where does my garbage go?

So I have more trash talk to share for the month of June as well, as I had events for both of my "green" hats at work and home.

In early june we went on a family adventure to the Vancouver Landfill with our neighbour and wonderful new friend Sarah. Not many folks brave and kind enough to take me, Mark, Che and Sasha for a road trip to delta to learn about garbage - yeepa! Not every day your kid gets to dance and high-5 a giant oil drop (Sasha fell in love with this guy and wanted to hang out with him all day! lol)

Che kept asking "and we're going to the landfill why?" hehe. Though he has the fortune of having an abundance of parent activists in his life and is used to being asked to do some pretty interesting things in the name of community and all things green, he was having a hard time with the notion of going to look at the dump...

but I just had to see with my own 2 eyes exactly where all this garbage I look down upon goes when it leaves our dumpster and figure it couldn't hurt for my children to see it too. (The stuff in the cage is dropped off at various places by the people we pay to dispose of it, and I'd wager a bunch of it goes to the landfill too after being rained on, smashed by juveniles who like to break stuff for no reason, etc) The stuff dumped beside our dumpster by folks too lazy to deal with their own garbage (argh!!!!!) gets sorted out by myself or one of the other co-op members who share my compulsive desire to keep that area somewhat tidy at the least.

We followed the route of our local dump truck and arrived at the Landfill for their Open House event, which turns out to be a whole lot of fun! You probably wouldn't think there is much to see, but we were pleasantly surprised to see something for everyone. I really enjoyed learning about all the positive things they are doing to leave as little environmental impact as possible, using the garbage to create energy, composting and so much more. In fact, we missed out on the amazing garden tour and will likely go back next year (or some point) to check it out.



One thing they offer for people to get a big picture view of what happens throughout the acres of landfill space is a bus ride that goes up to the top of the garbage heap, and passes most of the day-to-day operations carried out. The landfill is open every day of the year but one (and now I cant remember if that day is Christmas or New Years that they close?) Our tour guide on the bus was very informative and also very enthusiastic about the work they do with the garbage we create! Some of their staff are highly specialized and get called in from time to time on their days off to help out, like the guy pictured climbing up the tractor who was their rescue mechanic that day.

Up at the top of the heap you get to see the mega large compactors doing their work of crushing the pile into a hardly compacted mound which is covered by super large tarps at the end of the day to stop the debris from blowing in the wind or being taken away by critters.


One thing they do to prevent rubbish from taking flight into the surrounding farm fields is to use raptor birds to scare away the seagulls that try to scavange from the pile and drop it far away. They have trained staff that work with the birds to scare the gulls, not kill them, and we saw eagles and falcons everywhere! They only use rescued birds such as this one pictured with the woman below which was rejected by a breeder because it came out the wrong colour.


Here are some more pics from the bus tour: test plots to experiment with soil quality using different blends of soil, compost and other ingredients; the methane gas storage and transfer to electricity area (you can tell from my techincal language that i didn't take proper notes! but I found a page on the Environment Canada site that details all you might want to know if you're into that kinda thing); the space where people like you and me can bring our scrap metal, broken appliances, shrubbery for shredding, and any other garbage not fit for use anymore; the compost mulcher; the garbage pile from a distance surrounded by a fence with a large bird on almost every post.



The family fun also included a BBQ (dare to try burgers and hotdogs at the dump? lol), a play area, face painter and clown for the little ones; a powersmart lamp mascot to accompany the oil drop guy; a large area of community groups, businesses and non-profits providing information and resources including Oliver (aka Dr Recycle) and his Junkology fun! I love the stuff that he can create from milk and other containers most people would just toss (or preferably recycle), and have been a fan since I met him at a 'Think Sustainability' event many years ago. Once he showed me how, I had helped him teach the children who came to his tent how to make jumping frogs from plastic film canisters and whirly birds out of straws and yogurt containers. Then I had him come out for a few community events I've been a part of organizing over the years, and I am always thrilled to come across him at other events too. I highly recommend you visit his site to see many more of his cool creations, and if you're local please consider him for your next community event as a unique and fun activity to offer for children. Always a success :)





The last thing we did before heading back to the car for our journey home was to let the kids climb on the big machines and grab our free bag of compost for our garden. Overall, a very fun day for our family and I loved getting to know Sarah better and conspiring with her throughout the day on new green ideas for our co-op home!


Aside from our inability to control the strangers who drive by and dump their waste outside our co-op (argh!!!!) we pretty much have a handle on where our waste comes from and where it goes - especially now that we've been to the landfill ;) Our co-op Green Team can also come up with some easy steps towards improvement in many areas to get things going.


However, our Green Team waste management dilemma at Britannia is a whole different ball game. As you can see from the site map there is a lot going on in this complex. A variety of municipal and community services, and 2 schools, that are not connected in any kind of holistic way when it comes to garbage and recycling.

So the idea of launching a Zero Waste Challenge for the centre and the surrounding communty is just a little bit on the daft side...but I remain fiercely confident that it can be achieved. We just need to figure out the barriers to achieving the goal first.

So we hosted an event at the end of June to help us explore our 'First Steps to Zero Waste' at Britannia. I invited some folks who like to think big when it comes to waste management and sustainability along for a little tour of the complex and offered up a potluck lunch for us to nosh on while we reflected on what was seen on the tour.

I felt very fortunate to have a few wonderful ladies from Metro Vancouver (including one of the first inspirational people I ever met in Vancouver, Lyndsay Poaps, who became interested in supporting my challenge idea when I shared with her at the Codev dinner earlier, hehe), as well as David Cadman who is a city councilor who has been engaged in all things sustainable for many years (and a member of the Greenest City Action Team) and Sean who is the Sustainable Schools Project Coordinator for Check Your Head.

Aside from not scheduling enough time to actually tour the whole site (would take a few hours on its own) and the embarassment of finding mold on one of the breads (I had just bought within an hour of the event!) it seems the event went really well. The objective was to find out what we need to do next...and now we know. Our first big challenge is to map out what garbage ends up where, who is contracted to remove it, and how many different contracts for waste management and recycling services exist throughout the whole complex. (and the voluntary efforts of the high school students who currently manage alot of the recycling...what's happening to it all in the summer?) There does not appear to be one person who knows it all off the top of their head, so some digging needs to be done to get to the bottom of it all.

Another thing the ladies from Metro offered to do was a dumpster dive so we can see the varied types of garbage being disposed of from various areas of the complex. This activity can help us identify areas where we can work to minimize the waste ending up in the dumpsters to begin with. As you can imagine there are not many people excited about that opportunity other than me, but I'm sure when the time comes I'll have recruited some other keeners, hehe.

Other ideas that were tossed out thorughout the day were passive lighting changes, roof top solar panels and gardens, a community garden and composting area, better waste recepticles that actually offer recycling spaces for the public (can you believe we don't have that already?!), bulk purchasing for the complex and so much more. What a brimming fountain of ideas and inspiration the small group on that day generated!!

Now I need to rally the troops and organize the Green Team to take action on our next steps in our Zero Waste Challenge for Britannia. After the well received feedback from the staff, society board members, the school board trustees, park board commissioners and city councilors I've shared the ideas with I truly believe it will happen now. And already there are brilliant minds reflecting on all the potential that exists.

Just like the landfill taps into the potential energy created by methane gas to provide power for 900,000 people in the Delta area - I want Britannia to tap into the potential power that surrounds us. The power of the people in our community that have always risen to the challenge of making things better :)