GC 2020
96 results found
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Comprehensive Food Waste Collection
Why not collect all food waste? Seattle does it. UBC does it. Why limit it to uncooked fruits and veggies and eggshells? This makes some people not bother. More would use the service if it didn't require any discrimination and sorting.....
37 votesThis is planned for Phase 2 of the food scraps recycling program.
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Ban non recyclable products
It is about time no? Why can we still buy products that cannot be recycled? If we want a zero waste society, we can not have the choice anymore of consuming goods that will end up in the garbage.
36 votes -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Get organics from all sectors out of the waste stream - ASAP.
Organic waste creates methane in landfills, a greenhouse gas that is over 20 times more potent than C02. Compostable organics need to be taken out of the waste stream using an organics hierarchy - first by preventing extra waste in the first place (up to 40% of our food gets tossed!), recovering food to feed hungry people then animals (think pallet of cans that happen to get dented on one side0, then composted to create a high quality end product that completes our nutrient cycle. As a society, we're as healthy as our top soil. A diversified strategy using back…
27 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 -
Don't Incinerate -- Reduce!!
Incineration is a controversial method of waste disposal. If we want to be the Greenest city, we will not get there by incinerating ANY waste. A more comprehensive plan to encourage reduction not only of household waste, but also restaurant and other business waste. Extended food waste collection, consumer education and pay-to-throw programs would all be part of this.
27 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 -
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 -
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 -
Reuse centres in every neighbourhood and at Waste Disposal Sites and Transfer Stations
Hornby Island does it, so can we! The idea is simple - create a designated place for people to drop off useful items for other people to take home, for free. Yes, it requires a little bit of management to make sure our community spaces don't get over run with old computers, but this can be a great way for people to get stuff they need, and to reduce waste going to landfill.
Fernwood, in Victoria, has a little gazebo in their neighbourhood square to drop stuff off. Montreal has the legendary ongoing, city wide, garage sale. And Hornby Island…
20 votesThe draft Greenest City Action Plan includes an action to develop reuse centres.
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Compost, compost, COMPOST!
Encourage people to compost!!!!! Send out info to people and they will build it! And rainwater cachement systems are GREAT too.
20 votes -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
School Compost and Recycling Programs
Install more Recycling and Compost areas inside Schools to decrease litter and keep school gardens healthy
18 votes -
Coordinate waste management truck routes
To reduce vehicle emissions, waste management companies for apartment/condos should be coordinated by route / area. I see several different private garbage trucks drive down the same alleys every day. There is a lot of redundancy and extra traffic to collect garbage when several different companies have bins in the same city block. If only one company were responsible for a whole area, their trucks could travel more efficiently, and the number of miles driven by garbage trucks overall in the city would be reduced
17 votes
