composting program for apartments west of denman St. Low transport costs with high density...reduces garbage in dumpster and offers free compost for park and or residents. if it works duplicate using other parks in vancouver with nearby apartment complexes.

    8 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  3. eco fee for non-recyclable containers, not recyclable ones!

    Currently if you walk into a grocery store and buy a product in a recyclable container you will pay an eco-fee (this is not a deposit) to cover the cost of the recycling.... Hellooooooo. Why are we not charging a "landfill fee" for everything that's NOT recyclable instead???

    Eco-fees on products
    When you buy many products with a take-back program, you’ll pay an eco-fee to cover the cost of recycling. It’s not a tax, meaning it doesn’t go to the government. The eco-fee goes directly to the take-back program to pay for the cost of recycling or safe disposal. Eco-fees…

    29 votes
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  4. All single-use disposal items in Vancouver must be made of compostable bio-plastic or paper.

    It’s ironic, and unacceptable, that most items designed to be disposed after a single use, are made of plastic which takes thousands of years to decay (if at all). Many items made of plastic today could be produced using the new compostable bioplastics. This would include: packaging (produce bags, Styrofoam, etc), food containers (coffee/drink cups, baked good and takeout containers, etc), medical equipment (syringes, latex gloves etc), personal care items (razors, qtips etc). This should extend into the industrial sector too. This idea might not be feasible in 100% of the instances, but it would go a long way to…

    87 votes
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  5. Ban the Disposal of Recyclable Products

    The Nova Scotian government has an amazing program where garbage has to be disposed of in clear garbage bags and if it includes recyclable goods the waste it not picked up and has to be sorted.

    The ban includes "Bans on the disposal of beverage containers, corrugated cardboard, newsprint, scrap tires, used oil, lead-acid batteries, waste paint, automotive antifreeze, glass food containers, steel/tin cans, selected plastics and compostable organic materials."

    http://www.gov.ns.ca/nse/waste/swrmstrategy.asp

    2 votes
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  6. Ensure all malls and public fascilities have recycling systems in place

    I have worked retail in a number of malls and I was horrified by the lack of recycling options there were for the paying tenants. No bottle/plastic recycling, sometime no paper. Tenants would often have to pay for this service.
    Implement the same recycling programs available to homes, we can not exclude rental/commercial properties if we have any intention to becoming a more sustainable community.

    59 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  7. Ban any EPR material from being commingled in single stream totes. Specificaly packaging materials!

    Ban any EPR material from being commingled in single stream totes. Specificaly packaging materials!

    5 votes
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  8. Recycling Education and Expanding the Recycling Program

    Updated education on what is recyclable and what isn't would be great. Our recycling bin has been rejected because people aren't following the guidelines, but if they're coming from other provinces or countries, they might have been able to recycle more. Let's upgrade what we can recycle and educate everyone on what we can do. Am I the only one who still takes the plastic windows out of the envelopes and do we still need to do it?

    1 vote
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  9. Apartment and condo-dwellers get Freezer Compost Bins for collecting organic scraps

    Freezing organic scraps is the only sure way to get rid of fruit flies, odor, and the leftover, hard-to-clean rotting food messiness associated with composting. There are flexible silicone containers specifically designed for storing scraps in freezers. When it's collection day or you're ready to empty into a collection site, vermicomposter, or wherever, you just flex the container and the frozen scraps pop right out. Now that's an idea! Don't let the city give us plastic containers that we'll need to buy liners and bags for, make them give us a real solution instead!

    61 votes
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  10. Stop the distribution of free newspapers

    How many different free newspapers can you count that are distributed across Vancouver ... handed out at Skytrain stations, available in boxes on almost every street corner downtown and left in bundles for those of use who live in apartments and condos.

    Many of these newspapers end up in garbage cans or tossed on the street creating litter.

    My suggestion is for the City to ban the distribution of these free newspapers as people value what the pay for - if they really wanted them, they'd purchase them.

    If the City isn't willing to ban these free newspapers, at the…

    61 votes
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  11. Make the free stuff Xchange on 4th and McDonald official.

    It's a great corner run by 'Santa Claus', a white earded man who patrols the street for useful 'junk' and leaves it on the corner for anyone to take and 'reuse'. I've found some amazing things there and he keeps the stuff outta the landfill.

    Reusing is better than recycling anyday!!

    10 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  12. Materials Reuse/ Exchange Program

    Similar to the Industrial Materials Exchange Program, small businesses and the public will be able to log into a database to list materials (such as packing paper, bubble wrap, shelving units, etc.) that they would like to give away for free before they are forced to throw it away. Using this principle of community-resource-exchange, our company was able to reduce their waste dramatically. The success of such a program will dependent on the promotion of it to the public and small businesses. Maybe a database and already popular site such as craigslist would be interested in a collaborative effort in…

    57 votes
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    started  ·  3 comments  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  13. aerobic composting

    To have all high desity apartments as well as all hotels use aerobic composting units. Unlike traditional compsting that attracts vermin and creates green hose gasses with the decomposition, aerobic composting units produce very limited amounts of green house gasses, they also have the ability to turn large volumes of organic waste into soil in short periods of time, this soil could then be used in parks or on farms to complete the cycle. Aerobic Composter are also faster in turning waste into soil some are able to process a ton within 24 hours, this would reduce the amount of…

    46 votes
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  14. pharmaceutical plastic packaging

    Drugstores produce lots of plastic waste. All players should be responsible for there proper disposal,

    4 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  15. Dumpster free alleys

    Neighbourhood business improvement associations are behind this idea. So is Zero Waste Vancouver. The era of Dinosaur Dumpsters is coming to a close. By taking back our public right-of-ways from the garbage industry, we will motivate the industry to evolve into a recycling industry. Let's get together, Vancouver, and show the world how it can be done right. Small is beautiful.

    23 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Reduce waste  ·  Admin →
  16. Illustrate how individuals can make the City a 'self-cleaning oven' via creative waste diversion.

    We need a showcase of repurposed goods and ideas that can either travel to schools or be visited by the public. Environmental issues align with savings indices issues in a bold, creative way.

    1 vote
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  17. Make composting, proper recycling and waste disposal procedures in restaurants/hotels mandatory.

    I work in one of the busiest restaurants in downtown Vancouver, and the amount of food alone we throw away daily makes sick.

    I think that there are enough chain restaurants in the city that if even one caught on, it would create a demand for composting as a service and potentially lead others to do the same.

    Hotels and grocery stores are other ways the idea could expand.

    And the new fertilizer could be given to farmers for use in the area.

    180 votes
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  18. Plasma Arc Waste Disposal

    Plasma Arc Waste Disposal (or Gasification) is a method of waste disposal used for its capability of recycling nearly every material that is put into it.

    Using clean electrical arcs, the GVRD could decompose any waste into its component elements. Carbon Dioxide would decompose into Carbon and Oxygen; plastics would decompose into Hydrogen, Carbon, and other base elements contained within; and organic wastes like food would decompose into Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, among numerous other elements.

    Metals and alloys can be separated into each component metal, allowing quicker and easier reuse and refabrication.

    "Plasma gasification is also used for specialized…

    20 votes
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  19. Kitchen Compost Containers for the counter to store household compost easily before collection day.

    Distribute conveniently-sized Kitchen Compost Containers made of recycled materials to Vancouver households to allow for easy and odourless storage of egg shells, uncooked fruit, veggies scraps, coffee grounds, filters and tea bags. A convenient storage place until collection day when compost materials can be dumped in the green bin!

    98 votes
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  20. Using GoogleMaps, connect people so they can pool their low-volume recyclables together.

    Make it possible for residences or small businesses to find other people / businesses near them, so they can pool low-volume waste streams like batteries, light bulbs, wood pallets together to make it economically viable for recyclers to come and pick them up

    3 votes
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