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Solar Energy & Recycling Energy

Leona — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:18:51 +0000

A great recycling weekend at weekend markets in Victoria and hello to all the visitors who are now checking out our website. A weekend of sunshine is always welcome to market traders. This holiday Monday, I was planning a day of gardening - now I will need wellies and rainproofing - perfect weather for planting winter greens seeds and garlic cloves. The compost is just about ready for piling onto the rest of the beds to overwinter…unlike the rest of Canada, Victorians can compost all year round - so lucky. This does mean of course, that when I talk to friends and relatives on the prairies in Winter, they crow about their wonderful days of sunshine and blue skies (ok so it’s 20 below) and pity us folks as we trip through puddles with our umbrellas at the ready.

We are also ‘lucky’ in BC to have comparatively low electricity costs, unlucky in that we lack the incentives to change to green energy. Solar panel installation (photovoltaic) costs are high and are only cost effective in remote locations in BC. However, solar thermal (passivehot water collection) gives a decent return, especially if used in the summer only, which is a consideration in a city like Victoria where winter means cloud cover. This system is explained simply (for those of us without an engineering degree) on the BCSEA BC Sustainable Energy Association website.

A company in the UK has invented an autoclave system that takes all household waste (including black bin bags) and turns the organic waste into biomass for compost or fuel and at the same time retrieves, sorts and steam cleans inorganic waste for recycling. The biomass fibre powers their plant as green energy. Could be one of the solutions we need.

Recycle at the Market

Leona — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:49:26 +0000

After two wild and windy market weeks, we finally had a calm and dry day at Government Street Market at the Victoria Chinatown Gates. The sun even came out behind some pretty heavy duty clouds later in the afternoon. We had visitors from as far away as Germany, Wisconsin, Florida (90 degrees there so they were glad to be cooler), and Castlegar (wet we hear)…and all supportive of our recycling ethos.

Oceans Day Society hosted a blue jean event here in Victoria, to raise environmental awareness - blue jean art using 1,500 pairs of recycled blue jeans. My question to the organizers is what happens to those jeans after the event? Recycle2shop can upcycle every last pair into loved objects that extends blue jean life indefinitely (well, until the denim completely wears out at which point the shredded material can be composted with the zippers and metal buttons going straight to metal recycling).

Anaerobic Composting

Leona — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:24:59 +0000

Such a title - this subject may not excite your brain cells but is riveting stuff to a self confessed recycling and composting nerd.

Victoria, BC and the CRD (Capital Regional District) are gradually leading us toward curbside collection of green waste. We are running out of room for landfill, (after all we are an island) and landfill leachate contaminates our water supply…see the latest studies at the CRD website.

Ontario cities are taking lessons learned from Europe and building (since 2003) successful solid waste recycling programs. Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine has some fascinating (remember, the nerd enthusiasm is at work here) videos.

So hurry up Victoria and get on board.