Even Moore Investment in Canadian Youth

Written for Call2Recycle web/newsletter, December 2013.

As you read this article, it will likely be minus 20 degrees Celsius and snowy in the small Canadian town of Lloydminster, about halfway between Edmonton and Saskatoon.  Lloydminster has the peculiar claim of being in both the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan at the same time, since the town is built directly on the East-West provincial border.

Similarly, on the cusp between November and December the town hosts the “Boundary Ford Curling Classic” event, drawing 24 teams internationally to compete for $24,000 in prize money.  It’s the third womens’ team event in the Asham World Curling Tour this year, and among those competing on the tour will be Team Moore, a womens’ curling team of four that Call2Recycle® is proudly sponsoring for the season.  Kristie Moore, Sarah Wilkes, Ashleigh Clark, and Kyla MacLachlan are competing over the four-month season for not only prize money but also for Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) points.  These will decide whether the team  qualifies for the ‘Scotties Tournament of Hearts’ provincial playdown in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, in January 2014.

“We’re very grateful to Call2Recycle for its sponsorship,” explains Sarah Wilkes, team third.  “Although curling is very popular in Canada, amateur teams like ours still have to pay for accommodation during events and the flights to get there before we’ve even picked up a broom or a stone.  Just this season will likely cost $3,500 in entry fees alone.  Without sponsorship, there would be no Team Moore.”

Ontario goes ‘Beyond Green’

Written for Call2Recycle web/newsletter, November 2013.

In an effort to raise awareness of environmental issues, Earth Day Canada organised a first-of-its-kind event in Toronto, Ontario.  The ‘Beyond Green’ summit ran from October 25^th to the 27^th at the University of Toronto, drawing more than 1,000 young Canadians aged 14 to 30 years old from inside the province and out.  

Over 100 community groups and organisations were involved in dozens of panel discussions and workgroups over the three days.  Keynote presenters included: Emily Hunter, the documentary filmmaker and author; Majora Carter, urban revitalisation specialist; and Tom Rand, clean energy champion.  Perhaps most importantly, the last hour-and-a-half of the event on Sunday afternoon was devoted solely to ‘Action Panels’, i.e. how to turn the good ideas and intentions from the event into tangible achievements.  When it comes to environmental issues, making people aware of them is only half the battle.  Encouraging them to change their behaviour takes a proper plan and the perseverance to execute it. 

Call2Recycle partners with Earth Day Canada to educate and communicate the environmental values of proper end-of-life battery management.  Earth Day Canada (EDC), a national environmental charity founded in 1990, provides Canadians with the practical knowledge and tools they need to lessen their impact on the environment.  

If you’re ever spurred into creating your own awareness-raising initiatives and need some pointers, then find us on Facebook, or check out the “Resources” section of our website. 

Winnipeg libraries to battle for batteries in Waste Reduction Week

News release written for Call2Recycle, October 2013.

***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 15, 2013

Winnipeg libraries to battle for batteries in Waste Reduction Week

Call2Recycle^® offers community prize and “Waste Ace” title for diverting the most batteries from landfill

(Winnipeg, MB) — Call2Recycle and Winnipeg Public Library are running a competition during national Waste Reduction Week, October 21-27, to see which branch can collect the most household batteries for recycling.  The community library that collects the most weight in batteries will be awarded a prize by Call2Recycle. Used batteries (weighing up to 5 kg each) and cellphones (with or without batteries), regardless of make, model, or age are accepted. 

According to Orysia Boytchuk, marketing director, Call2Recycle, “It is critical to the success of any recycling program that there are sufficient drop-off locations in the community, and that those locations are well-known.  This is why we are happy to collaborate with Winnipeg Public Library to make sure people understand just how easy battery recycling can be”. 

The genesis of Waste Reduction Week was in the mid-1980s when like-minded local government and environmental organisations in Canada first began collaborating to improve environmental awareness.  From 2001, the week became a branded, national initiative and is now an annual event.  Its organizers and participants include schools, businesses, non-profits, individuals and government departments from each of the 13 participating provincial and territorial jurisdictions across Canada.

The winning library and holder of the “Winnipeg Waste Ace” title will be announced on or close to November 18^th.

Winnipeg Public Library accepts batteries and cellphones for recycling all year round.  To learn more about the competition, or to find the nearest drop-off locations, visit call2recycle.ca/winnipegwasteace/

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For further information contact:

Glyn Davies, marketing coordinator

Call2Recycle^®

1 416 224 0069 ext 234

gdavies@call2recycle.ca

About Call2Recycle

Founded in 1994, Call2Recycle—North America’s first and largest battery stewardship program—is a non-profit organization that collects and recycles batteries at no cost for municipalities, businesses and consumers. Since 1996, Call2Recycle has diverted over 34 million kilograms of batteries and cellphones from the solid waste stream and established 30,000 collection sites throughout Canada and the U.S. It is the first program of its kind to receive the Responsible Recycling Practices Standard (R2) certification. Learn more at call2recycle.ca or call 1.888.224.9764. Become a follower or fan at Twitter or Facebook.

Winnipeg Libraries Battle for Batteries in Waste Reduction Week

Written for Call2Recycle web/newsletter, October 2013

There has been a week for reducing waste in Canada since the mid-1980s, although it wasn’t until 2001 that ‘the week’ evolved from a loose collaboration between like-minded councils and environmental organisations into a branded national initiative.  Today, Waste Reduction Week has become an annual event whose organisers and participants include schools, businesses, non-profits, individuals and government departments from each of the 13 participating provincial and territorial jurisdictions across Canada.

It’s fair to say that the organisers and volunteers behind the week have come a long way from those early days in terms of identifying potential environmental projects.  In 2012 for example: schools held waste-free lunches; communities conducted special recycling collection activities; and one organisation even had a "Re-Funk Your Junk" contest.

This year, from the 21^st to 27^th October, Call2Recycle will collaborate with Winnipeg Public Libraries to promote Waste Reduction Week amongst the people of Manitoba’s capital city.  All 19 branches will be rallying residents to drop off their used batteries and cellphones into a permanent Call2Recycle collection box as they indulge in a friendly competition.  The branch that collects the most during Waste Reduction Week will be named Winnipeg’s “Waste Ace” and awarded a community prize.  However, as long as the people using each library participate, then it could be argued far more easily that all participants are winners.  

Stay tuned for an update! In the meantime for more details, click here.

Batteries, Bugs, and the Nineteenth Hole

Written for Call2Recycle web/newsletter, October 2013.  

Did you know that the practice of changing clocks every Spring and Fall is the result of needing more time to collect insects and play golf?  

Excluding ancient civilisations, the concept of “daylight savings time” was first proposed in 1895 by an entomologist from New Zealand named George Vernon Hudson.  His motivation was to try to increase the amount of time he could study insects after work.  At almost the same time in 1907, an English builder and outdoorsman named William Willett proposed the same thing so that he would have more time to play golf in the summer evenings!  It took another decade for the practice to be adopted but by 1916 Germany, Austria, and Hungary were changing their clocks.  The ‘final straw’ for clock changing came much later, when the 1979 Oil Price Shocks led to Western nations reducing their power consumption so as to not be reliant on foreign oil.  

In the 21^st century, Call2Recycle marks these biannual alterations of time for safety reasons that still relate to power.  Many modern homes are fitted with smoke or CO₂ alarms, and the common best practice in maintaining these is to check and/or change the batteries every six months.  Indeed, in 2010 a global initiative between battery manufacturers and the International Fire Chiefs Association called, “Change Your Clock, Change Your Battery” was launched.  The intention was to try to reduce the quantity of casualties caused from fires in the home.  Today, Call2Recycle still works with more than 400 fire departments across the continent, some of whom are also drop-off locations for used batteries.  With them we have already diverted more than 11,000kg of used batteries away from landfills this year alone.  

And don’t forget, Call2Recycle has over 30,000 drop-off locations all over North America for the day when your batteries are finally spent.  After all that, if you can’t remember whether the clock should be moved forwards or backwards, then just remember that one hour’s sleep is the price we pay for Summer.

The Life and Times of the Shirtless Back

Human existence these days is more about paying than about anything else.

You drift back into consciousness one morning in a bed that you paid for, in a home that you pay for.  Your alarm clock-radio iPod docking station multimedia centre stirs into life, slowly but surely filling the bedroom with music and chatter, while all the while consuming electricity that you pay for.

Scratching your nuts or your left boob as you trudge into the kitchen, you pay homage to your Neanderthal roots.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs kicks in at stage one as you acknowledge, "I'm hungry".  When you open the fridge, the light that switches on automatically illuminates either a proverbial Santa's grotto of fruit, vegetables, plastic-sealed leftovers, milk, fruit juices, meat and hopefully a beer or two, or if you're like me, a stark clinically-white gaping expanse not unlike a toy store warehouse on Boxing Day.  But regardless of what's in there, you paid for it.  In short, if we had no money then we would already be without two of the most basic tenets of human existence - food, and shelter.

People often visit the bathroom around this time of day.  You sit on a toilet you paid for, wipe your arse with paper you paid for, and flush away whatever delights you've deposited into a sewer system you pay for.  When you shower, unless you're masochistic or catholic, then the water is hot because you pay for it to be heated.  Little water on this planet arrives hot, unless your bathroom happens to be on the side of Mount Etna.  If it is then please stop reading, pack up your stuff, and get the hell out of there.

Of course you need money so you have to go to work.  You pay for the bus, the car, the train, or even the bike that gets you there.  And even when you're there, you have to pay to be there before you've even picked up a pen or touched a post-it note.  What's that you say?  You don't have to pay to work?  Really?  Who feeds you your lunch whilst at work - your employer?  No.  Your employer, instead, enforces an outdated, counter-evolutionary dress code policy that requires you to go out and pay for clothes that you wouldn't ordinarily buy just so that you can feel as though you share a connection with  the other people you work with.  And when you want to go home at the end of the day, you have to pay to do so or get stuck at the office.

But it doesn't end there.

I still write cheques for things from time to time.  And every time I do I have to pay for it.  OK, so it's somewhere under $3 per cheque, but how many cheques does the average person write in a lifetime?  Now multiply that number by the quantity of people on the planet who have a bank account.  Is that thousands of dollars?  Millions?  Billions?  In short, I have to pay to pay.  I have to pay for the privilege of paying someone else for something.

But the truth is even worse than that.

How do I know if I even have enough money to pay someone?  Well, I tend to use online banking.  Amazingly, neither the TD bank nor the CIBC charges me to access my own bank account details via the internet, but just when you think you've managed to escape it you realise you have to pay for that internet access.  When environmentalism started to get trendy just before the end of the 20th century every insidious corporate entity on the planet got on the bandwagon in an attempt to falsely demonstrate that they were environmentally conscious.  Paper bank statements (which you pay for via taxes that pay the postal service) began to be replaced by e-mails with PDF attachments.  But, in an ironic twist, once that service became available, banks began charging those customers who wished to continue to receive a paper bank statement.  So now you have to pay constantly for everything around you, even the most basic needs of a human being.  And then you have to pay for the ability to pay for those things.  And finally, just in order to establish whether or not you have the money to pay for the ability to pay for those things, you have to pay first.

If you go back now and read what I've written from the start, you will realise that you haven't really achieved very much yet but you've been paying for everything already.  And yet society seems surprised that we as a species don't do better.  Sadly, it's not even the case that very few people ever achieve their true potential before the day they die.  The problem is not only that the majority of people have to pay to do a job they hate, while all the time suffering from an unrealised dream of what they would do if money were not holding them back.

Alas, the whole truth is actually a whole lot worse.

Not only do few people ever reach their potential, but many fall in the opposite direction.  The world's streets are littered with grubby, starving, drunk, injured, ill people who started their lives in such a state of poverty that they never really stood a chance no matter what their work ethic or abilities might be.  I wonder how many geniuses are currently shaking a cup full of copper coins with pleading eyes when they should, instead, be curing diseases, harnessing sustainable energies, or pushing the boundaries of art, of space exploration, or of consciousness?  How many people buy lottery tickets because, despite the ridiculous odds stacked against them, they know that it is their only chance to ever push beyond the point of scratching around for a living instead of fulfilling their potential and making the greatest contribution to society that they could?

But the reality is even worse than that!

Our society is so sinister that even people such as I, brought up with a conscience that hangs around my neck like a millstone for my every waking minute, have to think twice before giving money to these people who need it the most.  I feel regret after I've tossed a few coins in that cup because the thought that goes through my mind is, "Am I really the person who should be donating?  Do I really have sufficient to be able to just give some away?  Am I really that far from being the person on their knees in the street, begging for enough just to keep me alive?"  The answer is no, and the quote I am constantly reminded of is, "There but for the grace of god go I".

The fact is that the system we live in makes it very, very difficult for humans to be equitable.  We have to fight, and pay, to be able to leave the nest.  We have to fight to make the rent.  And then if we ever manage to pool enough capital out of the economy to put a deposit down on a house, by the time we've finished paying for that house we're so old that we can't even eat or go to the toilet without someone helping us to do so.

In order just to consider this issue we have to fight to quiet our mind for a few minutes, desperately trying to avoid a society of bright colours, flashing lights, and babbling over-stimulation that occupies, distracts, and entrances us like the front of a Las Vegas fruit machine.  Yet we are told, and we tell our children, that this is "normal" and then get angry when they struggle to understand.  And if they disagree, we tell them that they are immature.  We tell them, "You'll understand one day," infer that they are stupid, undermine their self-esteem, and beat them down like a nail in a coffin until they are as indoctrinated into this system of blind stupidity as we are.

Yet we don't realise it.  We don't even acknowledge that what we are doing, and what we are doing to our children, is wrong.  And then every birthday and every xmas we bombard our children with materialistic goods as if to say, "Well, if you stop disagreeing with Mummy and Daddy then one day you'll be able to buy all this stuff yourself."  And then we act surprised when people riot and loot in London because they believe that they are owed these things but will never have the means to obtain them legitimately.  We get angry.  We say, "Well I paid for MY stuff so they should have to pay too."  We dismiss them as stupid or criminal.  We insist that the government not only puts a stop to it, but does so in the most inhumane way possible, with riot batons and water cannons, and all the while further angering and aggravating those people who already know that they have been deceived, duped, and royally fucked over by the system.

But the truth is much worse than that.

Why?  Because there is no need for anything to be paid for.  We, as a species, already have enough food, concrete, teachers, lab equipment, books, tools, tarmac, iPads for everyone to have one.  There are sufficient resources on the planet for everyone to have that home, that alarm clock, that bed, that education, that food and that love.  Yet we still continue to stick rigidly with money - an invention that dates back before the internet, before X-factor, before space travel, before Einstein, before Leonardo da Vinci, even before the wheel and almost as far back as the invention of fire.

Why?!  Why do we do this to ourselves and - much worse - why do we force all our seceding generations to make exactly the same mistake that we have, over and over?  I can't speak for you, dear reader, but I have come to the conclusion that we can do better.  I want to live in a world where everyone has more than they do now and, the really sad thing is that we could.  Let me say that to you again: we already have so much that everyone could have plenty.  There is already an idea that has been researched over 75 years and turned into a concept.  And that concept has been turned into a plan.  And that plan has now become a working project.  And that project has a name, "The Venus Project".

And yet the best reason we can think of for not dropping whatever we are doing right now, and starting it immediately, is because we're late for a meeting, or because our favourite show is on HBO and we might miss it.  Or because we selfishly, inconsiderately, naively tell ourselves that it is someone else's job to worry about that and - ironically - we need to get home and look after our kids.

Because we still keep telling ourselves that's the only way we can make sure our children don't lose the shirts off their backs too.