Every 2nd Wednesday of the month, SPEC's Zero Waste Committee meets to discuss current and future projects. Come meet with members of the Committee and share your ideas!
The meetings are free and visitors are welcome.
MONTHLY MEETING DETAILS:
Location: Kits House, 2305 West 7th Ave, Vancouver, BC V6K 1Y4
Schedule: The 2nd Wednesday of each month (with some exceptions) from 6:30pm – 8pm.
Room: Ask at the front desk for the room location.
Please email zerowaste@spec.bc.ca if you have any questions.
Update for April 10 Meeting
For this meeting, we will be hosting Plastic Oceans Foundation Canada. We will screen a 22 min clip of the full film, and do a Q&A with Executive Director, Adrian Midwood.
See the full movie on Netflix before and come with questions!
https://www.netflix.com/title/80164032
Update on China's Recycling Ban
Have you been keeping tabs on the situation with China and how it's affecting recycling all over the world? Wired Magazine did a great job covering the issue in it's current state.
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/
Here's a quote from the article:
Whether China’s ban leads to increased plastic pollution in the environment remains to be seen. “The plastic is now getting diverted to countries with a high risk of improper management and high leakage rates,” says Roland Geyer, an industrial ecology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and lead author of a recent study on the ultimate fate of disposed plastics. Still, China, with its high volume of imports, had been the source of more than a quarter of the world’s mismanaged waste, Jambeck says. So if proper alternatives are found, plastic pollution could actually decrease.
Meeting Agenda:
- Introductions and Acknowledgements
- Project Updates / Announcements / Events
- Plastic Oceans 22 min clip and Q&A
- Your agenda item here, please email zerowaste@spec.bc.ca to add your agenda item
Past Meeting Updates
Past Update for Nov 14th Meeting:
Meeting location: Online via Google Hangouts Please visit https://hangouts.google.com/ for more information about the system. It's very easy.
Meeting Link: https://hangouts.google.com/call/CWPnjpLD2TCpYK-gPCF0AEEE?no_rd
Visit the above link at 6:30pm to join the meeting!
Note: You can try the meeting link before the meeting time to ensure that you can access it. You will be able to check your mic and camera and join the hangout even if no one is there.
Meeting Agenda:
- Introductions and Acknowledgements
- Project Updates / Announcements
- Waste Committee ToolBox Discussion - Please check out the Google Doc to see the Living Project file. You all are welcome to view and comment on the file.
- Planning the Waste Committee Presentation for SPEC AGM on Dec 6
- Your agenda item here (please email daniel@masterrecyclervancouver.ca to add your agenda item)
For this week's meeting, please review the Living Project file, make comments and think about the following:
- Which solutions from the brainstorming page you like and that you might want to work on, you can comment on them as you wish
- Additional solutions, ideas, and solution areas to add to the brainstorming page
- Research documents, public initiative documents
- Comments and feedback about the project idea and any feedback are welcome. You can share it during the meeting or in an email at any time to daniel@masterrecyclervancouver.ca
Past Updates for October 10th Meeting:
Hello Waste Committee!
Exciting times are ahead as we take a new direction for the coming year. My name is Daniel, I sit on the Board of Directors with SPEC, and I will be co-leading the committee again (I led the committee back in 2015-2016). I also Co-Direct and Co-facilitate the Master Recycler Vancouver Program, and run a consulting company at the crossroads of waste management and behaviour change. I am excited to be working with the committee again in this capacity.
Please find the agenda below.
Agenda:
- Introductions and Acknowledgements
- Project Updates
- New Committee Direction - Creating Practical Solutions to Urban Waste Problems (See more below)
- Your agenda item here (please email daniel@masterrecyclervancouver.ca to add your agenda item)
Project Proposal: Creating Practical Solutions to Urban Waste Problems
SPEC’s Mission and Vision:
Mission: To provide our community with practical solutions for urban sustainability.
Vision: A healthy, just and vibrant urban life that enhances local and global eco-systems.
Project Guiding Questions:
Considering SPEC’s Mission, how could the committee provide practical solutions for urban sustainability? What problems are we providing solutions for? How will these solutions lead to a healthy, just and vibrant urban life?
Scope of Work:
6-10 practical solutions chosen by the committee. They could be created from scratch, or simply adapted from something already out there.
To help answer these questions and help change our local community, we will work collaboratively and in small groups. The SPEC Waste Committee has been diligently working over the past number of years and I believe it has considerable knowledge. I am proposing to consolidate and document our knowledge, and embed them in practical solutions!
Tentative Outline:
October/November Meeting
- Brainstorming and discussing what our practical solutions might be
December Meeting
- Project Planning
2019 Meetings
Creating our practical solutions for the community at large. This project would not be the sole work of the committee but would be the major focus for the next term of the Committee.
Please come to the meeting ready to talk about this project and let’s make SPEC’s Mission and Vision a reality!
Thanks,
Daniel Rotman
Co-Facilitator, Master Recycler Vancouver
www.masterrecyclervancouver.ca
