Start two competitions, a local competition with cities in Metro Vancouver, and an international competition with other cities that have declared a goal of achieving Zero Waste.
Nurture a Zero Waste Culture
The City of Vancouver will nurture a zero waste culture through a combination of information, inspiration, incentives and enforcement.
Educational materials and outreach activities will be designed to be transformative and raise the collective consciousness of citizens and City staff. To achieve the best possible results from investments in new programs or services, community-based social marketing will be used as the primary means of addressing barriers and promoting behaviour change. Social media will be used to broadcast messages and invite community collaboration on solutions. Programs will be designed with a particular emphasis on empowering youth and will invoke healthy peer pressure among businesses and institutions to reduce waste. To deliver outreach activities, the City will partner with community leaders, leverage its community networks, and coordinate a large, committed, cohesive volunteer corps. Enforcement activities will be swift, meaningful and effective, and regarded as an opportunity for education.
Actions for this strategy
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Challenge Other Cities to a Race to Zero Waste
Establish a Neighbourhood Zero Waste Network
Establish a Neighbourhood Zero Waste Network of individuals, organizations and businesses in Vancouver’s neighbourhoods. This will provide for a two-way information exchange between the city and the community on zero waste issues, facilitate activities like local waste exchanges, and build support for locating businesses and enterprises that provide reuse and recycling services.
Work with Schools
Work with the Vancouver School Board and private schools to promote waste reduction and recycling.
Develop a Zero Waste Education Campaign
Work with Metro in developing and delivering information and community-based social marketing programs to the public and businesses, as described in the regional waste plan.
Establish Zero Waste Ambassadors
Establish a volunteer corps to coach and share “how-to” information with neighbours and community groups, establish knowledge transfer networks, provide education and outreach materials with support by the City.
Comments
Thank you for your input! The strategies and actions listed here are drafts. Read the final version of the Greenest City Action Plan.
Recent comments in Zero Waste
thirteencentpinball commented on
Nurture a Zero Waste Culture
runrik commented on
Make Reducing and Reusing a Priority
Janine Brossard commented on
Make Reducing and Reusing a Priority
Janine Brossard commented on
Make Reducing and Reusing a Priority
Janine Brossard commented on
Make Reducing and Reusing a Priority
Janine Brossard commented on
Nurture a Zero Waste Culture
Janine Brossard commented on
Nurture a Zero Waste Culture
Concerts and festivals
Venues and outdoor festivals are often stringent about bringing in your own water/juice as they want to sell you their own. I always have to empty my reusable bottle before I enter a concert venue and then hope they have a water fountain. The ability to fill one's own reusable container at a food vendor at festivals or at the bar of a venue, especially with a discount, would be ideal toward promoting reusable containers and reducing waste. Sometimes water bottles are the only potable water provided (my own experience at a dance club once).
Provide Garbage Grabbers & Buckets at Parks & Community Cen
If about 2 adult grabbers, 10 kids tongs and 4 buckets were readily available and visable at community centres and parks some parents who are standing around while their children play would have the opportunity to pick up garbage. Also younger kids are fascinated about picking up garbage with tongs and think it's a game. Then they start to wonder why people litter.
The City already provides grabbers & tongs for free to people who request them.
It would bring about a great awareness of what garbage really is for children, discourage future littering, help them question the single-use throw away society, keep the place nice and tidy and divert the City's park cleaning costs to other green initiatives.
This could be set up as a pilot project initially to determine the best way of storage and cleaning the buckets/grabbers/tongs (if needed).
Advertize that the City provides FREE garbage grabbers
As part of Keep Vancouver Spectacular the City will provide residents with free equipment to pick up garbage. This includes adult garbage grabbers (no bending down, or dirty hands), children's garbage tongs, and rubber gloves. They also provide a large thick plastic garbage bag that perhaps should be phased out as buckets are much more user friendly and reusable.
If more people know about this they would volunteer to pick up garbage (as I have discovered). Advertising in community centres and on garbage trucks would help to spread awareness. Perhaps by 2020 Vancouver residents and business's will be keeping the streets clean and allow the city to allocate their time and money to other green iniatives.
Zero Waste School Pizza Lunches & Other Events
Provide each elementary school with stainless plates, cups and cutlery. The funding comes from charitable foundations (e.g. Vancouver Foundation) and local business community funds (e.g. VanCity).
Most elementary schools (and daycares) have pizza lunch once a week to raise funds.
I am working with my daughter and her friends on submitting this proposal to Vancouver Foundation's Green Awards of $12,500. 500 plates, tumblers, sets of cutlery & 50 reusable pizza boxes. This will also include 3 carts to transport the pizza boxes.
These items will also be used for sports day, year end bbq's, winterfest etc.
Britain's Do It Yourself Government
An interesting article in the Globe and Mail regarding British Prime Minister's empowering citizens to be a part of Big Society experiment.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/britains-do-it-yourself-government/article1904582/
Charity Funding for High School Students ToGo Beverage Container
Supply every high school student with a generic no logo no handle stainless steel togo coffee cup. Get the funding from local charitable foundations (e.g. Vancouver Foundation) and local businesses that provide community funding (e.g. Van City).
I am helping a child submit a proposal to the Vancouver Foundation's Green Awards with the idea of providing every Kitsilano High School student with a reusuable coffee/beverage container starting in September. I am working with a local supplier regarding the shipment of 1525 togo coffee mugs and we should be able to provide them for the cost of the award value $12,500.
If we win this could be the start of a 'campaign' to get every High School child in Vancouver a togo cup. This mug would hopefully be with the child for at least 10 years and could be recycled back into another coffee mug at the end of it's life.
The garbage bins around the school and surrounding neighbourhood (including garbage on the streets) are filled with fast food beverage containers. The City is expected to haul these away and dispose of them and the tax payers pay the cost. There is no cost to Starbucks/Dairyland for this waste. We need to bring this to everyone's attention.
Zero waste education
The best or the most effective way to accomplish this education oriented goal would be attained through setting up a dedicated team or Sustainability Canvassive Unit (SCU) in each municipality.
Zero Waste Culture
This is great as behaviour change is going to play a central role. Recognizing those citizens who are the early adopters of zero waste culture and connecting them to other leaders could be one way of establishing the new norms.
Reducing Waste
In the interest of nurturing a "zero waste culture" and providing "Zero Waste Ambassadors" with something to work with, it might be useful to take concrete steps towards actually limiting waste.
If the City were to lead the way in banning plastic bags and bottled water across the municipality (and not just in City of Vancouver offices), it would send a strong message that change is possible, and that the City is committed to overcoming bureaucratic inertia and vested commercial interests in its ambitious mission.
These steps have already been taken by other, proactive cities, including Kigali, Rwanda (plastic bag ban) and London, Ontario, and Vancouver should not shy away from implementing many of its noble ideas. It is time to move beyond pedantry and take action!