Cell phone recycling, Environmental refugees, ecocide – GC News #645

645: 24 August 2009 – Published by Green Communities Canada

GRANTS RECEIVED. Rideau Environmental Action League received $15,000 from Ontario Trillium Foundation to replace windows, add insulation and make safety upgrades to the Real Deal Store and REAL Centre … Durham Sustain Ability and Scugog Connection received $225,000 for a coordinator, communications and administration costs to engage the community and develop a stewardship strategy for the environmental sustainability of the Lake Scugog watershed.

CELL PHONE RECYCLING. Clean Calgary’s Cell Phone Recycling Program has become more accessible through a partnership with Goodwill Industries of Alberta.

WELL AWARE. Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Rick Johnson participated in Peterborough Green-Up’s and Durham Sustain-Ability’s Well Aware program and spoke on the importance of maintaining a rural well on 21 August.

BLUE GREEN NOW. The United Steelworkers have received $420,800 over two years from Trillium Foundation to launch Blue Green Now. “The project will create strategies to promote a green economic agenda, attracting green jobs and industries to Sudbury, Greater Toronto, Hamilton or Kitchener Waterloo.” See website for Blue Green Canada, which includes policy statements and green job training options.

DO-IT-YOURSELF. E-Fuel MicroFueler residential system allows people to make fuel from waste and use it to run their vehicles … US company provides gyms with cardio equipment to capture human power … Book The Human Powered Home shows how to run coffee grinders, blenders on human energy.

SPRAWL KILLS. Cool video on the new urbanism as the foundation for greener more livable communities … Documentary  Malls R Us links shopping centres to places of consumerism worship.

ZERO WASTE. A Japanese village aims at being the country’s first zero-waste community by 2020: 98% of the population uses home composters, and waste is separated into 34 categories … A man collects one-year worth of junk mail.

BOARD TOOLS. See Institute for Conservation Leadership newsletter … Guide Board Building Tools for the Busy Social Justice Executive discusses the executive director’s role in interacting with the board of directors: following boards versus leading boards, tips for a successful board/executive director partnership, role of the board chair.

PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH. Plastic waste causes catastrophic changes in the marine ecosystem …  See plastic-filled stomach content of a dead albatross.

ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES. Climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement. There may be 200 million environmentally-induced migrants by 2050.  Rainfall in some areas is expected to decline by as much as 50% by 2080, rendering local livelihoods unviable and raising the risk of chronic hunger, says report.

ECOCIDE. Movie Chemical Reaction tells the story of  Dr. June Irwin, who led the town of Hudson, Quebec, to enact a by-law that banned the use of all chemical pesticides and herbicides …   In March 2009, Équiterre appeared with other groups before the Standing Committee on International Trade to oppose a challenge of Quebec’s ban by a chemical company under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

SECOND LIFE. Danish crematoriums have a profitable sideline: they salvage knee or hip replacements from the dead and sell them as scrap metal …  Canadian Green Funeral Home uses sourced plant-based embalming fluids and offers  biodegradable caskets that have no metal, plastics or harsh chemical finishes.

JOBS. Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment,  Coordinator/Programs. Winnipeg, due 3 September … Sierra Club Canada, Executive Director. Due 14 September  … Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, Active Transportation  Researcher.  Toronto, due 4 September.