The Clean Bin Project - Part 1

When I look back at the causes and contributors towards my attitude and enthusiasm about doing my part to help the environment, there are many events that stand out in my mind.  I expect that quite a few of them will come up in my postings on this blog, because the nature of this blog is very much driven by what my own experiences have been and sharing them with others in the hope that maybe others can make use of them somehow.

One of the biggest contributors to my desire to start a blog and share in this particular manner arose upon hearing about The Clean Bin Project.  The Clean Bin Project is a movie and related blog, which follow the lives of three Vancouverites as they spend a year not consuming (and trying to produce zero landfill waste).  I've watched the trailer that is available on their website and it gave me a lot of ideas for things that I could do better (that's where the idea of using Ziplock containers when buying food came from).  The reason that I am posting about this now is that there are going to be upcoming screenings of the movie in the Lower Mainland (I am assuming that they will be free but I can't say for certain), this week and in the coming months (check out the schedule here), and also in Squamish, Bellingham, WA, and Edmonton, between now and the official release sometime in the summer.  The website and blog are a terrific resource, if you are unable to attend a screening but want to know more.

If any of you manage to go to the screenings, please let me know in the Comments what you thought.  I will be going on Friday night to the Maple Ridge screening and will most likely do a follow up post about it.

Landfills.

Environmentalism can be motivated by many factors.  Earlier on, my primary motivating factor in the changes I was making was my own health.  This led me to start eating less processed, more organic, whole foods.  I also started trying to find natural products such as shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, etc., because I didn't want my skin coming in contact with harmful (or questionable) chemicals.  I figured in a hundred years we will know more than we know now and we may find out that some of the chemicals in such products are harmful. 

In a sudden turn of events, I became very aware of something that I had been conscious of, but not focused on, for quite some time: landfills.  I have been to landfills a couple times in the past, but for some reason the thought of a giant rotting garbage dump didn't really affect me.  This seems to be a pattern with me: I am oblivious to an issue until something just brings home to me the impact of my behaviour and then I become very passionate about changing it.  For the majority of my life, I considered landfills to be normal and acceptable.  Then I came across a photo of the carcasses of dead Albatrosses from Midway Island, which is near a place in the Pacific Ocean where there is a huge floating collection of garbage.  This really made me question what I considered "normal".  The Pacific Trash Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a very sad testament to our inability as a species to have any consideration for our planet and its other inhabitants.  It's not a landfill, but they both arise from the same attitude and lack of regard for the planet and the species which we affect.