This was one of those ideas that made me wonder why I hadn’t thought of it. You have machines to sell aluminum cans of soda and plastic bottles of water, so why not offer the same convenience for recycling your empties and getting any deposit back? Turns out a Norwegian-based company called TOMRA is all […]

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The global financial meltdown has hit the green movement hard, right here in our back yard. Everything that goes into your blue box for recycling is sold to mills, usually offshore, who process it and sell it to the factories that make the cheap consumer goods we love. This works well when commodity prices and […]

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The fishing village of San Giovanni, along romantic Lake Como in the Italian Alps, is about as far removed from modern influence as you’re likely to find in the first world. Some streets are too narrow for any but the smallest cars, the church (dating from the 10th century) is only open for Sunday mass, […]

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John Shegerian, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Electronic Recyclers International Tatyana Kjellberg, Manager of Strategic Programs, Product Take-back, Hewlett-Packard Brenda Mathison, Director of Environmental Affairs, Best Buy  This presentation took place against the backdrop of a June 2, 2008 press release from Best Buy, announcing an electronics take-back test program being launched in 117 stores. The […]

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EPIC Sustainable Living Show, Vancouver 2008 – I first stopped by the Bag-To-Nature booth to inquire about how ‘compostable’ their plastics technology was. I soon learned that other municipalities in Canada have a whole different need for such bags. “We took it for granted that the curbside collection of organics is something everybody in Canada […]

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One of the friendliest booths I came across at Vancouver’s recent EPIC sustainable living show was the unassuming home of Happy Stan’s Recycling. The Happy One himself, Stan Kaminski, started his journey into the world of recycling by collecting newspapers to raise money for the Gibson’s boys club. Stan then turned his focus to the […]

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Rich colours, subtle organic textures overlaid with bold screenprints, intriguing yet subtle in their interpretation. If this sounds like an art review, it should. Artist Wendy Van Riesen of Dahlia Drive produces her one-of-a-kind pieces from discarded slips and shirts, in her words, ‘Resurrecting the fashion wasteland’, a term which applies not only to the […]

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