Worth Repeating 20017 Earth Day OpEd piece by CPRA President. The ideas are still relevant today.
Colour New Millennium Green
by Gary Pieters
First published on April 19, 2007
Environmentalism has spawned a green vocabulary. Ecocentric words have become the language of discourse: air quality, biodiversity, biodegradability, climate change, CFCs, combustion, energy conservation, retrofitting, environmental assessments, energy efficiency, emissions, global warming, hybrid transportation, organic products, ozone layer, reduce, reuse, recycle, smog, solar panels, sustainable development, wind turbines, waste diversion.
The environment is the third millennium’s universal issue of public importance, and how we respond to it will influence the size of the ecological footprint we leave behind on this planet.
According to the Toronto City Summit Alliance, the environment was identified as the top issue among Canadians, with 26 per cent of respondents ranking it Number 1 in mid-January.
Ecological practices are taking root and invigorating the quality of environmental citizenship in the City of Toronto, across North America and around the world. This is spurring innovation in environmental policy, research and education, lifestyle changes, community action and new ways of thinking.
Environmentalism has spawned a green vocabulary. Ecocentric words have become the language of discourse: air quality, biodiversity, biodegradability, climate change, CFCs, combustion, energy conservation, retrofitting, environmental assessments, energy efficiency, emissions, global warming, hybrid transportation, organic products, ozone layer, reduce, reuse, recycle, smog, solar panels, sustainable development, wind turbines, waste diversion.
The impact of this green momentum has resulted in the increasing involvement of residents, academic institutions, community-based organizations, businesses, labour unions, corporations and foundations in developing practices that would better the environmental quality of communities. Such multiple and intersecting levels of engagement ensure that everyone has a role to play in protecting and preserving the environmental health, cleanliness and well-being of people, plants, animals and the overall ecosystem of our diverse city.
The Toronto Board of Trade’s "can the litter" website spotlights the most commonly littered products in the city, their environmental impact and their biodegradability lifespan. Did you know that paper takes up to five months to break down naturally; cigarette butts up to 12 years; plastic bags up to 20 years; tin and aluminum cans up to 100 years; and glass bottles up to 1 million years? Put your disposable items in the right bins!
The green bin and blue box programs are among the recycling initiatives that have positioned the GTA and the City of Toronto high on the list of ecologically clean and beautiful urban areas. Through the green bin and blue box programs, the three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle – have become a reality for Torontonians.
A quick perusal of "Facts about Toronto Trash" available at www.toronto.ca/garbage/facts.htm provides evidence-based information about the benefits of the green bin and blue box programs.
Individuals and households are leading the way in waste reduction, diversion and elimination.
We learn there is a "90 per cent participation rate in the green bin program"; "510,000 single-family households across Toronto use the green bins to collect and process household organic waste"; through the green bin program "approximately 100,000 tonnes of waste is diverted from landfill annually (resulting in 2,750 fewer trucks to Michigan each year)." Through blue box usage, "in 2005 Toronto recycled 158,116 residential tonnes of blue/grey box recyclables (resulting in 4,650 fewer trucks to Michigan)." The success of the green bin and blue box initiatives demonstrates how far we have come in terms of reducing the amount of household waste sent to landfills.
On April 7, I attended the community environment day in my downtown Toronto area ward. I observed that many of the items dropped off were either for recycling, disposal or reuse. These included more than 40 televisions, 100 computers and computer-related products, 25 bags of Styrofoam and similar materials, more than 100 cans of paint and paint products and a variety of cellphones, batteries, art supplies, fabric, furniture, books and equipment.
A 40-foot Goodwill truck was filled to capacity with the items community residents donated for reuse. This event put a dent in the volume of material that otherwise would have been sent to the landfill.
Weekly community environmental days will occur in more than 40 Toronto communities between April and the end of September. Information on the dates and locations are available at www.toronto.ca/environment_days/. The City of Toronto and GTA municipalities have many other green initiatives and activities designed to foster greener environment awareness and practices.
These include the "20-minute makeover" tomorrow in Toronto, a 20-minute cleanup blitz around offices, schools and neighbourhoods; Earth Day on April 22; a climate change action forum on April 29; bike week starting on May 28; "Lights Out Toronto," which focuses on reducing the risk factors leading to the death of migratory birds by reducing skyscraper lighting at night; and the June 12 Green Toronto Festival that will give residents more information about Toronto’s green initiatives.
Reflecting on how far we have to go to improve our current environmental practices, I believe it is up to every one of us to lead by example, to mitigate the effects that human society has on the planet. To do that, public attitudes have to continue to shift toward the greener end of the environmental spectrum.
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