March 2008

Ottawa's power use dropped 4 per cent during Earth Hour

CBC News, March 31, 2008

Ottawa residents who shut off the lights during an international climate-change awareness event Saturday evening reduced the city's power consumption by four per cent compared to the same time at the previous Saturday, Hydro Ottawa reported.

"If you consider that lighting is only about 14 per cent of the overall load for the whole city, that's a significant drop," said Bruce Bibby, who is responsible for energy conservation at the local utility.

Ottawa was one of 150 communities across Canada and others around the world that pledged to turn off their lights and non-essential electronics for one hour starting 8 p.m. local time Saturday night as part of an event organized by the World Wildlife Fund.

In Ottawa, participants turned off the lights at the Peace Tower and in many Ottawa homes and businesses.

Consequently, they used 892,467 kilowatt hours of power between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., or 37,114 kilowatt hours less than they did during the same hour on March 24, Hydro Ottawa said in a news release.

The average household in Ontario uses just under 1,000 kilowatt hours a month, or 33 kilowatt hours per day, so the energy saved in Ottawa during Earth Hour would have been enough to power around 1,125 extra homes for an entire day.

The impact in Ottawa was slightly below the overall decrease in power consumption in Ontario during Earth Hour, which was five per cent.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/03/31/ot-earth-hour-080331.html

City's Earth Hour savings: 4%

Metro News, March 31, 2008
Tim Wieclawski

Minutes before 8 p.m. on Saturday night, Kerri Macdonald switched the breaker in the basement of the Hunt Club-area house she rents, plunging it into darkness.

On the main floor, friends lit candles and for the next 60 minutes - over Earth Hour - they played board games, talked and had a few beers.

"It was nice to just sit around in the dark and talk," she said. "It's not something I'd do every weekend, but once a month wouldn't be too bad."

Yesterday, Hydro Ottawa reported that the citywide efforts of organizations, businesses and private citizens like Macdonald were the equivalent in energy savings of 35,687 homes switching off.

Using the previous Saturday as a benchmark, Hydro Ottawa reported a local drop in electricity consumption of 37 megawatts - 892 megawatts were consumed here on Saturday night compared to more than 929 megawatts a week earlier, on March 22. That represents a four per cent energy savings across Ottawa, attributed to the Earth Hour event.

While the Peace Tower and hundreds of businesses turned off lights, Macdonald felt Ottawa could've done better, noting how a store parking lot behind her home kept its lights burning.

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/local/article/33753

Recycling fees eyed for TVs, laptops

Toronto Star, March 31, 2008
Kerry Gillespie

The price of televisions and computers may be about to go up - not due to the latest features but because of a government plan to recycle electronic waste.

Recycling fees of $10 for TVs and up to $13 for computers would be charged on all new sales under the proposal being given to Ontario's environment minister for approval today.

"We have a choice as a society. We can either let it all wind up in a landfill site ... or we're going to keep this stuff, as much as possible, out of landfills and I really think that's what recycling and reusing is all about," Environment Minister John Gerretsen said in an interview last night.

Last year, the province asked Waste Diversion Ontario to come up with a way to reduce the tens of thousands of tonnes of electronics being dumped in landfills every year, which wastes valuable resources and unsafely disposes of toxic components.

What they've come up with is a $62 million plan.

It would see 650 depots open across the province - nearly four times the number there are now - where people can drop off used electronics to have them recycled.

The $62 million bill is broken into per-item fees that would be charged directly to the manufacturer or first importer of the specified electronics. It's left up to them to decide how they want to pay for it: add the fee to the consumer's bill - as is done in other provinces - increase prices or absorb the cost.

Proposed fees are:

* $2.14 for a laptop computer, $13.44 for a desktop computer and $12.03 for a monitor.
* $5.05 for a printer, and 32 cents for computer accessories like a mouse or keyboard.
* $10.07 for a television.

Right now, only 27 per cent of these products are recycled in Ontario. Under the plan, that number is expected to rise to 43 per cent in the first year and to 61 per cent by the fifth year, said Glenda Gies, executive director of Waste Diversion Ontario.

The plan calls for adding new products, such as cellphones, cameras and radios, in the future.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/407477

City's money manoeuvres worry Grits
When politicians have act together, funds usually flow, councillor says

Ottawa Citizen, March 29, 2008
Patrick Dare

Ottawa may be the second biggest city in Ontario but you wouldn't know it based on this week's provincial budget, which shut the city out of the big money.

"We're the second-largest city in this province and we're not recognized as such," said Conservative Lisa MacLeod, the MPP for Nepean-Carleton. "There's nothing in this for the City of Ottawa."

Well, almost nothing.

The Greater Toronto Area (with Hamilton) got $497 million for a series of public transit projects. Ottawa got lumped in with the rest of Ontario's smaller municipal governments, which are sharing the remaining $400 million based on a formula that helps communities with small populations and shallow tax bases.

Ottawa is collecting $14.6 million for road and bridge projects and nothing new for transit (softening the blow, the McGuinty government gave Ottawa $20 million yesterday to help build new city archives). The city took some of that money this week and used it to shore up its operating budget.

The provincial government is prepared to live with it because it's the end of the province's fiscal year and the disbursement can't be pulled back. But the manoeuvre just contributed to a growing sense in the provincial government that the city is having trouble making disciplined decisions.

Ottawa missed out on the big transit money in the provincial budget because the city did not have a credible plan to spend big transit money once it scrubbed a plan built on a new north-south light-rail service. which had seen almost all approvals given. The current council reversed a decision to proceed with the project, leaving the city without a public transit plan -- and a lawsuit pending from the contractors who thought they had a deal to build the commuter-rail line.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e733e019-d603-4ad2-8b46-5f7617544b3a

City buzzing about taking the plunge

Ottawa Sun, March 29, 2008
Aedan Helmer

It's the night the lights go out in Bytown.

Earth Hour advocates are hoping the city will be plunged into darkness tonight as part of a global effort to reduce energy consumption and battle climate change.

Mayor Larry O'Brien jumped on board the eco bandwagon last month, urging residents to flick off light switches between 8 and 9 p.m. tonight.

"We flicked a switch on in our own heads and it caught on like wildfire," O'Brien told reporters at city hall, where a giant Earth Hour banner was unfurled last week.

Experts predict actual energy savings will be negligible, but applauded the symbolic movement that highlights a surging demand for power in the province that contributed to rolling brownouts and blackouts during peak consumption periods.

"Most people remember where they were during the (August 2003) blackout," said Peter Love, chief energy conservation officer with the Ontario Power Authority. "We're hoping people will rethink their electricity consumption in their homes, their workplaces and in their daily lives."

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/03/29/5137356-sun.html

Between two worlds; A strong sense of heritage and belonging compels Robert Lovelace to stand up for his beliefs

Kingston Whig-Standard, March 29, 2008
Frank Armstrong

It was one of those moments that would forever change the course of Bob Lovelace's life.

Lovelace was 14 years old and travelling in the back of a car, on the way with family friends to see a new bullfight arena on the outskirts of Tijuana, Mexico.

The car was passing through the city's suburban clapboard slums when the gangly teen spotted seven children struggling with the body of what looked like their mother at the side of the road.

They were carrying her toward a cemetery at the top of a nearby hill, where they would bury her on top of the hard earth beneath a pile of rocks they would have to gather themselves.

The rest of the day is a blank, except for the stark memory of feeling that nobody should have to live in the kind of world he had just witnessed.

"I know those poor people were Indians and they were there because their economy and their land had been destroyed," Lovelace said.

Among the pivotal moments in his life, Lovelace says this was the one that taught him how fortunate he was compared to many others. It was perhaps also the one that, 46 years later, would ultimately land him in jail.

Last month, Lovelace, a Queen's University professor and retired chief of the Ardoch Algonquins, was sentenced to six months behind bars for refusing to allow uranium prospectors onto land claimed by the First Nation near Sharbot Lake. A judge found him to be in contempt of an earlier court order to do so.

Lovelace refuses to back down.

"It would have meant voluntarily compromising my liberty to speak freely and to defend the land ... Algonquin land," Lovelace said in an interview at the Central East Correctional Centre, where he'll reside until Aug. 15 or until he decides to obey the court order.

People who know Lovelace well, like his stepdaughters, Lyann Smith and Lesley Merrigan, don't expect him to get out anytime soon.

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=963539&auth=Frank+Armstrong

Greening for a new generation

Toronto Star, March 29, 2008
Andrea Gordon

It's lunchtime and Garrett Chin is too hungry to bother with his earth-friendly bamboo spoon. He plunges both hands into his china Bunnykins dish and hauls out rice and green beans by the fistful.

The 14-month-old, wearing a cloth diaper underneath organic cotton trousers and jersey, wriggles happily and kicks feet clad in hand-me-down baby shoes. From his Graco throne, Garrett surveys his subjects, slurps filtered water from his stainless steel sippy cup, and beams.

Beside him in the family's sunny Toronto kitchen, 3-year-old Kai grins back between bites of organic apple.

The brothers don't know it yet, but they're cresting the wave of a new green generation. There's nothing like having a child to make adults rethink their habits and world views. Nancy DeHart and Peter Chin are among the many discovering that parenthood is a major catalyst for adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

"Suddenly, you start seeing things in a totally different way," says DeHart, 37. "This baby is the most precious thing in the world and they're depending on you."

When first pregnant four years ago, DeHart got rid of toxic cleaning products and used only natural products on her skin, hair and laundry. The family started eating more organic food and sleeping on organic cotton sheets. The boys' silky hair is washed with natural shampoo, their skin touched only by chemical-free soaps and lotions.

In a world of lead-tainted toys and fears that plastic baby bottles leach hazardous bisphenal A, it's an approach that's going mainstream, as parents increasingly feel the onus is on them to protect their wee ones. For many, a driving force comes from daily headlines about climbing rates of autism, allergies, attention disorders and cancer.

http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSections/EarthHour/article/350691

Capital's record fit for trash

Ottawa Sun, March 28, 2008
Terri Saunders

Ottawa is not keeping up with the Joneses when we're talking trash.

Statistics compiled by Waste Diversion Ontario show Ottawa currently diverts about 32% of its waste from landfills. That puts Ottawa at the bottom of the pile when it comes to how much garbage is kept out of municipal landfills.

According to WDO data, every other large city or region in Ontario is faring better than Ottawa when it comes to recycling. Orillia leads the pack, with a diversion rate of 53% while Kingston is at 44.7%. Even Toronto has a better waste diversion record, with 42.3% of its trash being reused, recycled or composted.

In 2006, the city admitted it had fallen short of its 40% waste diversion goal and it's not likely Ottawa will meet the provincially mandated goal of 60% by the end of this year.

The city has approved the implementation of a green bin program to begin in 2009 which will require residents to put kitchen waste into a green box for curbside pickup instead of in a garbage bag.

The city generates about 330,000 tonnes of waste every year, and almost 30% of it comes from kitchens. In 2001, the city conducted a pilot project involving 5,300 households which diverted 49% of kitchen waste from landfills.

A green bin program has been in place in Toronto since 2004. Residents are required to use the boxes for waste such as fruit and vegetable scraps, meat and fish products, discarded food and soiled disposable diapers.

Households are provided with one indoor and one outdoor container free of charge. A second indoor container costs $5 while a second outdoor container costs $18.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/03/28/5126261-sun.html

Organic farmers lagging behind demand at the supermarket: StatsCan

CBC News, March 28, 2008

Canada's organic farmers are having a hard time meeting demand at the grocery store, a Statistics Canada study released Friday suggests.

"While organic fruits and vegetables are among the most prominent products on market shelves, domestic production lags behind demand for the same reasons that challenge conventional Canadian fruit and vegetable producers," the study said.

"Chief among those reasons are our winters and consumer expectations of fresh product year round."

Sales of organic foods account for less than one per cent of the $46.5 billion spent on groceries in 2006, the study said.

While the number of organic farms in Canada increased nearly 60 per cent between 2001 and 2006, a relatively small amount of the top crops is processed, sold or consumed in the country, the study said.

Hay and field crops including wheat, durum and oilseeds are Canada's most abundant organic crop, according to the report, which examined data from the census of agriculture and surveys taken from the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada. A total of 2,462 farms - half of which were in Saskatchewan - said they grew organic field crops and hay.

"Canada has a competitive advantage for growing grains and oilseeds because of the climate and large expanses of cropland suited to mechanization," the report said. "So it makes sense that organic field crops and hay would be the most common certified organic product."

Many of the exports are sold to the U.S., the European Union and Japan, with just 16.7 per cent remaining in Canada, the report said.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/03/28/organic-crops.html

Tire fee to fund recycling

Toronto Star, March 28, 2008
Kerry Gillespie

Ontarians throw away some 12 million used tires a year and, unlike other provinces with government recycling programs, too many are left in dangerous stockpiles, buried in landfills or shipped out of province to be burned as fuel.

That's about to change, says Environment Minister John Gerretsen.

Ontario motorists will likely be required to pay a fee of a few dollars when they buy new tires to ensure they're recycled later, under a plan now being developed.

"It's unacceptable that Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada that doesn't have (a tire recycling program) right now and that's why we want to get one going as quickly as possible," Gerretsen said in an interview.

He has already talked to Waste Diversion Ontario, which creates recycling programs, and Gerretsen said he expects the government will approve a tire program this year.

Tuesday's provincial budget included $200,000 to prepare an up-to-date inventory of tire stockpiles because there's little accurate information about the millions of stored tires.

In other provinces, when people buy passenger vehicle tires, they generally pay a fee of between $3 and $5. That money is used to recycle the old tires into products from running tracks to roof shingles.

Ontario once had a similar fee, $5 per tire, but don't try calling that a recycling program in front of Ontario's Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller.

"That was the worst of all worlds. They were charging and everyone believed there to be a program, but the money was going to the general revenue stream," said Miller, who was a bureaucrat at the time.

Given that unpopular tire tax - introduced by David Peterson's Liberals in 1989 and killed by Bob Rae's NDP in 1993 - recent governments have shied away from implementing a new tire program.

In 2005, when Waste Diversion Ontario proposed charging a $4 fee on passenger vehicle tires and a $6 fee on truck tires - and making sure the money was actually spent on recycling - the ghost of the previous program rose and in the middle of the controversy, Premier Dalton McGuinty killed it.

"There will be no tire tax. Everybody get that one?" McGuinty told reporters then.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/404850

Dumps overstuffed with old drugs, batteries, computers: StatsCan

CBC News, March 27, 2008

Many Canadians continue to discard old medication, dead batteries and old computers in the trash, creating serious environmental and health dangers, according to a Statistics Canada study released Thursday.

The study, which examined data collected from the 2006 Households and Environment Survey, looked at how Canadians disposed of batteries, expired medication, old computers and electronics, and leftover paint.

"Although collection programs exist in many parts of the country to safely dispose of and recycle special wastes, a large number of households may not know how to access these programs, given that many dispose of these wastes through the normal waste stream or through the sanitary sewage system," said the report, authored by John Marshall.

4 in 10 toss old drugs in garbage or down drain

Nearly half of Canadians returned expired drugs to a pharmacy or drop-off centre while another 39 per cent buried, flushed or tossed their old medications in the garbage. The remaining respondents said they didn't know how to dispose of the drugs and kept them in their cupboards. Nearly a quarter of households reported having leftover or expired drugs in 2005.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/03/27/recycling-canada.html

Canadians need 'green' training, study suggests

Globe and Mail, March 27, 2008
Michael Oliveira

Many Canadians aren't sure how they should dispose of toxic household waste that could harm the environment, resulting in huge amounts of batteries and pharmaceuticals being released into the waste stream, says a new Statistics Canada study released today.

Six in 10 households threw their batteries in the garbage in the 2005 survey year, rather than using special drop-off centres for safe disposal.

Of the homeowners who had leftover or expired pharmaceuticals, almost four in 10 flushed them down the drain or buried them.

Author John Marshall said it's estimated that hundreds of millions of batteries are sold in Canada every year and throwing them in the trash can release toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium and lead into the environment.

Flushing unused pharmaceuticals can contaminate the water supply, which is emerging as a national and international issue, particularly because an aging population is buying more and more medicine.

"Although the concentrations (of pharmaceuticals in the water) are low, adverse effects on humans and animals may be possible," the report states.

"Recent research has indicated these products can cause hormonal disruption in many aquatic species. Concerns also exist about the human health effects of medication in drinking water sources."

A study in the current issue of the Water Quality Research Journal of Canada states that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals were found in the drinking water of 15 southern Ontario cities, including ibuprofen, cholesterol-lowering drugs and the common household antibacterial agent triclosan.

Of the houses that were surveyed for the Statistics Canada report, almost a quarter had leftover or expired pharmaceuticals to deal with. About half returned the products to a pharmacy or disposal centre, almost 40 per cent flushed them, and the remainder still had them at home and didn't know what to do with the waste.

The rates of disposal varied greatly from province to province. While about two-thirds of Quebec and Prince Edward Island households sought out disposal centres for their pharmaceutical waste, less than one-third did so in British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan.

More than half of the households in Prince Edward Island reported returning their batteries instead of throwing them out, but no more than a third did so in the rest of the country, and less than 10 per cent did so in Newfoundland and Labrador.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/404574

Ditch parking in Ottawa stadium revamp plans, former team head suggests

CBC News, March 27, 2008

A plan by four Ottawa businessmen to bring back a Canadian Football League team should not include building a parking lot or garage if Frank Clair Stadium is renovated, says the former CEO of the city's last football franchise.

The remarks by former Ottawa Renegades CEO John Lisowski followed the league announcement Tuesday that it's awarding a conditional Ottawa franchise to the group of four prospective owners as long as it can reach an agreement with the city to fix up the downtown stadium.

On Wednesday, Mayor Larry O'Brien said the owner group has already told him parking at Frank Clair would be key to any deal to bring a team back to the stadium.

"People can't be forced to walk five, six blocks to park their cars," O'Brien said.

"So I would think that some form of underground parking or some form of parking garage would ultimately be part of this process should - should - a CFL franchise go ahead here at Lansdowne Park."

But Lisowski, who headed the CFL's Renegades from February 2004 to July 2005, said fans should walk, take public transit or park their cars on the street, as they have done before.

"When you do have a downtown stadium, the thing you've got to give up is parking," Lisowski told CBC News.

"For example, Hamilton has no parking. Same as Toronto. Toronto has no parking. And parking garages are exorbitantly expensive."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/03/27/ott-parking.html