People can help Sheridan Public School by recycling waste from products used to clean or freshen their home or air. The local public elementary school is a new recycling drop-off point for all air and home care packaging, which will be delivered regularly to recycling company TerraCycle Canada. This type of waste includes: used plastic air fresheners and plug-in refills; trigger heads, pumps and caps; and flexible, home-cleaning wipe packs of any brand.

Being green on the North Coast just got a little easier. The Discovery Child Care Centre on Prince Rupert Boulevard is now a designated drop-off point for people to leave recyclables that are made of mixed plastics, which require expensive recycling methods. The North Coast, among other regions in Canada, doesn’t have the infrastructure to recycle these plastics so they end up in the landfill. For 10 years the daycare centre has participated with competitions organized by TerraCycle, an international recycling company that works with over 100 brands. The competitions are based on what companies are willing to sponsor and participants, such as the child care centre, get money for every item they return.

Fonthill Nurdles is asking Pelham to help recycle gift cards. The First Lego League Robotics team from St. Alexander’s Catholic School, as part of a provincial competition, chose the disposal of gift cards as a trash problem to solve. Student members told town council Monday more than 10 billion gift cards are produced in North America and 34 million kilograms end up in landfills where they release toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) into the environment.

The Hastings Revitalization Association (HRA) will approach the municipality to see if it will provide some financial support to help the organization acquire mesh waste bins. The Association will also ask for advice on where they should be located and request that bylaw enforcement signs be posted nearby to remind visitors to use the receptacles.

A founding member of Partners in Project Green,The International Centrehas established a well-deserved reputation as a sustainable business leader in the Pearson Eco-Business Zone. And today brought welcome word of recognition for these efforts: theHotel Association of Canada(HAC) has named The International Centre the2015 winnerof its Green Key Meetings Hall of Fame Award of Excellence. The Green Key Meetings award recognizes hotels, convention centres, resorts and other properties that have undertaken initiatives to minimize their environmental footprint. It is the latest in a long series of awards and certifications forsocial responsibility and sustainabilitythat The International Centre — one of Canada’s leading trade and consumer show and conference facilities — has received since 2011. In September, The International Centre released its first-everCorporate Social Responsibility Year in Review, profiling major initiatives and milestones over the previous 12 months. The highlights include:

• Becoming the first Canadian property to earn a 4 Green Key rating from theGreen Key Meetingscertification program for accomplishments in corporate social responsibility.
• Reducing water use by nearly 490,000 litres through the installation of low-flow faucets, toilets and urinals in its largest hall washrooms.
• Saving more than 23,000 kilowatt hours by replacing the Halogen lamps in the Aviation Ballroom withdimmable LEDs.
• Recycling nearly 500 kilograms of electronic waste.
• Diverting more than 4,000 coffee bags from landfill through TerraCycle’s Coffee Bag Brigade® program.

When Toronto switched over, a few years back, to pay-by-size garbage cans, many green families took the hint and went small. Like really small.  In our household of five, it’s a kind of game we play, minimizing our throw-aways so they fit in the teeny-tiny black bin, picked up every two weeks. Green bins (compost) and blue bins (recycling,) on the other hand, are “free” from the city. Everybody knows that recycling and composting are good, so bring it on, right? We ordered the extra-large Blue Beast on wheels, and two green bins for good measure. A little voice in your Green Mom head starts to worry, though: is this stuff all *really* getting recycled? Sadly, just because you put it in your blue box, that doesn’t make it so. There are municipal workers on the receiving end of our best efforts, whose job it is to clean up our messes — both literally, and figuratively. Waste management staff are paid, with our tax dollars, to pick out all the non-recyclable junk we tried to slip past them because we weren’t sure, so erred on the side of green (or blue.) This drives up the cost of our municipal recycling program, and also bogs down its efficiency and effectiveness. Inappropriate items that slip through the cracks and accidentally enter the recycling stream also lessen the quality of the recycled end-product. This can make a city lose buyers for our stream of recyclables.

Are Bigger Blue Bins Better?

If your extra-large recycling bin is filled to the brim every two weeks, chances are you’re doing it (slightly) wrong. Two ways you might consider upping your Green Game are:

1. 1.      Poke through your bin to see what you recycle most, and try to reduce that packaging on at the grocery store or other point of purchase.
2. 2.      Challenge yourself to be really honest about what *should* be going in your blue box, and post a list beside the bin so everyone in the family knows for sure.

Something happens to you, once you decide to “go green.” When all the major, relatively easy green changes are made (like getting rid of chemical cleaners, and switching to reusable grocery bags) you start to notice the small stuff. Rather than rest on your green laurels, you set new, tougher, greener goals. “What, exactly, does go in the blue bins,” you wonder. Maybe you even do a little internet research. Turns out it’s kind of hard! Here’s a cheat sheet, if you’re in the City of Toronto, to help you understand the “new rules” for some common family items. You can learn more about what happens to the things in your blue bin here. Coffee Pods: I have recently discovered a way to tap into the great TerraCycle coffee pod & squeeze pouch recycling program. A coffee delivery company in the GTA called GoJava.ca will deliver coffee pods (for your Tassimo, Keurig or Nespresso machine) to your door, and pick up your empties to be turned into park benches and playgrounds. The coffee inside gets composted too!

Battleford Town Council is looking at new ways to discourage littering after a presentation by a high school student about how litter harms wildlife. "Litter is much more than an eyesore. It presents a real threat to wildlife. Litter not only hurts animals, it can kill them," 16-year-old Natalya Shevchuk told councillors recently. "Some of us treat our world as a huge trash bin," the young advocate told town councillors. One of the most insidious forms of litter is the thousands of cigarette butts that can be found nearly everywhere, said the North Battleford Comprehensive High School International Baccalaureate student, and she wants to see a cigarette butt-recycling project set up in Battleford, her hometown. She recommended a program such as one offered by TerraCycle, an international upcycling and recycling company that repurposes difficult-to-recycle products. The company even pays for the cost of shipping cigarette waste to them for recycling, she said. Councillors expressed an interest and administration will be looking into the program as well as installing signs in public buildings.

Diane Davis, of Val Caron, is the TOP collector nation-wide of used lunch kits, which she sends to TerraCycle through their Lunchmate Brigade. The folks at Lunchmate have decided to TRIPLE her points until the end of the year, so she can raise as much money as possible for SickKids Hospital and the Starlight Foundation, charities that really helped her son Joel, who sadly passed away from a heart condition at just 18 years old. To help Diane, simply bring all of your used lunch kit packaging (any brand, such as Lunchmate, Lunchables or other tray-based lunch packaging) to École Jean Paul II, anytime Monday to Friday during school hours. To learn more about TerraCycle, visit their website.

What could possibly go better with your breakfast than a cuppa coffee in the morning? Nothing. That’s what. It’s a hug in a cup and who doesn’t love that kind of start to your day?