If I am right, and I hope that I am, what I witnessed yesterday was a major moment in recent global history, the coming out party for a new civil society movement. What struck an emotional cord with me yesterday was the collective will to be bigger than yourself rather than as a self-interested individual.  It was a beautiful thing to witness true participatory democracy, I was so moved by what I saw unfurling below me that I was driven to inform a woman standing right in front of the railing at the top of the Georgia steps what democracy really means.

As I recall from my political theory lectures, the root word ‘demos’ means people therefore democracy is a form of governance by the people for the people. She told me in response, that what we were witnessing was a real throwback to a different era of political acculturation.

In many ways the #occupyvancouver movement was similar to the 1960s and 1970s drives for racial and gender equality but different because this gathering of between 2-3,000 people (depending on whose numbers you believe) was largely leaderless. Well it did have leadership but not in the traditional sense of a centralizing figure like Gandhi or Martin Luther King JR. The organizing committee had a few noticeable reoccurring characters that acted as facilitators, guiding the discourse and passing the mic off to anyone in the crowd, so they could vent there common frustrations with late capitalism. In this way the demonstration was largely cathartic. But these facilitators freely admitted that their role within the movement was largely transient according to one activist who told the crowd that anyone could take his job- if they decided to join one of the numerous newly formed committees at #occupyvancouver that dealt with everything ranging from event security to public relations to even nascent policy development.

And here is where we reach the collective breaking point, if this 99% movement is destined to become long lasting, demonstrating the longevity and the efficacy that was lacking in the March 2003 anti-Iraq war protests; then common goals must be collectively reached within the coming days or this noble attempt at social change will fail like past attempts.

Talks ground to a halt last night at approximately 9:30PM when it seemed that an impasse could not be overcome.  A disagreement arose when it came to dealing with peace officers assigned to oversee the newly erected tent city on the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds.  It should be mentioned that huge strides where made prior to this, a mandate was approved by the amorphous crowd which was similar to the ‘working statement’ discussed in the October 13^th-20^th edition of the Georgia Strait Newspaper [sic]:

We challenge corporate greed, corruption, and the collusion             between corporate power & government…we oppose systemic             inequality, militarization, environmental destruction, and the erosion             of civil liberties and human rights.

Could a more grand and far-            reaching statement be drafted? Probably not the activists, hearts are in the right place but that is not the issue at hand.

The true problem facing the organizing committee for #occupyvancouver in the next couple of days, should it want to keep the revolutionary fires burning is how to actualize these goals. I have given it some thought and it seems that the Occupy movement across British Columbia should direct its collective efforts to oppose corporate greed through direct action campaigns.

My first recommendation, which should follow the proposed march along Howe St. [Vancouver’s financial district] on Monday should be to promote and engage in shareholder activist measures across the province; so if you don’t like the potential for natural resources companies such as Terasen gas to make a profit from natural gas exploration in the Sacred Headwaters region at the expense of the planet, letting the executive board know by purchasing shares in the company and attending their next annual general meeting. The monies that were donated from various participants yesterday and today could be used to send delegates from the newly formed policy committee to these shareholder meetings.

I came to my next recommendation after speaking to a videographer who has been traveling around the country documenting the 99% and posting there protest actions on YouTube. He told me about a new action coming out of New York where activists are engaging in ‘divestment campaigns’. He told me that people have been arrested outside of national banks in the US after collapsing their savings accounts on mass as a form of protest. Let’s do the same here, just without the part about going to prison. We should start by putting our money into institutions that we know is ethical rather than morally questionable, I am looking at you RBC. It is a well-known fact that black-bloc protestors in the Olympic games demonstrations targeted the RBC building on Burrard Street; they did so because RBC has a record of financing companies that engage in oil extraction in the Tar Sands in Northern Alberta.  Instead I choose to bank with VanCity, the second largest credit union in the country for its clear and measurable commitment to corporate social responsibility. In fact VanCity will not extend a loan or invest in a business until it meets its stringent ethical standards.

In closing Vancouver remember to keep it classy NOT trashy. The legitimacy of this movement lies in its common respect for people and the planet.  So I would recommend creating less trash and cigarette butts when you are out there waving placards today. Doing so will make the event more accessible for young families.

Yours truly, To Tread Lightly.

Although it seemed that many people had an opinion and a few were even willing to share their perspectives with a lonely security guard. One gentleman no more than thirty spoke optimistically to me about the importance of the demonstration to highlight the need to protect the environment while another was documenting signage to warn demonstrators.  

 Vancouver it seems is a city of contradictions more so than Victoria. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is more transparent here, half a block away from the open air drug deals and the carefree drug trips and booze swilling that I became accustomed to at the art gallery plaza, seems completely different.

 It would seem to me that the people browsing through the couture  boutiques and chain fashion stores on Robson Street are so far removed from what it is like to live hand to mouth.

So tomorrow I can’t help but wonder whose interests will be advocated for, the rich posing as the struggling middle class or the middle class. Listening to the political pundits it would appear that todays middle class are fast becoming an expansion of the underprivileged and undervalued working class.

Still whatever transpires tomorrow I can’t help but think it will remain in the popular conscious of the city and the country for a long time to come and hopefully will lead to a discourse on income and social inequalities.

What do you think?

An example of how to read/make sense of the Energuide Label

BUY ENERGY EFFICIENT APPLIANCES OR ELECTRONICS; LOOK FOR THE ENERGUIDE OR ENERGYSTAR LABEL:

• The goal of both labelling systems is to promote public awareness and understanding about energy efficiency.
• BC Hydro offers rebates for purchasing energy efficient appliances.
• Energy Star appliances are 10-50% more efficient than other competing appliances.
• Energy Star DVD Players and TVs use 75% less energy when turned off.

• More than 70% of all food in Canadian grocery stores is genetically engineered (GE).
• Many vegetables are grown with organochlorine pesticides (OPs) that can cause cancer, immune system problems and reproductive health problems.
• GE crops are harmful because they reduce crop biodiversity.
• Organic foods cannot contain any GE ingredients.
• Avoid products with any of the following ingredients (as they are most likely GE): corn, soy, canola or cottonseed oil.

An old growth cedar in Avatar Grove, Vancouver Island. Probably older than the Magna Carta.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to visit the annual fall fair in my hometown of Langley, British Columbia- Canada. The event, Country Celebration has been happening as long [if not longer than I have been alive] in one of Langleys’ most well-known and loved parks Campbell Valley; which is only spitting distance from the US-Canada border.

Usually it isn’t until the annual Country Celebration that I finally get into the fall mood and accept the demise of summer, by begrudgingly putting away my summer wallet in favor of my more practical winter wallet.  This year, having missed the festival since moving to Victoria for university, I was especially looking forward to re-living some of my childhood memories, such as visiting all the vendor and environmental advocacy booths. It was at one of these booths [in the past] that I was first made aware of the importance of the Pacific Salmon run and harvest to the indigenous and non-indigenous people of my province.

So, as you can imagine, it was good to see that this tradition was alive and well, at the 2011 iteration of the Country Celebration; as the kids were not only learning about the salmon but also about ‘alien’ invasive species in between stuffing handfuls of cotton candy into their mouths. The fair isn’t just a family event though it is also very important for the seniors in my community. This annual fall fair gives them an opportunity to connect with our fading agricultural past, not just in the Langley but across the Lower Mainland.

On a related note, I spoke to one gentleman a week ago in front of the municipal government building following a town council meeting. Apparently his granddad was one of the original non-native settlers/farmers in my community back in the 1800s. Before last month I had no idea that you could grow wheat in Langley, I didn’t think that the rainy climate would permit it, but apparently back in 1897 Langley produced approximately 1700 tons of wheat. Wheat was likely one of the crops that this older timers’ grandfather grew. I was flabbergast when this same individual told me, that his granddad tried to haggle with the Hudson’s Bay Company- who was in the land speculation business in the Lower Mainland in the late 1800s. Apparently the mans’ grandfather thought that $22 per acre was too prohibitive to start a venerable farming enterprise with. Can you imagine?

A nurse log in Avatar Grove, which has become part of the trail.

Anyway, back to the main story, so as I was ‘hob-knobbing’ with two old-timers from the Langley Farm Machinery Museum discussing there buggies on display,  which where the equivalent of the family minivan and the Ford F150 truck a hundred years ago. I broached the subject of lumber which has become a favorite interest of mine  after reading the Golden Spruce by John Valliant this summer; so I have been trying to find ways to split my own cedar shakes [for roofing and siding purposes] with an old fashioned furrow and a mallet. Sadly though, they informed me that even if I could find a furrow and mallet it would be of little use to me, because the 2nd generation Western Red Cedars that are still being harvested now are substandard. Apparently, without being treated- the most that can be expected out of them is about ten years of life before they begin to rot away.

This was slightly off-putting to me, because as I had learned in university, I thought that cedar was a naturally available and waterproof material that was frequently used in the construction of housing and the creation of water-resistant clothing by the First Nations people in British Columbia for centuries. I had heard somewhere that first growth cedar, used as shingles will last upwards of thirty years- my parents home is proof of this.

Scorched earth. One of the sadest and most maddening experiences of my life thus far. This usable wood, was burnt and left to rot. This shot was taken by Jessie on an abandoned logging road about 15 minutes outside of Avatar Grove. The road was at about a 45% grade.

This as it turns out was the case when we had a bounty of old growth cedars left in this province as late as the early 1960s, but since the 1980s there has been a precipitous decline and an almost total disappearance of old growth cedars for logging and construction purposes. Things are so bad now, that the odds of finding a needle in a hay stake [a favorite fall far activity by the way] are greater than finding a stand of unprotected old growth cedar trees. The one gentleman said, that if I was lucky I could find some old growth cedars on Vancouver Island. Unknowlingly on his part, I had this summer.

In a place about 45 minutes outside of Victoria called Port Renfrew on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island, is a magical place called Avatar Grove. Corny I know, but an apt name. Standing in the shadow of giants is the only way that I can best describe this experience, teetering across nurse logs the size of my old basement suite was one of the most humbling experiences I have had or likely will have.  Sadly though without the continued conservation work of organizations like the Ancient Forest Alliance and the Western Wilderness Community- my unborn children will only be able to see these majestic trees in power-point slides.

That is why the presence of the Forest Stewardship Council and their sustainable wood harvesting certification process are so important and vital. Although we don’t have much old growth to protect, we can and should do a better job conserving and utilizing the stock of second growth trees that we have left in North America. So,  when you next visit Home Depot ask the sales representative to direct you to the FSC certified wood. Here is some food for thought when your considering buy timber or even paper products:

• Try to buy paper that is made of 100% Post Consumer Recycled (PCR) material.
• It takes 19 full grown trees to produce 1 ton of virgin office paper.
• Chlorine bleach used to make printer paper creates dioxin a carcinogen.
• Buying pulp, paper and wood products with Forest Stewardship Council certification (FSC) supports sustainable forestry practices.
• Purchasing FSC products increases demand and supply of sustainable wood and paper products.  
• It takes 70-90% less energy to make recycled paper than virgin paper.

Hopefully together we can prevent clear-cuts such as the Carmanah-Walbran on Southern Vancouver Island from ever happening again. As John Muir, co-founder of the Sierra Club understood humanity and nature are co-dependent, this is something I will be considering the next time, I walk through the woods with my friends and or other loved ones.

A logo you can trust.

It's simply amazing the amount of edible things that we dispose of in our culture.

The war generation had a saying- waste not, want not. We can stand to learn a few things from our parents and grandparents when it comes to sensible consumption. With the economy being the way it is these days, thrift and frugality are undeniably coming back into vogue. So perhaps we should re-evaluate these old ideas, a good jumping off point is the Story of Stuff a series of fun and informative animated TEDD-talk style lectures that were created by Annie Leonard to challenge our North-American wide obsession with consumption.

Slogan for a revolution?

Another interesting movement is that of the freegans. This decentralized activist movement works to empower non-consumers to learn how to scavenge and forage in both the urban and suburban jungle. Freegans search for not only used clothing and household accessories but for discarded food as well, the official website describes the ethos of the movement as thus:

“Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.”

Their revolution is based on the following principles: waste reclamation, waste minimization, eco-friendly transportation, rent-free housing, going green and something that we can all get behind, working less.

Is that a genuine Bob Ross painting that this woman found in the dumpster?

Now before you get super-excited and start diving in dumpsters behind your local grocery store- you have to learn the unofficial ground rules of ‘binning’ first. These rules were passed down to me by some of my activist friends and in turn I hope that you well share these rules as well.

First off, never take fresh meats, vegetables and or other food stuffs from dumpsters within an urban center of a large city unless you absolutely have too. For many of us (myself included) dumpster diving sounds like a dangerous and exciting hobby but for many people living on the edge,  it is a primary means of survival. So be conscientious of the homeless on this front. Therefore it is best to scavenge in dumpsters that are located out in the suburbs, where your only source of competition will be students who are either running out of their student loan monies for the semester and or hipsters, who you shouldn’t be conscientious of (j/k). Secondly, avoid food spoilage.

The human nose has evolved over many millennia to detect things that have gone bad, so when opening up a used garbage bag and you find yourself beginning to dry heave when faced with the repugnant smell inside, relax.  This is your bodies fight or flight response kicking into high-gear. My general rule of thumb, is that I will not take any used diary, meats and or fish from a dumpster unless I can absolutely ascertain whether it has recently been taken out of the cooler and deposited into the garbage dumpster. In a foodsafe course, one of the first things you are taught is the concept of the danger window. This is a tacky term that refers to the speed at which food spoilage starts happening; you have approximately one hour of leeway from the time the item is taken out of a refridgeration unit to grab it and cart it home before the food stuff begins to rot.

Even in the company of my closest friends, some of whom are expert ‘binners’ I am still wary about eating meats, cheeses and fish that are offered up at potlucks. Use your discretion here.

Thirdly, be safe out there. A lot of people [ I am looking at you roaming bands of suburban teenagers on bmx bicycles] will not understand what you are doing and try to hassle you, be smart and avoid confrontation. If it comes down to a making a choice between a black-eye and a cantaloupe, is it worth it? Also my partner, who once worked at a battered woman’s shelter told me a horror story about a client who witnessed a friend being crushed to death, while inside of a grocery store compactor. Refuse to go inside of garbage compactors, even if your friends encourage you too. Don’t become another statistic, stay-safe.

Never enter inside of a self-contained trash compactor at your local supermarket, it could be lethal.

Also when you first start scavenging and making in-roads into this emerging sub-culture, you’ll soon discover that many ‘freegans’ are highly protective of their favorite locations. In  my opinion this is misguided and selfish on the part of expert or veteran ‘freegans’. Do as I do, pay it forward and share your favorite locations with others in the community; especially with newbies, who will be thankful for the help. In the long-run you will be doing more for the cause of challenging consumerism by sharing openly with others, as opposed to hoarding the goods you find to yourself.

On a non-food related note a great place to find used clothing and household accessories is on the curb on Saturday or Sunday afternoons at about 3-4PM especially in the more affluent neighbourhoods within your community. This happens because after garage sales have shuttered for the day or the weekend, many homeowners have little desire to cart off the unsold items to a value village location or a charitable donation box. It is easier to place the remaining items on the curb.I have found so many great things on the curb ranging from free construction wood [which I used to build a workbench with] to slightly used work-shirts and even an old fashioned Sears AM/FM radio this summer in my old neighbourhood back in Victoria.

Also make sure to troll the free section on Craigslist regularly and or visit freecycle.org to find good tips about free stuff nearest you, just make sure you advise your spouse and or roommates about your newest acquisitions. In the past, when my girlfriend and I both lived in a basement suite, she told me on a number of occasions that I was bringing too much used-junk home. She was right. I am easily excitable and will rashly pick-up another end-table just because it is sitting there, even though I already have three at home. Oops, does this make me a hoarder?

Otherwise, if you are willing to spend a bit of money on used goods I would recommend visiting your local Sally Anne or alternatively your nearest Value Village. As a word to the wise, you’ll often make your best finds for vintage clothing in the outlying suburbs, away from the city-centres.

This is a secret that most used-clothing stores, wouldn’t like you to know about. Most of the chic vintage stores downtown will higher ‘buyers’ to plunder the bounty of designer labels that can be easily located in the suburban thrift stores and thereafter marking them up by about 50% before restocking them in their own vintage clothing stores.

In closing, I think that the best thing about freeganism or free-cycling is the energy savings involved; according to treehugger.com it takes, “around 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular ol’ blue jeans.” Not only are used jeans cheaper than buying new jeans, but they are already broken-in and they make less of an impact on the planet. Remember, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure! Do you have any freeganism tips to share? I’d love to here them and I am sure that the other readers would as well.

Could Norman Bates be lurking in your shower curtain?

Hello readers,

I know what your probably thinking; TTL packed it in and gave up on blogging, as the website has been dormant for almost a month now. Not so, I was just taking an extend break, as I am apt to do over the summertime.

Also, complicating matters was the really hectic move my partner and I made from Victoria; she went on the road Jack Kerouac style and I ‘boomeranged’ back home with my parents, as many millennials have been inclined to do in these uncertain economic times.

Coincidently, on the issue of the economy- which I am sure you haven’t heard enough about lately, as I was taking a bathroom break during the process of writing this post, I picked up Thursdays’ copy of the Vancouver Sun and read the front page on the John.

Columnist Pete McMartin has a great op-ed piece entitled Does a rising tide sink all boats? discussing the rising income inequality in Canada, which is a cause for concern because the gap between the rich and the poor in Canada is quickly coming to mirror that of our neighbours to the south in the United States. McMartin writes that the trickle down effect may not save us, as vast and seemingly insurmountable gaps between the rich and the poor ferment social strife, he writes:

“Concentrations of great wealth..are harbingers of economic regression. They [ he is referring to a report written by the Conference Board of Canada] point out, for example, that the share of wealth of the top one per cent of earners in the U.S. just before the Great Depression was identical to that of the top one per cent of earners in 2007, just prior to the market collapse.”

Food for thought eh? If you are more interested on this front he recommends reading a book by economists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett entitled The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Lets segue back into the matter at hand, shall we?

So I did not forget about the blog but to be honest with you, it did not register very high up on the ol’ to do list. While I was away, I still gave it some thought though. I have some pretty interesting stories that go live within the very near future, so stay tuned.

Anyway in the meantime, I want to start sharing with you a daily green tip- I think I have about forty of these archived, so make sure to save the blog in your browser bookmarks tab and hit that page refresh button frequently. First though, a big shout out is due to green gurus Ed Begley Jr. and Gillian Deacon for their inspiration, I gleaned a lot of these tips from their green-living books. So to kick things off for the fall, lets talk about the dangers of PVC.In a pdf fact-sheet entitled Our Health and PVC- What’s the Connection, environmental think-tank and advocacy organization the Centre for Health, Environment & Justice  discusses the tangible connection between the dramatic increases in asthma and developmental disorders and learning disabilities due to human exposure to toxins in PVC, such as dioxins and phthalates that are leached into our bodies upon contact. So what can and should you do?

action figurines such as this one can contain PVC

Avoid purchasing # 3 plastics, to determine if a consumer item contains # 3 plastics, it is usually identified on the packaging or on the item itself underneath a generic recycle symbol. But to be on the safe-side be especially weary when purchasing a new purse, shower curtain and or toys. Don’t be afraid to ask the sales representative if the item contains any PVC materials. They might not know of the dangers of PVCs. Also, when dealing with matters concerning your families health it is best to be overly-cautious.

Also never burn products that contain PVC’s to dispose of them, not that you would, I assume most people don’t have couch and shower curtain burning parties on the weekends. So you should be okay on this front.

Lastly my research shows that their is evidence abound to suggest that PVC exposure leads to increased risk of developing: liver cancer, respiratory problems and on the extreme-end circulatory failure. Additionally the phthalates present in PVC can amplify the  risk of becoming infertile. But don’t take my word for it do your own research and get back to me.

The best home compost bin for non-meat and animal fats available on the market and also at the Greater Victoria Compost Education Centre.

Collison has always been very community-minded, a purveyor of the idea that when you act locally you will impact change globally. With previous stints at other local charity organizations such as the: Inter-Cultural Association, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Habitat Acquisition Trust and the Silver Threads’ Meal on Wheels program, it is evident, that her greatest strength lies in her ability to work collaboratively with others. This is reflected within her educational background, she received a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto where her research specialization was in Nonprofit Management and Community Involvement.

Also as a newfound mother, she has the patience of a saint, which comes in handy, when a nosy blogger drops in unannounced on a busy weekday afternoon wanting an interview. Having met and talked at length with both Collison and Adams’ I am absolutely amazed at this natural occurring decomposition process, that is super-charged through human intervention.

Compost is best described as decaying and nutrient rich matter, explains Jeff Gillman in The Truth About Organic Gardening, “compost comes from once-living creatures and so contains the nutrients needed by plants to grow and maintain their health.” The way in which compost is generated is either through:  anaerobic digestion and or aerobic digestion. The difference between these two approaches to composting is either the presence or absence of air, which can accelerate the decomposition process, if done properly. At a cost-effective business level- aerobic digestion is the only way to go when you are continually dealing with vast amounts of food scraps and yard waste as Adams does.

Her-Hof, is the name of the In-Vessel aerobic digestion system that is used at ReFuse’s Cobble Hill processing plant. To wrap your mind around the enormity of this composting operation, Adams’ would like for us to imagine a 130 x 120 ft aircraft hanger, therein containing a big cement tunnel. This cement tunnel sits above a sub-floor punctured with many ventilation holes, wherein, “basically air goes through underneath that the sub-floor and up through the material and then it is all sucked off by two big vent pipes and is assessed for CO₂ and temperature and all that stuff.” This cement structure, is then compartmentalized into three separate processing or decomposition stations called Bio-Cells which are so large that they have to moved around by heavy machinery he explains, “Then the front-end loader [that loads it] pulls it all out and dumps it all out onto a secondary curing or aerated floors, so again these are big bunkers; so the material is in there. So each of these bunkers has aerated channels on the floor [again on timers] blows air up throw these materials to keep it active.” To prevent the compost from becoming inactive air is constantly injected into the decaying organic mass, “we have to sustain the OMRR [Organic Matter Recycling Regulation] where you have to hit 55 degrees C for more than three days consistent and over that whole process of about ten days you have to keep it between 45-55 C.” The reason that reFuse must keep their compost regulated at this temperature is not only to satisfy provincial government safety regulations but also to kill any potential pathogens that are fermenting within the organic mass.

If Adams’ couldn’t guarantee this, then he would be unable to sell the soil that is produced. The whole process from start to finish takes on average 34 days and will pass through six decomposition chambers within the cement bunker, before being transferred outside, to store the finished product- fresh humus. Helping the ventilation process within the building, is an alloy bucket attached to the front-end loader that acts to, “shred up the material to keep it porous,” which in comparison to the DIY approach for a backyard compost pile is the equivalent to the use of a really big shovel or pitchfork to turn over the decomposing mass. The In-Vessel approach to commercial composting can be overwhelming and a bit mind-boggling, so if you are like me, you will be more inclined to trying composting for yourself. If so, there are numerous options at your disposal (no pun intended) explains Collison.

This individual is harvesting some newly produced and enriched soil thanks to the worms.

For apartment dwellers, who don’t have access to a community garden or a backyard- don’t despair worm composting is your ticket, “you can buy a bin here [at the Compost Education Centre] or there are lots of plans online even, to figure out how to assemble one for free. There are some components that you need, air holes so they [the earthworms] can breathe and you need bedding and of course [you need] worms; so there are a few worm breeders in town, which sell worms at about $35-$40 per pound.” So when you have the worms and the bucket, aren’t their odor problems to worry about, I wonder out loud, not so Collison explains, “That is actually one of the myths about that sort of thing, so if you are living in an apartment you are [going] to be doing worm composting on your balcony- no one is even going to know.t is about the size of a recycling bin except with a bin, so it is pretty space savvy.

Apparently some recycling bins can double as compost bins, who knew?

So often times, people think that their will be odours, but as long as you are covering your food scraps, like by digging it in a little bit. Then you are not going to have fruit flies or odour problems, it will just start to smell like dirt which is essentially what it [the compost] is turning into.” Disaster averted, up next is the earth machine the quintessential backyard compost bin for homeowners, “ so this is a regular earth machine. The earth machine is your basic backyard composter, so you are putting 50% greens and 50% browns into it. So greens are your wet sort of food waste, so your nitrogen rich food materials. You want your raw fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags and rinsed out eggshells. You want to avoid bread, pastas, oils, meats and that sort of thing in here. It does have a lot of different things that make it pest proof, so like a strong pest plate at the base [of the compost bin] with holes in it, so bugs can get through, but rodents can’t. A locking lid, vents and like on the bottom of course [is the trapped door] where you take out all the compost. And a wingdigger…” A wing-digger is a nifty little tool that is used for turning your backyard compost pile, something I discover that I am not doing.

Makes aerating your compost every week more ergnomical and easier on your back.

This helps to explain, why after three seasons of continual usage in my backyard, my compost bin hasn’t created the rich humus that I am used to, but rather a putrid mucky mass, “you should be doing it at least once a week because bugs need air. So if you are just letting your compost settle and you are not aerating it at all, it makes it a lot less pest-resistant and because it is going to be really appealing as a habitat for rodents, the example that I always like to give is, that if you are a momma rat and you are looking for a nice safe warm place for your babies, wouldn’t a compost bin be fantastic? Your predators can’t get in and it is generating heat from the chemical breakdown, so but if you are sticking a big sharp stick through it once a week, it is less appealing to them as a habitat. So you are not going to get rats, as well all the bugs that are in there, doing everything that they do to turn it into compost need air. This is fantastic, especially for the gardeners, because you end up with a very tangible finished product, you end up with that soil.”

If you are using your compost bin correctly, by turning your compost pile once a week with your wing-digger and or pitchfork, then you should have harvestable soil after one season of use, explains Collison, “If you started in the fall then by the spring, you will have finished compost.” But if you aren’t a gardener or if you want to go zero food waste entirely by diverting meats and fats from the garbage can and into the compost pile, then you should purchase a green cone digester, which Collison is effusive about,  “If you are serious this creates almost a closed system because you can put all food waste into this, so all the gravy, the meat, the bones, the pasta all that because it is a lot more pest resistant because it is getting buried into the ground a little bit and it is breaking down in a different matter, it is breaking down slightly anerobically but not releasing as much methane as say you were to through all of this into the landfill. All the ingredients, the nutrients just seep into the ground around it, so you don’t empty it, it just sort of stays, it reaches this magic capacity.”

This diagram from the Ontario provincial government helps explain the chemical decomposition process

When you hit this magical capacity, you will notice it as it, “ gets to a point where it stays ¾ full, weirdly though, right? And then you want to dig it out and changes location [in your yard] once every five years because, and you will notice because it just seems to start slowing down and it doesn’t seem too work as well as it used to, you just change locations. And what is great about this is, is that you can also put dog feces in this, so a lot of pet owners use this.” But Collision encourages caution with this approach as there may be some personal health implications from improper usage of the Green Cone Digester, “if you are putting waste in from a carnivorous animal, because you can also put in waste from hamsters and rabbits and horse manure into any sort of composting system, those are sort of herbivores.

A promotional image for the green cone digester compost bin, which if your neighbours weren't in the know, could be mistaken for a sculpture or a piece of decorative lawn art.

But anything with a carnivorous animal, you don’t want to have this digester near anything with food and plants. There has been no research to show that there is any vector transfer, but this is just a precautionary principle, because people are worried that if they find the vectors in the dog waste that somehow it might transfer to the tomatoes that you are growing right beside it, so people are worried about that sort of thing, though there has never been a link shown.”  Nadine also reminds me that the key to successful composting is garnered through achieving a balance between equal application of green and brown layers of decaying organic matter.

The green layer is composed of wet matter such as: expired sauces or spreads, used coffee grinds and tea bags, fruit cores and peelings whereas the brown layer is synonymous with the dry matter such as: newspaper scraps, dried pasta or breads and or leaves. As Collison explains, maintaining an equal balance of green to brown is an important task by creating, “layers of browns and greens like in Lasagna but you always want to end on a brown layer. That is like the cheese on top of the Lasagna. That keeps down the fruit flies and the smells and stuff like that. So what a lot of people do is that they either build like a leaf bin or have a garbage bag full of shredded paper, or whatever. So that you put in the greens and then you put in a layer of these on top.”  Should you want to find out more about composting, as a volunteer or if you want to access a price list for the various different types of compost bins and workshops that the Compost Education Centre offers and if composting during you spare time, is not your idea of a fun time, then Jason Adams would be glad to take your organic food waste off of your hands, at a time and location that is both convenient and accessible to you, a list of home and business pick-up and or delivery options are available on the reFUSE website.

The common thread connecting Collison’s and Adams’ unique narratives, is their desire to be part of the change, that they want to see in the world (to borrow a turn a phrase from Ghandi); for Collison this meanings putting an end to environmental disconnection by connecting various generations together through the joy of creating compost together, “I often find that the grandparents and the great-grandparents are composting (and they) are teaching the kids how to compost.” This action might be taken to alleviate guilt, she explains that, “they have been around lounger (and) have seen the deterioration of the planet and really remember what things were like as a child and how things have changed over time.” Regardless of an individuals’ reason for joining this new compost movement, the outcome is a bright one, states Collison optimistically, “ millennials kind of grew up with it being a little bit more on the radar and the kids that are coming up now, will just be common place (composting that is) hopefully.”

Jason standing beside one of his bio-diesel powered fleet trucks, soon to be powered by used cooking oil collected by reFUSE and processed by the Cowichan Bio-Diesel Co-op.

If one person’s waste is another’s treasure, then there is a revolution happening under-foot. The resurgence and continued uptake of composting at home and in the workplace, has been pushed to the forefront of daily conversation on much of Southern Vancouver Island due to the continued Herculean efforts of social business entrepreneurs like Jason Adams, founder and owner-operator of reFUSE Resource Recovery and Nadine Collison, executive director of the Greater Victoria Compost Education Centre. Both are influential members within the burgeoning environmental community, with a common vision and love for what gardeners affectionately call Black Gold.

Adams hails from Ottawa and arrived here in the late 1990s, to a wonderful west coast oasis, the way most twenty-somethings do in Victoria, to attend the University of Victoria. As part of the business degree requirements, all commerce students must apply their classroom skills to the business world through a co-operative education work term.  So after taking a keen research interest in waste, not as refuse but instead as a source or revenue generation, he became sold on the idea that this was the optimal career path for him to follow.  Having seen a poster for the Rubbish Boys, the forerunner to 1-800 Got Junk, he applied and got a co-op term with this unique company. His hard work would soon reap many dividends, by establishing a name for the company and himself for being leaders in green business around Southern Vancouver Island. Adams’ graduated in 1999, having received his BBA from the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria.

After graduation, Adams’ next career step took him to ETL (Environment Technology Limited), a goliath at the time within the paper recycling industry, he explains, “they were very technologically advanced- they had significant infrastructure in their plans; so they were buying this company- so they hired me to run it and integrate it with the bigger company.”  So after integrating Penner Recycling, the local ‘ma & pa’, into the larger Canada-wide management structure for the company, he began to tire of working for other successful companies, realizing he had the skills to start his own small business. So by the time ETL laid Adams off, sensing the winds of change within the management structure of the company (ETL was sold to Metro Materials Recovery), he utilized his ace in the hole, a plan to register his dream venture ReFUSE with the BC provincial registry office in 2000/2001.

ReFUSE would be structured to access a previously untapped market, of residential and commercial food wastes, “I came to see the economies of waste and the stuff as a commodity really. There was some serious dough to be made.” Making the papers wasn’t easy in the beginning explains Adams, while sitting in his office. The office is located in a brand new waste transfer station, just on the outskirts of downtown Victoria; It is a bristling operation, as his employees struggle to keep on top of the mountainous volumes of various: hard and soft plastics, Styrofoam and organic food wastes that arrive frequently throughout the business day. Sitting across from each other in two leather commander chairs within his new warehouse facility; which acts as a transfer station for not only food waste but also for a multitude of different plastics, which is a recent addition to the array of services offered to reFUSE customers.

Kicking back in the office, with a faint aroma hanging in the air, which I presume is the smell of money being made in Adam’s industry, it is easy to see, that he is at a good place in his life. Half-jokingly he points towards a hulking black IBM laptop, that is presumably from the turn of the century, that in addition to an $11,000 used-garbage truck were his only two items of capital infrastructure in those early days, where he had few clients and many problems ranging from odors to unsatisfied customers, “ when we started out with a garbage truck that would dump them [the bins] and we would drive away and leave the bins dirty. You learn pretty quickly that isn’t something that you can sustain, so rather than let a competitor offer it, we really wanted to jump to where a mature industry will finish.” Flash forward from 2001 to 2011 and the differences are stark, when compared against those early days, the addition of new and hi-tech equipment like the Styrofoam compactor has helped to streamline business operations and reduce overhead.

The Styrofoam compactor can crush that menacing substance at a 50:1 reduction ratio thereby reducing the frequency and the cost of shipping to a processing facility in eastern Canada. The delivery and pick-up fleet for organic and plastics, has also gone through growing pains; the numerous fleet vehicles- of varying sizes run on bio-diesel that is obtained from a local company ReDux. This bio-diesel though, will soon be phased out, to be replaced with cooking oil collected by reFUSE from customers and then re-engineered into a more sustainable and local fuel by their business partners up island at the Cowichan Bio-Diesel Co-op. This group operates through cooking oil to fuel conversion business venture within the Cowichan Regional District-Waste Transfer Facility.

Recent infrastructure upgrades have also helped to push reFUSE to the forefront of the waste management industry, now as a major player within this blossoming industry, they see a zero waste as a possibility within the near future. Their impact is huge when I ask Adams if he keeps track of all the wastes that are processed at their In Vessel processing plant in Cobble Hill, he nods his head empathically, explaining, that his company will process up to 4500 metric tones of food waste this year. This is enough compost to fill one hundred and sixty 53 ft. tractor-trailers. Stunning! Innovation by necessity is how Jason has kept ahead of his competitors for the past decade. Looking at ReFuse’s business strategy in this light, helps to explain the reason behind adding a bicycle powered organic waste collection service. This division of the company is aptly called ReCyclists and is a partnership between Cowichan ReCyclists and the Downtown Victoria Business Association; the prior organization provides ReFuse with infrastructure and the latter helps with volunteer staffing. Similar to Adams’ outreach approach to build his business, by offering better services to community members, is Nadine Collison’s approach to running her own enterprising non-profit organization the Greater Victoria Compost Education Centre. This registered charity, is the premiere source of information on how to make your own compost, if you are more inclined to adopt a DIY approach then hire a collection service to deal with your organic wastes.