- Why: Story of Stuff
- Personal changes: If you wish to make changes in your own lifestyle, Zero Waste Canada has many useful guides.
- Local government – check out our municipal toolkit designed to help local governments develop Zero Waste plans. Also see the Climate Caucus Councillor’s Handbook. Climate Caucus also has a Motions Library for members to help councillors move solutions forward.
- Businesses: certification – Zero Waste Canada can certify facilities and events as well as provide education.
- Plastics –Story of Plastic – a film that is useful to start a conversation and inspire action. See also the Mind Your Plastic website for their programs for schools, businesses and municipalities
- For sharing, reuse and repair, see the Share, Reuse, Repair Initiative’s info or check our Upstream’s info on the Reuse Revolution.
- Packaging -see the Unwrapped Project. Also see this Food Packaging Forum’s quick fact sheet on why plastics for food packaging is a concern.
- One Earth – see Sustainable Lifestyles guide and a guide for local governments on the sharing economy
- Sustainable procurement – Canadian Collaboration for Sustainable Procurement and the BC Social Procurement Initiative. See the blog and webinar on Zero Waste.
- Safer personal care products -use the Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database to choose products.
- Action on menstruation supplies -see Zero Waste Europe’s Bloody Manifesto
- Composting in Bear Country –how to videos by the North Shore Recycling Program on You Tube -short and informative plus this handy pamphlet.
- Construction and Deconstruction -see the work BC’s Lighthouse has been doing and see the appendices of their report for a list of companies who can help. Another key tool is the Community Energy Association’s Guide for Local Governments on how to factor in embodied emissions using a hierarchy similar to the Zero Waste hierarchy. Download the guide.
- Doughnut Economics
- Textiles –Fashion Takes Action is spearheading this in Canada.
- Consumption Based Emission Inventories -get the real picture of our carbon footprints. We need this at the local government, provincial and federal scales. Check out the EcoCity Footprint Tool. Several communities have already joined the EcoCity peer network. C40 has info on how to cut a city’s emissions.
- Why Waste to Energy is a waste of energy – GAIA and why Chemical Recycling to Fuel is not the solution either. It also still needs a landfill for the ash but this is a problem too -see Zero Waste Europe’s report on bottom ash. Check out the reports ZWBC and a coalition of environmental groups developed as part of the Stopping Waste to Energy in Canada campaign.
Plus a recommendation from Ms Platt’s elementary environmental science class (Jessica, Jocelyn, Adam and Madalyn) Guide to Going Green at Home.