Speaker 1: This episode of Earth Care Mini is a little bit
Speaker 1: about greenwashing. A little bit about not believing everything you
Speaker 1: see and just a kick in the pants reminder to
Speaker 1: ask for what you want. And it's all thanks to
Speaker 1: a recycling bin at a very popular and very massive
Speaker 1: concert venue in Toronto.
Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to Earth Care. Mi. I'm your host, Sarah
Speaker 1: Christie and I'm on a mission to make climate change
Speaker 1: an approachable and not so overwhelming conversation for everyone. Now,
Speaker 1: normally this is the podcast where we meet climate heroes, activists, experts,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and get their take on how we can help
Speaker 1: save the planet and that's still the case. But since
Speaker 1: we all need to be involved with climate action and
Speaker 1: the climate crisis is happening as we speak. I wanted
Speaker 1: to share some of the lessons that I'm learning unlearning
Speaker 1: and I'm still learning with respect to this planet and
Speaker 1: the people on it. The lessons are big, but the
Speaker 1: episodes are many think of them as two bite brownie
Speaker 1: sized episodes for the planet. So why am I gonna
Speaker 1: ask you to start gathering video footage of recycling bins
Speaker 1: in public places who doesn't want that on their phone. Right.
Speaker 1: Scrolling through cute pictures of your dogs, your cats, your family, bam,
Speaker 1: just trash.
Speaker 1: I'll paint the picture for you. Have you ever been
Speaker 1: out for a walk? And you see a bin that
Speaker 1: has an opening for trash and an opening for recycling
Speaker 1: and it all filters down into one single bag. Maybe
Speaker 1: the bags were in fact separated. Positive step. Yay. But
Speaker 1: then you see the cleaning staff throw it all into
Speaker 1: the same bag at the end of the night. What
Speaker 1: the heck? Maybe just, maybe the intention is for the
Speaker 1: cleaning crew to separate it. But we humans are in
Speaker 1: too much
Speaker 1: a hurry that we didn't take a second to see
Speaker 1: which bin is for what. And we just threw our
Speaker 1: trash into the recycling and contaminated everything. If we're using
Speaker 1: a flow chart to see what the solution is here,
Speaker 1: it all leads us to waste reduction, right? Let's just
Speaker 1: eliminate the waste and this wouldn't be a problem. Recycling
Speaker 1: is obviously better than throwing everything into a landfill, but
Speaker 1: it's not the be all, end all and through conversations
Speaker 1: that we've had on earth care, you know, emails that
Speaker 1: I've
Speaker 1: personally sent to city staff in places that I've lived
Speaker 1: for clarity accounts that I now follow on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm learning that it's actually quite complicated. I'll give you
Speaker 1: some examples. Ok. So currently in Ontario, we have a
Speaker 1: province wide waste management system in place, right? We have
Speaker 1: a blue and green bin system. So what we do
Speaker 1: is we recycle and compost at home and then we
Speaker 1: put the bins out front for the city to collect
Speaker 1: them once a week. But
Speaker 1: it's up to bylaw to collect and sort which means
Speaker 1: that waste management systems are different from region to region.
Speaker 1: So when I lived in Waterloo region, according to the
Speaker 1: province wide recycling practices that we have in place, I
Speaker 1: can throw glass into a recycling bin. However, through chatting
Speaker 1: with locals, I learned that glass hadn't been recycled there
Speaker 1: since 2000
Speaker 1: 1011. Now I moved there 2016. So it was definitely
Speaker 1: sometime after then. Now I searched everywhere on the city's
Speaker 1: website for this information. And even after spending some time
Speaker 1: on the website, everything that I could find all told
Speaker 1: me to put glass in the blue bin. Now, if
Speaker 1: the city is telling me to do that, why would
Speaker 1: I question it?
Speaker 1: I as someone who cares about the environment have done
Speaker 1: my due diligence, I took time out of my busy
Speaker 1: day to sit down, go online thoroughly, search through the
Speaker 1: website to see how to properly recycle. According to the
Speaker 1: region's bylaws, why would that not be enough? Something didn't
Speaker 1: make sense though. Why on earth would the manager from
Speaker 1: my favorite local beauty shop just randomly tell me that
Speaker 1: glass can't be recycled there if it isn't true.
Speaker 1: Well, in fact, the reason it was brought up is
Speaker 1: because she ethically sources all of the products she would
Speaker 1: use in her store. And she would run into this
Speaker 1: constant dilemma because the products that she would wanna bring
Speaker 1: in were shipped there in glass. So how does she
Speaker 1: get rid of them? So I decided to do what
Speaker 1: this episode is all about. I asked, I just asked
Speaker 1: the city, I sent them a tweet saying, hey, is
Speaker 1: it true that glass hasn't been recycled in the region
Speaker 1: since 2011.
Speaker 1: And they got back to me, they replied with what
Speaker 1: looks like a press release from 11 years ago explaining
Speaker 1: that there wasn't enough demand for glass and it's actually
Speaker 1: quite expensive to recycle. So when they can, they do
Speaker 1: repurpose it into gravel for roads, but otherwise it's off
Speaker 1: to a landfill. Now, it's very possible that the press
Speaker 1: release is somewhere on this website and I just wasn't
Speaker 1: searching the right buzzwords. But the bigger issue is that
Speaker 1: the most accessible information still says that glass is a
Speaker 1: recyclable and
Speaker 1: who has time to do investigative journalism every time they
Speaker 1: finish a jar salsa now, I don't have kids. I'm
Speaker 1: not part of a weekly activity. I'm assuming that I
Speaker 1: have a bit more time than some to actually dedicate
Speaker 1: to finding this information. There's just no way that you
Speaker 1: can inconvenience people like that and expect them to find
Speaker 1: the right information. Think of how many times you've watched
Speaker 1: the same show just because it's easier to put that
Speaker 1: on
Speaker 1: than to spend time trying to find a new one. Right?
Speaker 1: Inconvenience is a recipe for failure. So sometimes you just
Speaker 1: have to ask, I shared that press release on all
Speaker 1: of my social media pages and received so many replies
Speaker 1: from flustered friends explaining how they've been recycling glass forever.
Speaker 1: They even properly clean it. They've been trying their best
Speaker 1: in doing what we as individuals are being told to
Speaker 1: do and somehow that still isn't enough, which is
Speaker 1: frustrating and depending on what climate tragedy is in the
Speaker 1: news that day can be crippling. But if we've met,
Speaker 1: if you've been following Earth care, you know, I'm all
Speaker 1: about finding the positivity. So this is the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: about social media when used properly. It brings us together
Speaker 1: on a larger scale, right? It connects us with people
Speaker 1: we would have otherwise never connected with and can hold
Speaker 1: large industries accountable. This is no longer a private email
Speaker 1: that you can ignore.
Speaker 1: I actually can't tell you how many times I politely
Speaker 1: emailed companies with questions or concerns and it was crickets
Speaker 1: took it to Twitter, got a response the next day.
Speaker 1: So now I'm in the GT A the Toronto area
Speaker 1: where as far as I can tell glass is recycled
Speaker 1: until I receive a message after this is released telling
Speaker 1: me it's not
Speaker 1: and I'll just stress eat spoonfuls of peanut butter. So
Speaker 1: here's where some of that greenwashing comes into play and
Speaker 1: that whole talk about videotaping recycling bins. This Scotia Bank
Speaker 1: Arena is our big arena event venue in Toronto. And
Speaker 1: according to Google, it seats 19,800 people. Now, before I
Speaker 1: go to a concert,
Speaker 1: I always check their website to see if I'm allowed
Speaker 1: to bring a reusable water bottle. Not only does that
Speaker 1: sea of plastic at the end of a show, Kill
Speaker 1: My soul, but inflation is wild. You have to win
Speaker 1: the lottery to comfortably afford drinks at a concert now.
Speaker 1: So I checked the Scotia Bank Arenas website and water
Speaker 1: bottles were listed under prohibited items. But what was frustrating
Speaker 1: about that was they have a green section on
Speaker 1: website that lists all of their neat sustainable initiatives that
Speaker 1: they currently have in place. And one of them was
Speaker 1: to divert 100% of their waste materials from landfills and
Speaker 1: to maximize organic and recycling streams. Ok. So if I
Speaker 1: can't bring in my own bottle, at least I know
Speaker 1: if I buy one, it's then being sorted and recycled, right?
Speaker 1: That's what we're going with.
Speaker 1: So when I got to the concert venue, I like
Speaker 1: you do at concerts, especially a harry styles. One just
Speaker 1: bee lined for the waste bins. I wanted to check
Speaker 1: out this revolutionary set up that I was reading about
Speaker 1: on their website. Now they do have new bins that
Speaker 1: are labeled landfill and recycling. However, when I looked into
Speaker 1: the recycling, I had a moment of silence for my joy.
Speaker 1: There was p pe in there, gloves, pizza crust, napkins,
Speaker 1: literally everything that can't be recycled.
Speaker 1: And then right beside it in the trash, so many
Speaker 1: water bottles, just so many water bottles. So I decided
Speaker 1: to videotape it.
Speaker 1: I thought this can't be a revolutionary idea to minimize waste.
Speaker 1: There's just no way that this is the final solution.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you allowed and encourage guests to bring in
Speaker 1: their own reasonable water bottle, you advertised your green initiatives
Speaker 1: and got people on board with it. Maybe, ok, benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt, maybe they do have a groundbreaking system
Speaker 1: in place that properly sorts those bags puts the pizza
Speaker 1: crust where it needs to go.
Speaker 1: But I mean, come on, that's and I'll believe it
Speaker 1: when I see it situation for sure. After the Harry
Speaker 1: Styles concert, I did what thousands of other screaming fans
Speaker 1: were doing and I shared my videos on social media
Speaker 1: except mine was of gross trash bins. I tweeted the
Speaker 1: video and tagged Scotia Bank Arena and asked them, hey,
Speaker 1: when will you start allowing guests to bring in their
Speaker 1: own reusable water bottles? Now, I got a response almost
Speaker 1: immediately which was very much appreciated saying that we are
Speaker 1: in fact allowed to bring one in. What
Speaker 1: I've tried though and I was told to get rid
Speaker 1: of it. So I asked a follow up. I said,
Speaker 1: is this information on your website. I looked and I
Speaker 1: couldn't locate it. They informed me then that they'll be
Speaker 1: updating their Fa Qs to make sure it's on there. Fun. Nito.
Speaker 1: That was super easy. But about a week went by
Speaker 1: and I kept looking and I didn't see it on there.
Speaker 1: So I followed up, I said, hey, do you know
Speaker 1: when your Fa Qs are gonna be updated? Drum roll, please.
Speaker 1: Their Fa Qs now include a blurb about reusable water bottles. Now,
Speaker 1: this means a couple of things. First of all, it
Speaker 1: means saving money inflation. It's nuts. Why do you want
Speaker 1: to pay $8.04 dollars even for a water bottle? It
Speaker 1: means alleviating some of the plastic pollution that would otherwise
Speaker 1: take place because you couldn't bring in your own water bottle,
Speaker 1: that's huge. And if a security guard now tells me
Speaker 1: to ditch my bottle because they aren't caught up to speed,
Speaker 1: I can now just pull up the website and show
Speaker 1: them that official blurb. Cheers to that sometimes all you
Speaker 1: have to do is ask right now. So many major
Speaker 1: companies are heading back to the drawing board to implement
Speaker 1: sustainable initiatives into their business plans, right? Great, better late
Speaker 1: than never. So asking about a reusable water bottle kind
Speaker 1: of seems like we're all fighting the same fight here.
Speaker 1: Let's work together on it. I showed you a problem.
Speaker 1: You helped me
Speaker 1: with the solution. High five to that. What I found
Speaker 1: so far is that most venues that allow bottles in,
Speaker 1: want them to be small, they want them to be soft.
Speaker 1: Which kind of sounds like a plastic water bottle to me.
Speaker 1: But if you have one of these bottles or come
Speaker 1: across one, I'm in no way affiliated with the company
Speaker 1: that makes these, I just genuinely love mine. I bring
Speaker 1: my collapsible coffee mug so it just collapses down into
Speaker 1: what looks like a little mini tupperware that fits into
Speaker 1: your purse that you can bring into
Speaker 1: shows, right? Because now most venues don't allow big bags.
Speaker 1: And in the event, you go to a concert venue
Speaker 1: that doesn't let bottles in security doesn't really know what
Speaker 1: it is. So knock on wood, it won't get taken away.
Speaker 1: Climate change is happening and it will get worse if
Speaker 1: we let it. So when big companies or people in
Speaker 1: power come up with solutions, it's important for us as
Speaker 1: individuals to hold them accountable, question everything. If a city
Speaker 1: tells you
Speaker 1: that something can be recycled, but you still are unsure,
Speaker 1: tweet them and ask if one of the biggest venues
Speaker 1: in your city has neat new recycling bins. Ask what
Speaker 1: more they can do. Just ask, they can not answer
Speaker 1: you but that's not great customer service or you get
Speaker 1: the answers that you're trying to find. I totally understand
Speaker 1: that spotting greenwashing isn't always easy, right? You might not
Speaker 1: have time to question everything that you see, and
Speaker 1: basically every company now has green buzzwords on their website
Speaker 1: or includes words like plant based and sustainable in their commercials.
Speaker 1: And I've now taken that it's greenwashing until proven otherwise approach.
Speaker 1: So question everything and hey, videotape recycling bins in public
Speaker 1: places because as we've heard so many times before we
Speaker 1: can't recycle our way to sustainability, big company
Speaker 1: is have the money for bigger and better solutions in place.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for letting Earth Care be a
Speaker 1: part of your day today. It really does mean the
Speaker 1: world to me. Don't forget to hit follow, subscribe to
Speaker 1: this podcast, whatever it says on the device that you're
Speaker 1: listening to. And if you have time, hey, please write
Speaker 1: a review. I would love to hear from you. I
Speaker 1: would love to hear what's clicking with you, what you
Speaker 1: wanna chat about next. And as I'm behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: gather
Speaker 1: the next group of heroes, activists, entrepreneurs, you know, Earth
Speaker 1: Care guests. It really does help secure that line up.
Speaker 1: So thank you. I really do appreciate that as well.
Speaker 1: And hey, Earth Care Show on Instagram, Tik Tok. If
Speaker 1: you wanna connect and chat there and Earth Care show.com,
Speaker 1: if you want more information, otherwise I appreciate you and
Speaker 1: we'll chat soon.