How to take action- Learn more. For a straight up recycling solution, the Recycling Council of B.C. website offers a wealth of information on what can be recycled and where.
- Join the network. If your area is not part of the Freecycle Network, sign it up, it's free. Freecycle is a non-profit online network of people giving and getting things from other people in their area, and it's an easy to use way to keep things out of the landfill.
- Support your local thrift stores. These are great places to donate unneeded items and to find hidden treasures. Many thrift stores are not-for-profit or are fundraisers for charity organizations. To ensure your "donations" aren't a burden to them, don't drop things off after hours, unless they have a specified way to do so, and ensure your items are clean and functional. A thrift store is not the place to take your broken blender or mismatched socks.
- Put it online. Craigslist, ebay, Kijiji and other online sales sites are effective ways to sell or give away items you no longer need. Placing ads on the sites is free, and on Craigslist and Kijiji, you don't need to sign up for a membership.
- Host an annual (or seasonal) community "garbage day". Organise a day for people to place useable items that they no longer need out on the curb for others to pick up. Ensure you find out if any special permission is required for this kind of event, and advertise it widely to get as many participants as possible, both donors and seekers.
- Encourage street-wide or community-wide garage sales. Garage sales tend to draw a better crowd when there are a few at the same time in the same area, and annual garage sales tend to grow in popularity over time. Garage sales are fairly easy to coordinate and can even be a way to make a little money – either for you, or as a fundraiser for a community need.
- If reusing is already popular in your community, consider opening a "free store". It doesn't have to be big or fancy or open everyday, but it is a place where people can bring things they no longer need and others can pick them up, free of charge. It's a good idea to have regulations in place from the outset about what people can and cannot drop off, so the free store doesn't end up cluttered with unwanted junk. If space is limited, limit how much people can drop off at one time. A number of B.C. communities have very successful free stores that provide a means to reuse items and an affordable way for people to find things they need.
- The key for optimum reusing and recycling is to have numerous and varied ways for people to give and get goods. Remember that one person's trash is another's treasure. For example, many people use scrap metals for all kinds of purposes, including art and construction, and plastic food containers or milk jugs are often used by gardeners for starting their plants in spring.
- Drop it off. One way to expand on recycling collection is to have a community based drop-off recycling centre that takes some of the items that can't be recycled at the curb. If yours is a very small community, consider sharing such a service among a couple of nearby areas. A community recycling station could take the form of a small business, a site run by volunteers, or an unstaffed series of dumpsters that are collected by a recycling company, or sorted and sent out by volunteers.
- Read about the zero waste philosophy on the B.C. Recycling Council website. Find out what it takes to make your community a zero waste supporter. You could make it a goal to become the first zero waste community in B.C., or start with something less daunting, like a 100 day, zero waste diet.
- Remember that recycling and reusing are just one part of the process. Cutting down on what you consume, or precycling, is key to reducing energy and water use, and waste generation.
Why it makes a difference- Waste disposal is a global concern, and is probably one of the greatest challenges facing many municipalities: it's expensive, time-consuming, and frequently toxic to collect waste materials. Reducing garbage reduces pressure on landfills and helps control your municipal taxes.
- When a landfill leaks, the leachate is toxic, and can contaminate groundwater and other freshwater sources, or even seawater if the landfill is near the ocean.
- Landfills are big contributors to global climate change. They give off "landfill gas", made up of a high percentage of methane and carbon dioxide (CO2). Methane is about 20 times more powerful than CO2 when it comes to heating the atmosphere, and landfills are some of the biggest methane producers in the world. In fact, according to researchers at the University of Ottawa, 20% of Canada's share of global warming gases come from landfills.
- A well-run recycling facility costs less than sending that waste to a landfill.
- Much of the rubbish in a landfill, particularly plastics, won't break down for millennia. Keeping things in use, or recycling them into other products, stops them from clogging landfills and reduces the need for new products.
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