Should We Record Video of Public Recycling Bins?

an approachable and not so overwhelming conversation for everyone. Now, normally this is the podcast where we meet climate heroes, activists, experts, entrepreneurs and get their take on how we can help save the planet and that's still the case. But since we all need to be involved with climate action and the climate crisis is happening as we speak. I wanted to share some of the lessons that I'm learning unlearning and I'm still learning with respect to this planet and

the people on it. The lessons are big, but the episodes are many think of them as two bite brownie sized episodes for the planet. So why am I gonna ask you to start gathering video footage of recycling bins in public places who doesn't want that on their phone. Right. Scrolling through cute pictures of your dogs, your cats, your family, bam, just trash. I'll paint the picture for you. Have you ever been out for a walk? And you see a bin that has an opening for trash and an opening for recycling

and it all filters down into one single bag. Maybe the bags were in fact separated. Positive step. Yay. But then you see the cleaning staff throw it all into the same bag at the end of the night. What the heck? Maybe just, maybe the intention is for the cleaning crew to separate it. But we humans are in too much a hurry that we didn't take a second to see which bin is for what. And we just threw our

trash into the recycling and contaminated everything. If we're using a flow chart to see what the solution is here, it all leads us to waste reduction, right? Let's just

eliminate the waste and this wouldn't be a problem. Recycling is obviously better than throwing everything into a landfill, but it's not the be all, end all and through conversations that we've had on earth care, you know, emails that I've personally sent to city staff in places that I've lived for clarity accounts that I now follow on social media. I'm learning that it's actually quite complicated. I'll give you some examples. Ok. So currently in Ontario, we have a

province wide waste management system in place, right? We have a blue and green bin system. So what we do is we recycle and compost at home and then we put the bins out front for the city to collect them once a week. But it's up to bylaw to collect and sort which means that waste management systems are different from region to region. So when I lived in Waterloo region, according to the province wide recycling practices that we have in place, I

can throw glass into a recycling bin. However, through chatting with locals, I learned that glass hadn't been recycled there since 2000 1011. Now I moved there 2016. So it was definitely sometime after then. Now I searched everywhere on the city's website for this information. And even after spending some time on the website, everything that I could find all told me to put glass in the blue bin. Now, if the city is telling me to do that, why would I question it?

I as someone who cares about the environment have done my due diligence, I took time out of my busy day to sit down, go online thoroughly, search through the website to see how to properly recycle. According to the region's bylaws, why would that not be enough? Something didn't make sense though. Why on earth would the manager from my favorite local beauty shop just randomly tell me that glass can't be recycled there if it isn't true.

Well, in fact, the reason it was brought up is because she ethically sources all of the products she would use in her store. And she would run into this constant dilemma because the products that she would wanna bring in were shipped there in glass. So how does she get rid of them? So I decided to do what this episode is all about. I asked, I just asked the city, I sent them a tweet saying, hey, is it true that glass hasn't been recycled in the region since 2011.

And they got back to me, they replied with what looks like a press release from 11 years ago explaining that there wasn't enough demand for glass and it's actually quite expensive to recycle. So when they can, they do repurpose it into gravel for roads, but otherwise it's off to a landfill. Now, it's very possible that the press release is somewhere on this website and I just wasn't

searching the right buzzwords. But the bigger issue is that the most accessible information still says that glass is a recyclable and who has time to do investigative journalism every time they finish a jar salsa now, I don't have kids. I'm not part of a weekly activity. I'm assuming that I have a bit more time than some to actually dedicate to finding this information. There's just no way that you can inconvenience people like that and expect them to find

the right information. Think of how many times you've watched the same show just because it's easier to put that on than to spend time trying to find a new one. Right? Inconvenience is a recipe for failure. So sometimes you just have to ask, I shared that press release on all of my social media pages and received so many replies from flustered friends explaining how they've been recycling glass forever.

They even properly clean it. They've been trying their best in doing what we as individuals are being told to do and somehow that still isn't enough, which is frustrating and depending on what climate tragedy is in the news that day can be crippling. But if we've met, if you've been following Earth care, you know, I'm all about finding the positivity. So this is the beautiful thing about social media when used properly. It brings us together

on a larger scale, right? It connects us with people we would have otherwise never connected with and can hold large industries accountable. This is no longer a private email that you can ignore. I actually can't tell you how many times I politely emailed companies with questions or concerns and it was crickets took it to Twitter, got a response the next day.

So now I'm in the GT A the Toronto area where as far as I can tell glass is recycled until I receive a message after this is released telling me it's not and I'll just stress eat spoonfuls of peanut butter. So here's where some of that greenwashing comes into play and that whole talk about videotaping recycling bins. This Scotia Bank Arena is our big arena event venue in Toronto. And

according to Google, it seats 19,800 people. Now, before I go to a concert, I always check their website to see if I'm allowed to bring a reusable water bottle. Not only does that sea of plastic at the end of a show, Kill My soul, but inflation is wild. You have to win the lottery to comfortably afford drinks at a concert now. So I checked the Scotia Bank Arenas website and water

bottles were listed under prohibited items. But what was frustrating about that was they have a green section on website that lists all of their neat sustainable initiatives that they currently have in place. And one of them was to divert 100% of their waste materials from landfills and to maximize organic and recycling streams. Ok. So if I can't bring in my own bottle, at least I know if I buy one, it's then being sorted and recycled, right? That's what we're going with.

So when I got to the concert venue, I like you do at concerts, especially a harry styles. One just bee lined for the waste bins. I wanted to check out this revolutionary set up that I was reading about on their website. Now they do have new bins that are labeled landfill and recycling. However, when I looked into the recycling, I had a moment of silence for my joy. There was p pe in there, gloves, pizza crust, napkins, literally everything that can't be recycled.

And then right beside it in the trash, so many water bottles, just so many water bottles. So I decided to videotape it. I thought this can't be a revolutionary idea to minimize waste. There's just no way that this is the final solution. Imagine if you allowed and encourage guests to bring in their own reasonable water bottle, you advertised your green initiatives

and got people on board with it. Maybe, ok, benefit of the doubt, maybe they do have a groundbreaking system in place that properly sorts those bags puts the pizza crust where it needs to go. But I mean, come on, that's and I'll believe it when I see it situation for sure. After the Harry Styles concert, I did what thousands of other screaming fans were doing and I shared my videos on social media

except mine was of gross trash bins. I tweeted the video and tagged Scotia Bank Arena and asked them, hey, when will you start allowing guests to bring in their own reusable water bottles? Now, I got a response almost immediately which was very much appreciated saying that we are in fact allowed to bring one in. What I've tried though and I was told to get rid of it. So I asked a follow up. I said, is this information on your website. I looked and I

couldn't locate it. They informed me then that they'll be updating their Fa Qs to make sure it's on there. Fun. Nito. That was super easy. But about a week went by and I kept looking and I didn't see it on there. So I followed up, I said, hey, do you know when your Fa Qs are gonna be updated? Drum roll, please. Their Fa Qs now include a blurb about reusable water bottles. Now, this means a couple of things. First of all, it means saving money inflation. It's nuts. Why do you want

to pay $8.04 dollars even for a water bottle? It means alleviating some of the plastic pollution that would otherwise take place because you couldn't bring in your own water bottle, that's huge. And if a security guard now tells me to ditch my bottle because they aren't caught up to speed, I can now just pull up the website and show them that official blurb. Cheers to that sometimes all you have to do is ask right now. So many major companies are heading back to the drawing board to implement

sustainable initiatives into their business plans, right? Great, better late than never. So asking about a reusable water bottle kind of seems like we're all fighting the same fight here. Let's work together on it. I showed you a problem. You helped me with the solution. High five to that. What I found so far is that most venues that allow bottles in, want them to be small, they want them to be soft. Which kind of sounds like a plastic water bottle to me.

But if you have one of these bottles or come across one, I'm in no way affiliated with the company that makes these, I just genuinely love mine. I bring my collapsible coffee mug so it just collapses down into what looks like a little mini tupperware that fits into your purse that you can bring into shows, right? Because now most venues don't allow big bags. And in the event, you go to a concert venue that doesn't let bottles in security doesn't really know what

it is. So knock on wood, it won't get taken away. Climate change is happening and it will get worse if we let it. So when big companies or people in power come up with solutions, it's important for us as individuals to hold them accountable, question everything. If a city tells you that something can be recycled, but you still are unsure, tweet them and ask if one of the biggest venues in your city has neat new recycling bins. Ask what

more they can do. Just ask, they can not answer you but that's not great customer service or you get the answers that you're trying to find. I totally understand that spotting greenwashing isn't always easy, right? You might not have time to question everything that you see, and basically every company now has green buzzwords on their website or includes words like plant based and sustainable in their commercials. And I've now taken that it's greenwashing until proven otherwise approach.

So question everything and hey, videotape recycling bins in public places because as we've heard so many times before we can't recycle our way to sustainability, big company is have the money for bigger and better solutions in place. Thank you so much for letting Earth Care be a part of your day today. It really does mean the world to me. Don't forget to hit follow, subscribe to this podcast, whatever it says on the device that you're listening to. And if you have time, hey, please write

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