Reducing Waste in the Community

By Barb Laidlaw • Volume 40, Number 4 • July 2019

I’m Barb Laidlaw and I have lived in McCauley for 12 years with my family and three cats. I recently completed the Master Composter Recycler program through the City of Edmonton. I am an active volunteer for this program and my goal is to help Edmontonians reduce waste. This can be accomplished through the 3 Rs and 1 C: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Compost.

I see a big opportunity to help the people in my community lessen the strain on our landfill, divert waste from the garbage stream in our city, and enrich our soil and help the environment. I have a small yard with no grass, but with perennials, annuals, and a fruit and vegetable garden. Composting is an excellent method to get nutrients back into the soil to help the plants reach their full growth potential.

I also have three outdoor compost bins, an indoor worm bin, and a bokashi bucket. I invite everyone to join Edmonton’s Share Waste community with the free ShareWaste app. I am a member and accept kitchen scraps from Edmontonians so that I can divert them from the landfill and use them in my compost bins.

Nearly half of our garbage in Edmonton is comprised of paper or cardboard, both of which are easily compostable and recyclable.

If everyone made one change in their lives to reduce waste, can you imagine how much less garbage we would produce and how much of a positive effect that would have? For example, setting up a compost bin or a worm bin to dispose of your kitchen scraps is fun, easy, and a great learning experience for both kids and adults!

I would like to reach out to my community and offer my volunteer services as a Master Composter Recycler to help people learn how to compost, how to explore the 3 Rs to make one positive change, and whatever other help I can offer in order to reduce waste in our beautiful city. I can be contacted directly at CANADA9542@gmail.com. The City of Edmonton website (www.edmonton.ca) also offers a lot of relevant information. Thank you for reading this and remember to recycle this newspaper!

More in this issue

Vista Housing
Janis Irwin MLA

Neighbourhood Views

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Next Issue . . .

Volume 41, Issue 2 will be published March 15, 2020. Articles and photos concerning community news, events, and opinions are welcome. We also accept submissions of poetry and cartoons. Deadline: February 20, 2020. Send submissions to: editor@bmcnews.org. Articles should be 400 words or less and accompanied by photographs (JPG, in high resolution) when possible.