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Our Horizon – Green Information at the Gas Pump

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It’s always inspiring to encounter passionate people who are trying to make a difference to the environment. It’s all the more impressive when they are setting an example at a young age.

Recently Emily Kelsall, a 16-year-old West Vancouver resident contacted us about a non-profit campaign she believes in called Our Horizon. This project is actively working toward changing the way that government and the general public think about fuel consumption by placing information graphics on fuel pumps. Similar to warning labels on cigarettes, they believe that adding this visual reminder to gas nozzles will help prompt consumers to be more mindful about the long term effects of fossil fuels on climate change.

Our Horizon Fuel Pump. Source: http://ourhorizon.org/

Rob Shirkey, a former lawyer and the founder of the project, delivers an excellent TED talk on why this simple idea could have a lasting impact on the public. By inspiring individuals who care about the environment, Our Horizon also encourages people to speak to their local municipal officials to help make bigger changes in their communities and across the country. In the Lower Mainland, Emily has gotten a lot of support and media coverage. She has been featured in the Globe & Mail, and on Global TV, and the list of companies and individuals who endorse this idea keeps growing.

At Green Coast Rubbish, we regularly see how small changes in behavior can add up over time. Sometimes it can just take a little reminder to jog our brains into making better greener choices. We wish all the success to Emily and the Our Horizon project in getting these information labels at gas stations in Metro Vancouver in the near future!

Organic Recycling

Disposal Ban of Organics in Metro Vancouver

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Vancouver continues to move toward its goal of becoming the Greenest City by 2020. By imagining solutions and opportunities that can help residents and businesses to more effectively deal with household waste, they get closer every year. It’s estimated that nearly 35-40% of everything that we throw away is food waste; if diverted into a composting system, this adds up to a substantial amount kept out of our landfills. Which is why, starting in 2015, Metro Vancouver will be instating a ban on disposing organics and food waste into regular garbage bins.

There are huge community and environmental benefits to composting. As the food waste breaks down through natural processes, it can create valuable fertilizers that can help to enrich the soil with potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus. It reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions and lengthens the life of our existing landfills, saving valuable space and local resources.

For some eye-opening stats on the amount of organic waste produced every day, as well for solutions on how to responsibly dispose of compastable waste visit our past blog Getting Serious About Organic Waste Reduction.  If you are interested  to learn more about the process that your organic waste goes through when it is processed you can check-out Part 2 of our Organic Waste Reduction blog.

Some things that can go into the compost bin:

  • Fruit & vegetable scraps
  • Eggshells, dairy
  • Meat & fish bones
  • Teabags
  • Coffee filters & grounds
  • Breads, pasta, rice
  • Food soiled paper products (pizza boxes, napkins, cardboard egg cartons)
  • Grass, leaves, weeds, plants
  • Cooked food & grease

Some prohibited items:

  • Any type of plastic (including compostable/biodegradable plastic bags)
  • Rocks, soil
  • Diapers
  • Animal waste
  • Wood products & lumber
  • Branches bigger than 10 cm (4″)  in diameter, and more than 0.5m (1.6ft) in length

These developments are very much in-line with the ideology of Green Coast Rubbish. We’ve seen the evidence firsthand of how much these compostable items can add up – in 2013 alone, we diverted 30.39 tonnes of organic material! By actively working together toward creating composting solutions with Metro Vancouver, we can all contribute to the success of this important program in our communities.

For more information about composting and the upcoming ban on organics, check out the Metro Vancouver website, and the City of Vancouver’s Green Bin Program.