Tide laundry soap eco box is less waste than the plastic bottles.

What’s the most commonly found piece of litter on the side of Pennsylvania highways?

It’s not soda cans. It’s not scrap paper.

It’s cigarette butts, according to the Pennsylvania Litter Research Study. The study was compiled earlier this year.

The City of Easton is trying to do its part to reverse this trend. The Easton Ambassadors have collected more than half a million cigarette butts from recycling receptacles placed around the city starting in 2015.

“We’re just making it really convenient for smokers to throw out their cigarette butts. I don’t think they want to litter. It’s just that they have no place to put them,” said Sandra Zajacek, the operations manager for the Easton Ambassadors. The red-coated ambassador crews pick up litter, maintain planters, give directions to out-of-towners and do what they can to make the city hospitable.

The cigarette butt collection program started modestly with four receptacles. Now there are more than 20 across the Downtown.

Zajacek is thrilled to report the city received a grant for hundreds more cigarette recycling receptacles courtesy of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.

Her organization will slowly deploy the pole-mounted containers in the city’s Downtown and West Ward neighborhoods. Zajacek wants to collect as many butts as she can but doesn’t want to overwhelm her staff by having to empty hundreds of new boxes at the same time.

The new containers will replace stand-alone street-level containers put out in 2008. Those containers sometimes blow over. Sometimes people stuff trash into them. That’s not as big a problem with the small pole-mounted containers.

The trash study found 96 million butts along Pennsylvania roads in 2019.

And butts are the most commonly-found litter in the ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“All these cigarette butts go into the street when people flick them. Then it rains and all they go out into the Delaware and the Lehigh and the Bushill Creek,” Zajacek said. “That’s just really bad for the environment.”

The butts collected by the Easton Ambassdors go to TerraCycle, which converts them into shipping pallets and park benches.

Zajacek has long been an advocate for the environment. She admits she smoked as a teen but she mitigated the damage to herself by zealously advocating for the proper disposal of butts. She made a friend pull over her car after the friend carelessly flicked a butt out the window. When the friend picked up a littered butt, the trip resumed.

Zajacek said it’s rewarding “to have a real program and do something I already have a passion about.”

Going green got real. At Aldo Shoes, 2019 was the culmination of a five-year sustainability initiative, a journey that included a 46-per-cent decrease in CO2 emissions and phasing out single-use shopping bags in favour of smart shoeboxes. “Climate emergency” is the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year, and in the world of fashion and beauty, a growing awareness of the industry’s impact on the planet kickstarted a push to make style more sustainable. Many brands, big and small, are taking action to become more environmentally friendly and ethical, thanks to customer demand. One standout step forward in 2019 was a shift in how consumers look at the resale market, which reportedly grew 21 times faster than traditional retail, according to retail analytics firm Global Data. Calgary-based online luxury reseller the Upside is expecting to do $2.4-million in sales this year, while Quebec retailer Simons introduced vintage clothing to its offerings. When it comes to the production of new apparel and cosmetics, brands continued to develop innovative sources of raw materials and packaging with minimal environmental impact. Frank and Oak introduced a sustainable outerwear collection made from recycled plastic, while beauty brands such as Clarins and Burt’s Bees made it their mission to ensure that their packaging was properly recycled, through new initiatives such as a partnership with TerraCycle, a company that comes up with green solutions for hard-to-recycle products. At Aldo Shoes, 2019 was the culmination of a five-year sustainability initiative, a journey that included a 46-per-cent decrease in CO2 emissions and phasing out single-use shopping bags in favour of smart shoeboxes. CEO David Bensadoun, whose father founded the Montreal-based company in 1972, describes the past year as a positive step forward, but promises there’s more work to do. “It showed us what we can do and where we’re headed,” he says. “The goal is to continue to innovate, to improve, to challenge our way of working as an organization and others in the industry to be better, to be at the forefront of actual change.” Shopping went gourmet A big shift in shopping habits saw the grocery store become the retail destination of the year and that’s because the modern-day supermarket is anything but banal. The elevated grocery shopping experience kicked off in January, when McEwan’s Yonge Bloor opened its 17,000-square-foot subterranean spot in downtown Toronto. The thoughtfully stocked aisles of ingredients and pantry staples are surrounded by prepared food options including a Fabbrica Pizza counter, a sushi bar and a carving station. In November – and one block west – that was followed up by the highly anticipated opening of Canada’s first Eataly outpost, a three-storey temple to Italian cuisine. That month also saw the Time Out Montreal Market opening the doors to its 40,000-square-foot emporium in the Centre Eaton de Montreal on St. Catherine Street. It features food from 16 of the city’s top chefs including James Beard Award winner Normand Laprise of Toqué, a beverage program to complement the dining options, culinary lessons and a retail space. According to TV food and lifestyle expert and writer Pay Chen, a key factor in the rise of the curated grocery store may be too much choice at the local supermarket. “I think people like to feel like someone has done the work of sifting through the options and choosing the best or most relevant or interesting items,” she says. Chen points out that these curated stores typically come with a staff that’s knowledgeable and approachable, comparing their role to that of a sommelier. “The expertise available makes the experience more enjoyable.” At malls and in shopping districts across Canada this year, we’ve seen e-commerce leaders like Endy launching and expanding their storefront presence. It wasn’t so long ago that e-commerce threatened to wipe out traditional retail, with casualties that included some legacy brands such as Sears. Despite some high-profile bankruptcies in 2019, including Forever 21 and Barneys New York, this year, it became increasingly apparent that the in-person shopping experience isn’t likely to vanish any time soon. In fact, it’s become a key strategy for digital natives, the term used to describe companies that were born online. A report by the International Council of Shopping Centers revealed that opening a physical retail space results in a 37 per cent average increase in web traffic. This positive relationship between bricks and clicks is dubbed the “halo effect” and it illustrates the fact that we aren’t strictly online shoppers or in-store shoppers, but a hybrid of both, with the path to purchase becoming increasingly nuanced. Story continues below advertisement Aly Damji, the executive vice-president of investments and asset management at real-estate investment and development firm Hullmark, says it’s a phenomenon he’s witnessed at their properties firsthand. He points to Toronto meal-prep and food delivery service Fresh City Farms as an example of the “omnichannel” approach. “They were online and had a loyal following of their food delivery meal prep kits. Now, they have kits available in store, but then also built a traditional grocery business.” At malls and in shopping districts across Canada this year, we’ve seen e-commerce leaders including Endy, Knix and Bon Look launching and expanding their storefront presence. Brand Canada capitalized on its cachet Canadian cottage staple Roots opened up its first experiential store on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. With the NBA trophy awarded north of the border for the first time ever, all eyes are on Canada. And it’s no longer just for our maple syrup, as high-profile figures including the Duchess of Sussex and Hailey Bieber continue to sport Canadian fashion labels such as Nonie, Aritzia, Sentaler and Ecksand on the world stage. “The perception of Canadian brands on the international scene has changed a lot,” says Natasha Koifman, president and founder of NKPR, a public relations firm with offices in Toronto and New York. “The overall increased global spotlight on our country, as well as our strong identity and values of integrity and inclusiveness have contributed to the increased interest in brands that are created in Canada.” According to a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper this year, 96 per cent of international respondents had a positive view of Canada, with 88 per cent of millennial respondents saying they have a strong interest in Canada. Riding the wave are a handful of Canadian retailers that continued to expand globally this year. Canadian cottage staple Roots opened up its first experiential store on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Parka brand Moose Knuckles and CAFA 2018 women’s-wear designer of the year Marie Saint Pierre both opened stores in Manhattan. And jewellery brand Mejuri followed up its New York store with one in Los Angeles. Of course, no one champions Canada quite like Drake, who marked a major milestone this year when he expanded his empire all the way to Japan with the opening of an impressive OVO flagship store in Tokyo. Consumers recognized their power to affect change With industry watchdogs such as Instagram’s Diet Prada and Estée Laundry drawing attention to the fashion and beauty industry’s many instances of cultural appropriation, racism, gender discrimination, workplace bullying and egregious environmental waste, these stories became mainstream news with bottom-line consequences. Following popular backlash, Dior pulled the videos from its Sauvage fragrance campaign, which featured Native American imagery; Elle Germany formally apologized for its “Black is Back” story about models of colour; and Gucci’s Alessandro Michele wrote an apology letter for a turtleneck design resembling black face. Loewe removed an outfit from its shelves that resembled a concentration camp uniform, while Kim Kardashian renamed her “Kimono” shapewear line “Skims.” Sage Paul, a fashion designer and the founder of Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto, cites the recent cancellation of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show as an example of consumer action leading to industry evolution. “Speaking up and consciously choosing what we consume does have an impact,” she says, adding that social media has opened up the conversation to be more inclusive. “While I think call-out culture has its problems, I do think it’s important to think critically and be accountable for how our choices impact those around us or perpetuate social issues, like racism. With tact, we can influence positive change by drawing attention to those issues and not contributing to them.” Take the Savage x Fenty Lingerie by Rihanna collection. At the pop star’s fashion show in September, she was applauded for featuring models of all shapes, cultures, orientations, genders and abilities, and the line has become an industry standard for how to build an inclusive brand.

Maybe you got a holiday tech upgrade with a new phone or laptop. But what you do with old devices matters. A United Nations report in 2017 sounded the alarm on the waste associated with technology, with 45 million tons of e-waste tossed in 2016 — and only about 20% was recycled. If all the valuable metals were collected from those electronics, it would be worth $55 billion. “This problem is burgeoning, it’s getting bigger and bigger,” says Steven Dege with TerraCycle, a company that specializes in hard-to-recycle materials. “And as our population grows, it’s continuing to get bigger and bigger, and if we don’t tackle it or start to develop means or ways to recycle these items, it’s going to become a massive, massive issue later on.” Dege recommends you find a local electronics recycle location. Consumer Reports says you can also donate your old device to a charity or nonprofit. Dell and Goodwill have a partnership that allows you to drop off your old technology at some Goodwill locations. Apple and Amazon may give you a credit or gift card for old electronics. Sprint buys phones from any carrier. Best Buy also has a number of recycling options. But before you do any of that, make sure you protect your data first. “The No. 1 thing that everybody should do is wipe your information off the phone, off your computers, laptops, things of that nature,” Dege says. “You don’t want that information to get anywhere, to go anywhere, other than yourself.”

Maybe you got a holiday tech upgrade with a new phone or laptop. But what you do with old devices matters. A United Nations report in 2017 sounded the alarm on the waste associated with technology, with 45 million tons of e-waste tossed in 2016 — and only about 20% was recycled. If all the valuable metals were collected from those electronics, it would be worth $55 billion. “This problem is burgeoning, it’s getting bigger and bigger,” says Steven Dege with TerraCycle, a company that specializes in hard-to-recycle materials. “And as our population grows, it’s continuing to get bigger and bigger, and if we don’t tackle it or start to develop means or ways to recycle these items, it’s going to become a massive, massive issue later on.” Dege recommends you find a local electronics recycle location. Consumer Reports says you can also donate your old device to a charity or nonprofit. Dell and Goodwill have a partnership that allows you to drop off your old technology at some Goodwill locations. Apple and Amazon may give you a credit or gift card for old electronics. Sprint buys phones from any carrier. Best Buy also has a number of recycling options. But before you do any of that, make sure you protect your data first. “The No. 1 thing that everybody should do is wipe your information off the phone, off your computers, laptops, things of that nature,” Dege says. “You don’t want that information to get anywhere, to go anywhere, other than yourself.”

Republican incumbents Jen Dube and Kristen Giantonio retained their seats and were joined by fellow Republican John Sklenka. Democratic incumbent Karen Vibert retained her seat and was joined by newly elected Democrat Shelby Pons. All five will serve four-year terms. Elected to two-year terms were Republican newcomers Eric Carlson and Alison Wadowski, along with Democratic incumbents Chris Wilson and Thomas O’Brien. On Nov. 18, Dube was elected board chair, Giantonio was elected vice chair, and Wadowski was elected secretary. “I think it’s great that we won the BOE,” said Republican Town Committee Chair Jeffrey Caggiano, who recently ended a school board term himself. “The BOE has been led by Democrats for the past 38 out of 40 years. That’s a long time. We have a dedicated group of people that will lead for the kids.” The unusual division of board members into four-year and two-year terms in 2019 stemmed from a City Charter change back in 2013 to limit the board members to two four-year terms each, starting with the 2015 election. That in turn led to a concern that eventually all nine board members could be term limited at the same time, resulting in a whole new, totally inexperienced group coming on the board at once and facing a steep learning curve. So in 2018 the commission came up with the staggered term alternative, with alternate groups of board candidates coming up for election to four-year terms every two years. For that to work, this year some of the candidates had to run for a two-year term. The year brought big changes in administration too. On June 30 Susan Moreau retired as superintendent and was succeeded by Catherine Carbone, who had been deputy superintendent. “Dr. Kate Carbone is a very familiar face. She was the principal of Chippens Hill Middle School from 2006 until 2013, during which time Chippens Hill was named Middle School of the Year by the Connecticut Association of Schools,” Moreau said at that time. At the same time, Michael Dietter moved into the role of deputy superintendent, and Kimberly Culkin took over his former role as director of special services. Progress on renovating the old Memorial Boulevard School into an arts magnet for grades six through 12 continued in 2019, even as the project’s price rose from $54.8 million to $63 million. In December, the City Council and Board of Finance approved the price hike. Sixty percent of the cost will be paid by the state. Deputy Superintendent Michael Dietter, who chairs the school building committee, said the cost increase stems from “issues present in this building that is over 100 years old, and the costs that are associated with the removal and remediation of environmental issues.” However, the primary driver of the additional cost is a change in practice by the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review, he said. “They’re requiring that we remove all hot materials in the schools. Previous practice was to allow encapsulation, so we would do limited remediation and then we would encapsulate any environmental concerns that were there. We can no longer do that.” The new removal requirement “has driven up the cost because that material has to be taken out of the building and then replaced,” Dietter explained. “And then we have the additional oversight of the state Historical Preservation Council, which is asking that anything that is removed is replaced with something that replicates what was there.” Memorial Boulevard was the city’s high school when it opened in 1922. In 1967, it became a junior high school and then a middle school, until it closed at the end of the 2011-12 school year. The renovation is still its preconstruction phase. The architect, Farmington-based Quisenberry Arcari Malik, has estimated the new school could be open by August of 2022. In July, Mountain View Elementary School was the top winner in an online contest for a new playscape. Colgate, ShopRite, and TerraCycle, a recycling company that specializes in hard-to-recycle waste, ran the contest, in which the school that got the most online votes would win a colorful new playscape made from recycled materials, with a retail value of $55,000. “It really was a team effort with a lot of people in the community voting,” said Principal Mary Hawk said. “The police department, City Hall, everybody was emailing us and saying ‘we’re voting,’ so it’s really everybody’s playscape.” It was a big moment for Mountain View when the playscape was finally installed in October. The school’s previous 30-year-old, rusting playscape had been damaged by vandals and what was left had to be demolished in 2018, leaving mostly just a pile of dirt behind the school. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students had their own playscape, the PTO had been raising money for some smaller playground items, and ESPN volunteers had painted a number of colorful game areas on the blacktop over the summer. However, the older children didn’t have much in the way of equipment to play on until the contest prize arrived.