Compost & Recycling in K-W

K-W has started a green bin system for compostable garbage. Unfortunately apartment buildings are excluded so far. We have recycled bins for corrugated cardboard, paper, plastics/ metals/ juice boxes etc. and the standard garbage container. The recycling bins regularly flow over on the weekend before pick-up day on Monday. I don't think that supports people with the recycling because in the end you are just going to throw everything in the garbage container. I would like the compost bin jsut because I decided not to have a worm composter in our apartment, or in the summer on the balcony. Our child is far to inquisitive and I don't want worms and compost all over my apartment.   

By the way, the garbage containers in the parks have been removed for the winter. A really bad idea because now there's lots of litter in parks. The city knows it's not ideal. They remove the bins because they can't be accessed once the snow falls - there is not winter maintenance on lots of trails. They should leave at least the bins that border onto a sidewalk but it is probably to difficult to map where bins need pick-up and where not. So they take them all. My husband has picked up garbage in our nearest park a few times, on his way to playgroup with our daugther. Since I have been in contact with the volunteer coordinator of the city of Kitchener I asked for help and the city sponsors us gloves and garbage bags. Not quite as elaborate as in Edmonton where you get one of those spears that help you pick things up off the ground but it's better than nothing. Since we have lots of time, unemployed life it's called, we might as well clean up the park. After all, we take our daugther to parks and playgrounds practically every day and we prefer them tidy.       

Talking about going outside. Our daughter loves going outside so much that she will collect her shoes and jacket and stand at the door, clearly indicating to her parents her intentions. Or, that's a new favourite, she goes onto the balcony, probably still hoping that one day a magical door opens in the railing and she can step right onto the ground. Weather does not matter, she wants out in any weather. We don't mind.  

The run off we cause ... - part 3

A few more facts from Crapshoot:

- Pharmaceutical compounds in Canadian effluent are among the highest in the modern industrialized world.

- 80 % of Canadian coastal cities dump their sewage untreated, raw, into the ocean where the waste piles up on the ocean’s ground – In St John’s, Newfoundland, the harbour is a huge bowl which is already covered 16 feet deep in waste from the sewage pumped into the harbour. 120 million litres of sewage every day!  120,000,000 litres every 24 hours!

- 80% of Canadian sewage goes through waste water treatment. Treated water is not necessarily safe! Treated but still contaminated water goes back in our water bodies inhabited by wildlife. Even small concentrations of something might cause huge damage in fish and other wildlife. Part of this wildlife and fish gets eaten by us. It does not hit us like a bang but it might come with long-term effects on us. Therefore it’s time to seriously consider the connection between our waste and how it - steps later - could affect us.   

Abby Rockefeller, President of the ReSource Institute for Low Entropy Systems (RILES), calls for a revolution of the system. To her the sewer system is the “peak of irrational”. She advocates a policy change that moves away from the mixing of wastes and using water as medium to carry waste towards on-site-waste-recycling and waterless meanings of dealing with waste. The main cost of the sewer is to connect the communities with pipes that transport the sewage away. On site systems do not require this infrastructure. Waste does not get spread out but is dealt with where it’s produced. If a company was unable to safely recycle its own waste or keep the material in the production loop it would not be operating. For the individual the composting toilet is an obvious solution. A composting toilet does not smell. While the solids, human excrements and kitchen waste, are composted by microbial and earth worms in a container in the basement of the building, any water goes through to a separate container for use as grey water. The compost from the solids is safe to handle, comes without health concern, smells and looks like soil.

I just found on the RILES website a post by Abby about the sewer, also under consideration of the septic system: http://www.riles.org/musings49.htm

Saving water big time

Recently at the Telus World of Science I learned that in space astronauts are allowed 23 litres of water each which is very little compared to the 300 litres that a North American uses and not quite so little compared to the 130 litres that a German uses per day. Anyway, it's hard to imagine but the technology is there to recycle urine and turn it into drinking water. In today's newspaper there's an article about Don Pettit from the International Space Station. The daily allowance for hygiene and food is 3.5 litres per person. OMG, how do they do it? They wash themselves with wet wipes and have a water-recycling machine that collects even breath, sweat and water from a damp cloths which then can be used again. The most fascinating part is the urine-diversion toilet I'd say. Cecilia Ruben from the Stockholm Environment Institute says that there's 2 million of these toilets in China. Germany, South Africa ,Vietnam and Sweden have some as well. Combine them with a compost part for faeces and it's all been taken care off.                      

More facts on water use in Canada: http://www.janegoodall.ca/project-blue/WaterinCanada.html