The United Nations designated World Environment Day takes place on June 5th each year to celebrate our natural environment. Today (and in our opinion, all days!) encourages worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. It also happens to be the start of Canadian Environment Week.
This year’s theme is “Connecting People to Nature – in the city and on the land, from the poles to the equator”. And, Canada is 2017’s host nation! How fitting! With Canada’s 150th Birthday on the horizon, and free passes available to our National Parks throughout 2017, this theme resonates. As city dwellers, it is imperative we get outdoors and into nature, to realize how interconnected and dependent we are on our natural environment. Through appreciation grows protectionism.
Here in Calgary, we are also celebrating the roll-out of the city-wide green cart organics collection program to single-family residences that starts this week! The City of Calgary got this right – organics are just too good to waste.
We’ve been over the moon about composting for a while now, and we are thrilled to see this program implemented city-wide. This is a fantastic step towards reducing our waste to landfill, and working towards a zero waste community.
At events, the majority of discarded material we collect, traditionally viewed as “waste” can actually be recovered as valuable resources, like bottles and cans, paper and cardboard, and food! Food, along with certified compostable food ware and used paper towel account for the majority of resources we are able to rescue from the landfill.
Why do we avoid the landfill? For one, it takes up physical space on valuable land! In a landfill, there is no oxygen, and no way for organic material to break down and return to the soil as it would in nature. Instead it creates liquid leachate – moisture from food and yard waste that mixes with other discarded material that can severely contaminate our ground water if not collected and treated. Organic material also produces methane, a harmful green house gas. And, if that’s not enough to get you on board, landfills are very costly to build, operate and maintain – think in the billions of dollars.
In nature, nothing is wasted. It’s about time we start replicating this process, and close the loop on our make – take – dispose pattern of use. Composting is one, simple way we can take action to protect, and hopefully restore vitality to our soil and natural environment.
Our mission is to champion working towards zero waste events. Our vision is to support zero waste communities. By showcasing our event services as solutions to larger environmental challenges we hope to inspire a new generation of responsible community leaders to think globally and act locally. We do this to support a clean and sustainable future.
We’re with nature. Are you?!