Waste not.

For many years, I believed climate change action was about taking personal responsibility - that each individual had to do their part to reduce our emissions. I’ve made choices in my life to support this end - I’m an avid reduce, reuse, and recycler, I started riding my bike to work to support the Kyoto protocol, and even have a worm compost bin in the tiny storage closet of my two bedroom condo. But I’ve started to see how systemic changes are needed to truly tackle climate change. Our city needs to make sure that sustainable choices are easy to make for everyone.  

Waste is a great example of this. As much as I care about reducing my consumption and waste, the logistics of reusable diapers was more than I could handle with a newborn and I gave up just a few days into parenthood. Over the past year, I’ve also been erring on the side of supporting local restaurants, even when that has come at the cost of using disposable containers. 

How we create and manage our waste plays an important role in climate change. From methane emissions to the lifecycle cost of single-use plastics, it’s clear that what we throw away doesn’t go away.

We need to work to ensure our city makes it easy for all of us to reduce our waste. Waste Free Edmonton is an exciting initiative working to that end.

Waste Free Edmonton

Waste Free Edmonton is a grassroots, non-profit organization that has a mission to reduce the amount of waste produced in Edmonton. They focus on engaging with schools, governments, businesses, other organizations, and Edmontonians to raise awareness and stop waste at its source. 

One initiative they are currently championing is a Single Use Plastics Bylaw. Their thoughtfully considered framework includes a number of different approaches to reducing waste. The bylaw proposes that some items be banned outright, for example styrofoam containers and most types of single-use plastic bags. Other items, like plastic straws or cutlery, would be allowed only if specifically requested by customers, helping to reduce the amount of unused items that go straight to landfill. Still other items, like disposable cups or take-out containers, would have fees on them to act as an incentive for folks to use reusable alternatives. The bylaw framework also includes requirements for restaurants and cafes to provide reusable plates and cutlery for to-stay orders, with exemptions for businesses with space or financial constraints. 

I think Waste Free Edmonton’s proposed Bylaw framework provides a great balance between waste reduction goals and the realities of running a business and living daily life. It helps to make waste reduction automatic, rather than relying on each person or individual business to make a conscious choice. This sort of systemic shift to making waste reduction a default choice will help us be a more sustainable city.

As City Councillor, I would push for immediate engagement with the business and social service agencies to finalize the details of bylaw’s implementation. A top priority would be ensuring a clear system for the proposed hardship exemptions to avoid adding barriers to new businesses or creating financial hardship for those living on low income. We could potentially look at a regulatory system that requires a shift to reusables once a business has made it through its first year of operations. Funding could also be provided to distribute reusables through social service agencies. 

I would also be keen to explore a range of complimentary approaches, for example programs that provide businesses with a reduction in waste collection fees if they move to a fully reusable model. There could also be great opportunities for social enterprises around reusable plates and cups in our city core. If the industrious kids at FolkFest have taught us anything, it’s that there is money to be made in plate deposits. 

I would also advocate for continued investments in our Waste Management Centre, and advocate for accelerated implementation of three-stream waste collection in multi-unit buildings. This is of keen importance to Ward O-day'min where over 75% of residents live in multi-unit buildings and we have access to only one recycling depot and no collective composting facilities.

Up next

Waste is just one area where we have to make the sustainable choice the easy choice. This needs to happen to all our city systems, from transportation to the energy grid. In the coming months, I’ll be sharing more about the type of city we can build so that making the climate smart choice is also the smartest choice for our daily lives.