I have been a board member of  theFederation of Canadian Municipalities for a number of years. At the beginning of my second term, Christiane Sadler of the Regional Crime Prevention Council, of which I am a member, asked me to be a liason with FCM. I will be presenting some national municipal initiatives for the FCM to discuss at the fall meeting in Collingwood. I have also lobbied for such things as the gas tax, which has given us a lot of infrastructure funding, and pandemic prevention. I am a regional champion for Increasing Women’s Participation in Municipal Politics (More on that later, our next local campaign school is in November)
In Whistler, I took a tour of their composting facility, a type of facility which has been pitched to the Region as a solution for our composting problem. I am on the Region’s composting committee. When you are in person, you can smell the compost and learn from other councillors with similiar problems. For example I got an earful from a councillor who lives downwind from an incinerator, a growing popular solution to waste.

I found the composting facility not suitable for the Region. Savings of 40 million. By the way, I had to go on standby for this tour of the composting and the biological wastewater treatment plant.  Only municipal councillors would fill up all the tours of waste facilities. I eventually got on an extra tour.
Although the FCM meetings have to be in the West at some point, in the last year I did not attend the meetings in Jasper and Victoria due to the cost. In other years I have attended meetings in Burlington and in Brandon Manitoba when it was 30 below. Brandon was particularly exciting, sitting under the plastic palm tree by the small hotel pool writing my notes. I managed to fly home just before a huge storm socked in all of Manitoba and Ontario.
Next year the conference will be in Toronto. I am taking the Greyhound to Toronto (as I usually do when I go to Toronto)

Tonight, Friday from 6 to 8:30 an event at Waterloo Square from 6 to 8:30 pm. Bring your chalk!
Marc says “There’s been a lot of talk about Waterloo Town Square, and now I want to follow it up with action. This Friday night, I will be in Waterloo Town Square with sidewalk chalk, writing out my message to City Council and everyone who happens to be passing by in bright, washable, big letters. I’m going to extend an invitation to City Council to be there to chat with some Waterloo residents about the policies Waterloo is adopting for its growth. I would like as many people there as possible, for any length of time you can make it. Please bring instruments, sidewalk chalk (or anything that’ll wash off easily), any arts and craftsy things you could sell, a plate of cookies, or just your voice and your support. ”

I have to take my daughter to the airport so may not make it but I’ll try.

I participated in my first Habitat for Humanity Build yesterday. The Region has waved the development fees on the townhouses. 19 townhouses in an infill area, each one owned by a Habitat recipient.  Makes a community, instead of one house on a street.

Did you know that people actually object to Habitat homes being built on their street!!! Oh those scary poor people.

It was the women’s build. I learned drywalling, at least putting small pieces at the top of a wall to help create a fire barrier between two units. I was proud of myself as I went up to the third rung of the step ladder and turned round and worked on my drywall. I cut out the pieces, fit them in with trimming with a rasp and held them in place with a nail. Many thanks to Teacher Erin from the Peel Board who was very positive about my work

I didn’t suck, but I was very slow up and down that scary ladder! Good job I didn’t go on the politicians day, that would have just been embarrassing. Still even a small pushing of the fat lady barriers makes for a great feeling.

And it’s nice to know that hardworking families are being helped to get a leg up.

Here is the reply from staff on my question about salty compost.
“the quick answer is no we don’t have an issue with high salt content. Our current processor, IMS in Thorold has provided lab analysis indicating that the salt content is below existing provincial/CCME guidelines and they have no problems selling our finished compost to end markets such as golf courses, landscapers, etc”

The Toronto Star had a big article yesterday on the huge mess Toronto’s green bin program is in (This is besides the garbage strike) http://www.thestar.com/article/660864 for details.

I should tell you that Toronto’s green bin problems are common knowledge in the waste biz. Many private contractors who compost green waste won’t take their garbage while they want Waterloo Region’s compost.

The main problem is that Toronto lets people put their green compost in plastic bags, mostly the infamous plastic shopping bag. Toronto says they allowed plastic bags so more people would compost. That makes no sense at all if you can’t compost the result!  We insist that people use paper compostable bags –kraft bags, similiar to those used to pick up leaf waste. We also do not accept disposable diapers. The problem is the plastic in the waste stream. Garbage rots quickly and the plastic contaminates the compost so it is unusable.

This is one reason why we are rolling out our program slowly. So when we do it, it will work!

By the way, for regular household garbage, you can get garbage bags made of cornstarch and can use the kraft bags also. A report on plastic shopping bag education is coming back to Regional council in the fall.

We recently had the Record note that our compost is going to Thorold. We have investigated building our own composting facility but it would cost 30 to 40 milion dollars and there would still be smell problems. I recently visited a composting facility in Whistler, but it was noted by the manager, that this facility is kilometers away from residents.

We were going to send the compost to a facility just outside Waterloo Region but it didn’t work out so now we are into another tender with hopes the new facility won’t be too far away.

Landfill and waste is a serious problem because no matter what you do, sometimes it smells. And no one wants one near them. But what is the alternative? Many communities are going to incineration, but that also has problems.

I am asking staff about one problem noted in the Star article. Household waste compost can be very salty due to the huge amount of salt we have in our diet.  Supposedly if it is properly cured there isn’t a problem. Will keep you posted.

All about the green program and what can go in it, is listed here.

http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/web/region.nsf/97dfc347666efede85256e590071a3d4/f853783700a202418525726e007445ba!OpenDocument

The Toronto Star had a big article yesterday on the huge mess Toronto’s green bin program is in (This is besides the garbage strike) http://www.thestar.com/article/660864 for details.

I should tell you that Toronto’s green bin problems are common knowledge in the waste biz. Many private contractors who compost green waste won’t take their garbage while they want Waterloo Region’s compost.

The main problem is that Toronto lets people put their green compost in plastic bags, mostly the infamous plastic shopping bag. Toronto says they allowed plastic bags so more people would compost. That makes no sense at all if you can’t compost the result!  We insist that people use paper compostable bags –kraft bags, similiar to those used to pick up leaf waste. We also do not accept disposable diapers. The problem is the plastic in the waste stream. Garbage rots quickly and the plastic contaminates the compost so it is unusable.

This is one reason why we are rolling out our program slowly. So when we do it, it will work!

By the way, for regular household garbage, you can get garbage bags made of cornstarch and can use the kraft bags also. A report on plastic shopping bag education is coming back to Regional council in the fall.

We recently had the Record note that our compost is going to Thorold. We have investigated building our own composting facility but it would cost 30 to 40 milion dollars and there would still be smell problems. I recently visited a composting facility in Whistler, but it was noted by the manager, that this facility is kilometers away from residents.

We were going to send the compost to a facility just outside Waterloo Region but it didn’t work out so now we are into another tender with hopes the new facility won’t be too far away.

Landfill and waste is a serious problem because no matter what you do, sometimes it smells. And no one wants one near them. But what is the alternative? Many communities are going to incineration, but that also has problems.

I am asking staff about one problem noted in the Star article. Household waste compost can be very salty due to the huge amount of salt we have in our diet.  Supposedly if it is properly cured there isn’t a problem. Will keep you posted.

All about the green program and what can go in it, is listed here.

http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/web/region.nsf/97dfc347666efede85256e590071a3d4/f853783700a202418525726e007445ba!OpenDocument