Category Archives: Waste

Food, Waste

A third of North Americans throw out $3,000 of unused groceries every year.

Originally published on Talker

Editor’s note: While the topic is food waste, the following article may throw some light upon Recycle BC’s expectation that Cortes Island residents increase the volume of recyclables that go into curbside pick-up. There undoubtedly are some Cortesians who waste up to $63 of food a week (as is the case with our American neighbours cited in the following article), but there are probably also a significant number that waste little, if any, food.

3 months worth of garbage for two people – Photo by Roy L Hales

This is the amount of garbage one Cortes household of two produced in about 3 months. Do Cortesians, collectively, also throw out a significantly lower amount of recyclables than society as a whole? Does Recycle BC have unrealistic expectations of the volume of recyclables Cortes Island should produce?

The average American spends nearly $3,000 a year on unused groceries, according to new research.

Continue reading A third of North Americans throw out $3,000 of unused groceries every year. →
Waste

If recycling negotiations fail, Cortesians could pay another $43 per household

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Depending on the outcome of negotiations, many Cortes Island residents could end up paying another $43 for the garbage pick-up that they do not use. The problem is too many of us are taking our recyclables directly to the Cortes Island Waste Management Centre.

According to Wolfang Parada, Senior Manager of Engineering Services for the Strathcona Regional District (SRD), Cortes Island currently receives about $29,000 a year in incentives from Recycle BC. Unfortunately, a large number of Cortes residents do not use the curbside pick-up program. We may have the lowest volume per resident in the province.  Consequently, Cortes may lose its cash incentives.

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Waste

New waste management centre boss eyes busy summer season with concern

By Greg Osoba, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

The Cortes Island Waste Management Centre is preparing for a busy summer and the organization’s new manager is worried about capacity.

Waste Management Centre manager Aaron McCulloch-Gary—who has been at the helm since the start of 2023 after taking over from long serving manager Brian Pfeifle—says everything is running smoothly at the moment, but he has serious concerns about the upcoming summer season, when the Cortes Island population triples beyond its 1,000 year-round residents.

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Energy, Food, Waste, Water

What Quadra ICAN accomplished in 2022

According to the 2021 census, 36% of Quadra Island’s population is 65 years old or older. That’s 10% higher than throughout the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) as a whole, which has a considerably higher proportion of seniors than most of the province. The only Area in the SRD with a larger percentage of seniors is Cortes Island, where that number is 38%. Some might regard that large number of retirees as a problem, Quadra ICAN’s new Coordinator, Ramona Boyle,’ describes them as an asset that was responsible for much of her organization’s accomplishments during 2022.

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

The story behind the Tire Islet clean-up

A waste education program from Powell River recently cleaned up an islet that was partially buried under tires. Cortes Currents re-published the story from qathet Living and that probably would have ended the matter, except some of you had questions. The biggest one was something between shock and disbelief that such a beautiful Islet had actually been turned into a tire dump. So Cortes Currents asked Abby McLennan of Let’s Talk Trash for an interview. 

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