Waste Reduction Week, October 17 to 23
As we celebrate Waste Reduction Week for 2022, we encourage you to visit CurbitStJohns.ca. The site has many useful resources and articles to help you reduce waste, including:
- The Waste Wizard, which helps you decide how to dispose of or recycle products
- A searchable schedule so you can look up your collection days.
- Link to download the Curbit App
- A resource room with many articles on topics from backyard composting to yard waste collection.
During this week, we will be sharing a Circular Economy month designs from students at the College of North Atlantic on our Instagram feed. Thank-you to the students for your thoughtful and evocative designs!
Understanding the Circular Economy
(the following article is from Circular Innovation Council)
Products have historically been designed for convenience but with no consideration of the waste left behind. Take the plastic straw for example; Canadians use 57 million of them every day and most end up in the garbage or lost to the environment. Take a raw material, make something, use it, and dispose it; that is a linear economy. The solution is in the circular economy where we design products so resources can be reused and reinvested in new products again and again.
How is this different from recycling? Rather than having to find a recycling solutions after a product is designed and brought to market — like the plastic straw — recovery and material reuse is part of the design and manufacturing process of the product from the beginning.
A circular economy also supports the idea of access over ownership. Streaming services like Spotify and Netflix rent access to content without you needing to own anything like CDs and DVDs. By shifting to access over ownership, the responsibility falls to manufacturers to make longer lasting and more efficient products that are designed with repair and reuse as primary considerations.
How can we advance the circular economy? Purchase smartly designed products meant to be reused, refurbished, and dismantled. Support companies that offer take-back of products after use. Embrace access over ownership.