Waste management has never been a particularly glamorous subject, but it’s an essential piece of the urban puzzle.
Reducing waste in Vancouver is one of the major priorities in Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Greenest City Action Plan, and it’s up for discussion Wednesday night at “Wasteless in Vancouver”, an intergenerational dialogue being held at SFU Woodward’s.
The event is part of the ongoing Re:Generation series, organized by a group of local change-makers as a way to engage citizens of all different ages on topics affecting their city. Organizer Kevin Millsip says one of the goals of the series is to bridge the communication gap between citizens and policymakers.
“It’s about trying to build other people’s capacity to make change happen. Because no one or no one group of people can do it all on their own,” he said.
Millsip, who is volunteering on this project, is also the Sustainability Officer for the Vancouver School Board. He and the other Re:Generation volunteers received a Greenest City grant from the City of Vancouver to get the project off the ground, using four different Greenest City goals as a thematic guide for the sessions. Each dialogue features speakers of varying ages, each telling his or her own story in relation to the overarching topic. Last month, the group’s debut session tackled sustainable transportation. This month—waste.
Waste reduction is a major focus in the City’s Greenest City plan, which lays out the ambitious goal of “creating zero waste” by the year 2020. Any attempt to achieve this goal will mean significant lifestyle changes for residents, as well as big adjustments in the way the municipality manages garbage and recycling.
“In my mind, there are two approaches. There’s what we do with stuff when we’re done with it—the common term is ‘diversion’ when we’re diverting it from the landfill,” explained Millsip.
“But at least equally important is the other side of the ledger, which is what and how we’re consuming, because that dramatically impacts what and how we divert."
Diversion: compost and recycling
Changing people’s consumption habits is a difficult task, and it has to involve shifts at the production level in order to place less of the burden on consumers. Diversion, on the other hand, seems to be more easily attainable for residents in the short term. Separating household organic waste is one initiative that has been successful in other cities across Canada, and Millsip says it’s shocking that Vancouver is still playing catch-up.
“All of our organics should not be going to a landfill. It’s anywhere from 40 to 50 per cent of our waste stream, depending on where we’re at. That’s huge,” he said.
“But we have to have the systems in place so that people can do the right thing.”
Over the past year, the City has been starting to jump on the wagon by implementing curbside compost pickup, but the service is not yet available city-wide (or for people in apartments or condos). But that doesn’t mean people aren’t already doing it.
Deanna Rogers, one of Re:Generation’s other dedicated organizers, has a wealth of experience in the compost department. As a student at Simon Fraser University, she was involved in a groundbreaking community project called the Zero Waste Challenge, which became part of Metro Vancouver's regional waste reduction strategy.
The challenge started out as a personal goal for Rogers and her roommates to cut their waste down to nothing. But when she took her idea to Metro Vancouver, they ended up funding the program as a way to mobilize residents in the neighbourhood of Strathcona. Since then, the challenge has been implemented in other areas around the Metro region.
“I did the Strathcona Zero Waste Challenge before we had municipal composting at all,” said Rogers.
“So we had three different types of compost—we had worm bins for people in apartments, we had backyard composters and we also had this thing called a ‘green cone’ and that’s one that can digest even animal bones. It uses solar heat,” she explained.
According to Rogers, composting can drastically reduce the amount of waste coming out of a household, especially when combined with good recycling practices. For the Zero Waste project, she says her team also used an empty shed to sort the more difficult recyclables before dropping them off at various depots.
Obviously, not everyone is in a position to take on this type of challenge. It’s a lot of work, and as Millsip suggested, it can be tough to get people on board without the proper infrastructure in place.
Fortunately for Vancouver, events like Re:Generation are helping to bring people together to talk these issues through and come up with practical solutions.
Intergenerational collaboration
The Re:Generation dialogues are dedicated to showcasing people or groups in the community doing really inspiring things. Before the audience gets a chance to interact, there will be speakers representing four main age cohorts: Generation X, Generation Y, Baby Boomers and “Vets of Change”.
Wednesday’s lineup includes Ann Johnson of the Gulf Islands Recycling Coalition (Vet); Ken Lyotier, founder of United We Can (Boomer); the duo responsible for the documentary film The Clean Bin Project (Gen X); and a group of students from Windermere High School (Gen Y). Millsip says in addition to younger generations learning from the experiences of their elders, there’s also a lot that adults can learn from engaged and creative youth.
The students at Windermere are a perfect example.
“They have an amazing composting system there, so they compost all kinds of things on site from their school. And they have a cycling system with a trailer set up, so that students cycle to different elementary schools and a senior’s home to pick up their compost as well and bring it back to the school where it’s composted. Then once the compost has gone through a cycle, some of that soil goes back to the various sites.”
The students’ compost program is just one of many innovative waste-related initiatives going on around the city. Through Re:Generation, these independent groups and individuals can connect, exchange ideas and share insights on how best to move forward.
“A big part of it is just showing how individuals have made changes in their communities, or have chosen to do something to get engaged or involved,” said Rogers.
Since the whole project is based around Vancouver’s Greenest City goals, the events also give guests and audience members the chance to interact with public staff and elected officials. This week, Councillor Andrea Reimer will be in attendance to talk about the City’s progress on waste reduction, and to collect feedback.
The Re:Generation series is just one of a number of creative citizen engagement events popping up all over Vancouver. There’s Carbon Talks, Pecha Kucha, the Civic Policy Society’s Public Salons…the list goes on. It seems to be a growing trend—but why now?
“Things seem to happen when the timing is right,” Millsip said, describing such social initiatives as “little flowers cracking through the cement”.
“[There’s] a lot of pent-up energy for a profoundly different way of how we govern ourselves, and how we try to live this life.”
Creating opportunities for intelligent and inclusive dialogue is an important step towards facing global challenges like climate change, whether it’s in our cities or on a broader scale. According to Millsip, if we’re going to face these problems, “we need all hands on deck.”
Re:Generation – Wasteless in Vancouver happens Wed. Feb. 22 at SFU Woodward’s. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the dialogue starts at 7 p.m.
Visit the website for more information about Re:Generation.