GC 2020
96 results found
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refillable containers at supermarkets
Refillable milk, butter, juice, etc. stations at supermarkets would eliminate such an enormous amount of wasted packaging. Think about bringing your refillable bottles every week to get what you need. This goes beyond the local level though - we'd need to get producers onboard. Taking it a step further would be to fill all the stations with locally produced food/drinks.
35 votes -
Promote hotels that offer biodegradable guest amenities
Plastic is a problem in landfill because it takes over 450 years for plastic to break down (if it ever does break down). Hotels dispose of billions of hotel size shampoo bottles in landfill each year. Technology exists to produce plastic shampoo bottles that will biodegrade in landfill in less than 9 years. Vancouver can offer special recognition to the hotels that offer guests this new environmentally responsible product as the more hotels that contribute to this cause, landfill waste will be saved one inch at a time. Starting small can offer big rewards.
27 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 -
lets make recycling mandatory for supermarkets
I work in a supermarket that doesnt have a good enough paper recycling program. The city should make it mandatory for supermarkets especially to have a recycling program in place.
29 votes -
Expand recycling program to include all Recyclable Materials
Pacific Mobile Depots operates an number of regular depots around the Lower Mainland to collect recyclable materials that are not collecting in the current municipal programs. Residents PAY to properly dispose of material that can be recycled. The City should partner with a private operator to expand the current program if the existing programs cannot be quickly expanded. http://www.pacificmobiledepots.com/services.php
118 votes -
School Compost and Recycling Programs
Install more Recycling and Compost areas inside Schools to decrease litter and keep school gardens healthy
18 votes -
Instead of having trucks pick up leaves in the fall the city to lend electric mulchers to neighbours
It saves greenhouse gases by the trucks cleaning the streets, provides compost, and gets citizens talking
4 votes -
Thermal Depolymerization
I'm aware of the attempts to collect methane from landfills. But there is a better technology that will reduce waste entering landfills in the first place... Thermal depolymerisation. It is still a relatively fledgling - but proven - technology (14-ish years old) but worth looking into. http://www.changingworldtech.com/
This invention is recycling par excellence. It would mean a reduction of new fossil carbon into the atmosphere, with a superlatively effective reuse of existing biomass. It could also solve all the CH4 emission problems of landfills; in fact, farm waste, old tyres, landfills and sewage systems would become a resource.
I realise…
18 votes -
Eternal Olympic Flame that actually helps the Environment!
When dog waste goes into landfill, it releases methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is approximately 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
When it’s burned in the presence of oxygen, it separates into carbon dioxide and water vapor, so businesses can actually earn carbon credits from burning off excess methane.
Here is an article on a park in Massachusetts where they are using methane created from dog poop for a gas burning lamppost (http://parksparkproject.com/home.html).
Eventually the methane could be used to reduce overall energy consumption by heating buildings/water etc, but in the…
3 votes -
Charge business and commercial waste by weight instead of by bin
Wastes from businesses and commercial enterprises are generally put into dumpsters that are removed on a regular basis. These wastes includes food waste from restaurants, grocery stores and markets as well as industrial wastes such as wood, metals, construction materials and so on. If businesses were incentives to reduce the WEIGHT of their wastes they would be much more likely to find creative ways to divert it from the landfill stream. So dumpsters with less 'garbage' in them simply cost less to the business.
14 votes -
Expand the Current Blue Box Recycling Program and Offer it to Local Businesses
In many of my former workplaces, there has been little to no recycling of plastics, metals, glass and other recyclable materials for there was no collection program in place. Businesses should be required to pay to sign up for a blue box program that is connected to the residential one, and they could receive greater fee rebates the more recyclable materials they divert from the landfills.
21 votes -
BYOC (Bring Your Own Container/Cup)
Consumers have a responsibility to their own carbon footprint and not just the businesses. Bring your own container to the restaurant when you order food to go just like we bring reusuable mugs for drinks! Businesses can offer a discount as an encouragement.
23 votes -
Standard office supply changes
Our goal is to push for the betterment of our society, by providing sustainable products that cause the least harm to the eco-systems of the world we live, work and play in. We are of the mind that 5 cent’s more for a cup of coffee, or 2 cent’s more for a pen is well worth the peace of mind that we are making a difference, and that we are making the world a better, healthier place.
The choices made in today’s market place will profoundly affect the world of tomorrow, along with the need for the diversification and an…
3 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 -
compost street bins
To reduce smell and garbage, and can be picked up daily by volunteers or city works to be put in round about gardens or used in local parks
5 votes -
Mandatory composting of horse manure at barns within city limits
As a U. of Guelph Equine Sciences student last fall, I used Stanley Park as a research area and was surprised to learn the manure at the police barns was not composted on site and used for the city's gardens. It's trucked away and nobody seemed to know where to. Then I recently learned that Southlands Heritage Farm has a proposal for a biodigester on their property, but the city will not approve it due to a "lack of understanding of the unit". I don't believe Hastings Park has a composter either. Raw horse manure is toxic to the environment…
6 votes -
Require all fast food take-out containers to be reusable, compostable, or recyclable
There are plenty of reusable, compostable and recyclable food take-out container options these days (see UBC's compostable take-out containers for an example).
All facilities should also have compost and recycling collection for these containers, with clever designs that prevent cross-contamination.
Thought should be given to whether used food containers need to be washed before being deposited into the store's compost collection bin, or whether a process can be implemented that would take care of this after collection.
272 votes -
Place More Blue Recycling Bins Around The City
Usually, people don't want to hold onto their garbage while walking, so they throw away whatever they have in their hands, even if it's meant for recycling.
I believe there should be a recycling bin right beside every garbage can, if not even more recycling bins than garbage cans.99 votes -
Reduce the use of faresaver and replace it with a resuable and reloadable card.
Instead of wasting paper on faresaver cards, why not use a plastic card that resembles like a credit card that you never have to throw out. Then you can reload it with as much money as you want on the card, either online or at a store. Also, you can put an option of reloading the card with a "virtual" bus pass, so you can get on the bus as many times as you want during that whole month that you chose to pay for.
Then on the bus, you'll just have to scan it and the machine will recognize…28 votes -
Make It Mandatory That Asphalt Roofing Shingles Be Banned from Landfills (and recycled instead)
In the Vancouver region alone approximately 80,000 tonnes of tear-off roofing shingles are disposed of in our landfills each year! 80,000 tonnes means 160,000 barrels of oil used and 4.8 million tonnes of CO2 produced! This is unnecessary waste, and there is one company making a difference in this area that grinds up the shingles to be sold as binder in asphalt paving mixes and as fuel for kilns. To keep this huge amount of waste that could be re-used out of our landfills, the city of Vancouver should partner with this company by either purchasing grinders so the landfills…
19 votes