Community Environmental Meeting - A Fabulous Start...

I am very thankful to all those who attended the community environmental meeting this past Monday. I was a little nervous as to how it would all turn out.  I would say the event exceeded my expectations!

About 20 people attended. It was a very diverse group -  well known local environmentalists, small business folk, managers from Domtar, and university students. We had a really good and respectful discussion on a whole host of different issues (see below). And the group decided that it would like to meet monthly to develop community based projects they could spearhead, and keep talking about local and regional environmental issues. 

I am really happy that my Council colleague, Tina Lange, also attended.

Next meeting will be held on Oct 15th at 6:30pm. All welcome! Location to be announced soon.

Here is a quick and dirty summary of the points raised at the meeting. (If anyone who attended wants to add or modify stuff here, please let me know)

Community Enviromental Group Mtg Minutes

- green rooftops, comunity gardens / rec space on roofs.
     - education and insurance issues

- compost
    - Ladysmith has a great program
    - red wiggler worms great for composting
    - "      "    "        "  also used in commercial settings
    - years ago, city did give out free composters

- Fraser Basin Council - would welcome input
  http://www.fraserbasin.bc.ca/

- Recycling
   - TRU student project
       - looking at commercial sector
       - Kelowna - good info package
       - no company to take recyclables - business oppportunity ! / ?
   
  - nothing is garbage attitude
  - expand city recycling depots, even with curbside
  - TRU project on internal recycling at university.
- drive to yard waste depot can be environmentally unfriendly - have to balance different costs and benfits of every "green" action.
  - recycling bins at shopping malls
  - use of "development permit areas" to encourage more enviromentally friendly practices
- e-waste recycling: we are paying extra fees but no Kamloops locations listed online, also not taking ewaste yet at one depot that is supposed to be taking.
      - deposits as opposed to fees
  - Non profits should run drop and shop   

Plastic Bags
  - should encourage alternatives and recycling of plastic bags at more grocery stores.

Tru-Eco volunteers

- disposition of crown land for wind monitoring towers, wind generators have detrimental environmental impact...better sited in the ocean. Again tradeoffs - wind may still be better than nuclear

- Anti Idling - Arjun commits to find out more about city progress

- Owl Rd dump - Arjun commits to pressing more to get it cleaned up or shut down.

- methane gas recapture
- green building
- Indian band should be given credit for geothermal at sunrivers
- downstream water quality


Next Meeting
- 6:30pm, October 15th 2007

Comments

[Greg]

EnCorp does list a depot location for Ewaste. The two links below provide a FAQ's page and the current location within Kamloops.

http://www.encorp.ca/cfm/index.cfm?It=925&Id=66

http://www.encorp.ca/cfm/index.cfm?It=902&Lo=400,26&Se=40&Sv=depot

[Skylark]

Where will the meeting be? I will post it to www.soundkamloops.org

[Woozers]

Are these meetings ongoing? I would be interested in attending:)

[Karen Nakano]

I was at Nature's Fare yesterday and was told that their "plastic" bags are not "plastic" at all. They are bio-degradable and made from corn starch, which supposedly breaks down in three months. Why are these grocery bags not mandatory? If it is simply a cost factor that prevents grocery and retail stores from using them, why can't the public absorb the cost of the luxury of "throw-a-way" bags if they don't want to bring their own re-usable bags to the store when they shop? Also, I am not aware that these corn starch bags are available to the public in the form of garbage liners or leaf bags. Shouldn't these bags be mandatory for the environment or at least available to the general public for environmentally safe household usage? Please contact Nature's Fare about their innovative plastic replacement bags to find out how EVERYONE can participate in the use of "biodegradable" bags. Considering the tremendous damage plastic bags cost our environment and the toll they take on our wildlife, it's ludicrous NOT to switch to a safe corn starch alternative! Kudos to Nature's Fare!!!