More Bins Please 2

Right now, Markham has the above two waste bins available, excluding general garbage. I'm not sure where the waste goes after leaving it at the side of the curb on garbage days, so I don't know how effective the city is with properly managing waste for low environmental impact.

Anyways, I sketched some bins with actual colours this time instead of keeping them black and white:

As you can see, I am not one who draws often. Hm... I forgot the Tim bin. Next time, next time.

Defend Our Coast - Toronto Solidarity Event

While I was volunteering for Toronto's environmental film festival Planet in Focus, I was told about an upcoming solidarity rally against the construction of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. The host of the event is Olivia Chow, the NDP Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Trinity-Spadina.

Location: Bellevue Square Park, Toronto, ON
Date: Sunday, October 21, 2012
Time: 1 PM - ?
Event page at Facebook

I don't know much about this pipeline project even though it's been in the news often, so I looked at the project website for more information on it. From what I understand on the website, the purpose of the project (which is currently just a proposal) is to build a petroleum and liquids pipeline system between Alberta and British Columbia's coastline, and possibly ship oil between Canada and other countries across the oceans. It is a mega project that will [supposedly] create more jobs and bring economic benefit to Canada, but at the cost of potential local environmental damages to all communities, biophysical resources, and biotic life living around the pipeline. If the environmental damages actually occur, it would affect not only the local environments in its proximity, but the whole natural system on the Earth itself (because everything is connected).

Personally, I don't like the scale of this mega project. Forget about how long it would take to finish constructing the pipeline, the real question is can they finish constructing it at all? From what the media portrays and the people who I know, there are hundreds (maybe even millions) of people inside and outside of Canada who are against this whole project. Those people may be capable of stopping the whole thing half-way through its construction. It would suck if Enbridge started building the system but was never able to finish it; that would be a total waste of time, money, and natural resources.

The whole project itself is a good way to slap people on the wrist though. If we don't built a pipeline system to transport oil, where would we get our oil? I mean, I remember living in Prince George, British Columbia for about 3 months. In that short amount of time, it was pretty obvious that you won't get anywhere around that small town without a vehicle. Public transit felt non-existent, and biking or walking would take way too long to get anywhere. Heck, getting to the town itself requires driving a long way or taking a smaller airplane from Vancouver. What I'm trying to say is that people on the west coast depend on oil as much as anyone else in the rest of Canada, and we aren't going to change our habits of using oil-consuming vehicles in [most likely] the next hundred years. We also want our economy to flourish, which Canada does by exporting its natural resources.

To built the pipeline, or not to build it-- I don't know where to stand firmly. I am concerned about the environmental impacts, but I also know that people need oil for products and their daily activities. I will still attend this event though, because I am interested to see what they will do and discuss.

More Bins Please

I saw a brown bin at Seneca for coffee cups and I thought: what if the Greater Toronto Area had more bins than the blue, green, and gray bins? What would they carry? I could only think of an alternate brown bin and a Tim bin. The brown bin would be for burnables and the Tim bin would be for anything from Tim Hortons (except the food, since it should go in the green bin).

Too bad it may never work out. It's hard to get people to separate their waste.

How important is water to you?

There's no denying that water is an important resource for the well-being of life forms on our planet Earth, but what baffles me is how I value water. Sure, water is everywhere, but that doesn't mean that all that water there is safe for necessary activities like drinking or bathing. Wouldn't I want clean water for those activities opposed to unusable polluted water? I know I would.

I'm lucky to be able to live in the Greater Toronto Area where fresh water is abundant and the water filtration system is trustworthy and well maintained, but I admit-- I tend to waste water. I'd keep the tap on while I wash the dishes, and take long comfortable showers once in awhile. I'm still working on those bad habits.

Sometimes I wonder if it is because of my being in the GTA where clean water is abundant that I waste water. Another reason could be because I can afford it (though I like to keep the numbers on my bills low). I end up taking for granted the value of water and value other things like getting new clothes and manga in my everyday life. I forget that everything is connected and that every time I throw something into the garbage, it gets dumped somewhere far away where it will mix with other garbage and the water in that area, later coming back to me through the water cycle. Systems in systems connected to systems, you know? It's mind boggling.

Note to self: don't waste water and remember that everything you do has to do with water even if the connection is not visible.

_{Image from chapter 22 of Otoyomegatari (A Bride's Story), by Kaoru Mori. Chapter 22 was scanlated by Duralumin.}

The Film "Earthlings"

Every week, the university faculty I am enrolled in sends emails about events related to their subject, environmental studies. One was about a screening for a film called "Eartlings" on campus today. I wanted to check it out, but the event time was late, so I decided to watch it on my own.

I was shocked by the movie. I didn't think it would be (warning: these may be spoilers) so bloody and violent. It was almost as shocking as the movies and videos about genocide presented back in high school. Animals being treated like things rather than living beings. Like cutting a rock into two pieces or stepping on well-made jello until it's almost nothing but liquid. It's so... cruel? Inhumane? I'm not sure if I have the right to say that because I live off products that humans take from animals. Throughout the film, I just kept imagining the animals as people. Not furries, but actual people. (No offense to the furries out there.)

I remember I wanted to become a vegetarian in my early teens. Meat just started to taste funny to me (though I believe it had more to do with my mother's cooking and her way of storing meat). I told my parents about wanting to not eat meat and they told me it'll never happen, because they won't let it happen. When I entered university, I tried to eat as little meat as possible. I thought all was going well with the grains and the veggies until I had a blood test and found out that I lost valuable nutrients in my body. My doctor told me to take iron pills and to eat vegetables high in iron and red meat more often. Red meat... from cows. When my parents found out about my eating habits, they just wouldn't stop offering me meat--BBQ meat from Chinese meat eateries like Shark's Fin City at Pacific Mall. My family doesn't eat Halal--they don't think about where our food comes from or how it was treated before getting to the dinner table. I was told "who cares about how your meat was treated. Meat is meat and you need it." No matter how much I try to convince them to think about where their food comes from, in the end, they don't really give a damn as long as it looks good and is affordable. I've pretty much given up convincing them to wonder.

Well, whatever. I'll just have to introduce halal, tofu and asparagus dishes later on as a regular lunch and dinner item. Though asparagus does make urine smell different...

Re-use It: Bread Clips

My mother recently sent me an email on neat ways to reuse some commonly disposed items like egg cartons and small boxes. Bread clips were among the list of disposed items.

If you're living in the Greater Toronto Area and you frequently buy milk and bread by the bag, you may find yourself throwing out one or two bread clips on a weekly basis. Bread clips are the small plastic tags that are used to close milk and bread bags and provide an expiration date. The expiration date would be on one side while the other side is blank.

The email my mother sent me suggested reusing old bread clips as a label for power cords and plugs. After collecting a few bread clips, I tagged power plugs connected power strips around the house. Thanks to the blank side of the bread clip, I could label the tags with the name of the electric device and their corresponding power cord.

So don't throw out your bread tags! They're really helpful.

Holy Malls! (Literally)

I'm currently working on a paper that mixes systems thinking and consumerism. I'm looking at leverage points to alter people's retail consumer behavior. While looking through a list of materials concerning consumerism in my university's library database, I found a documentary called "Malls R Us". I signed it out and now that I've watched it, I don't think I can view malls the same way again.

Trailer of the documentary Malls R Us:

Malls are like churches: a sacred refuge to people and they help people find themselves. Retail and consumerism have power over people. What would you do if all the malls you frequent all died? Mourn. I know I would. Well... until the next mall opens. ... Okay, I rarely visit malls, but I still enjoy spending time walking around in one. Okay, that depends too. I enjoy spending time in malls when store workers aren't giving me glares or the pursing of the lips (like that woman from Michael Kors).


_{The pursing of the lips}
If I had to choose between visiting a mall or a street full of shops, I'd choose the street shops. I like malls, but there's something about street shops that feel unique, personal, and charming.

_{Image source: satisfythecrave.tumblr.com.}

Last Day, Next 7 Days

It was my last day volunteering for the Toronto Zoo's Rouge Park road ecology survey. I'm going to miss those 3-hour morning walks around the park. Turns out the park has a good population of leopard frogs. Though I've picked up more than 500 dead frogs off the road over the last 6 months, at least they're doing better than the snakes and snapping turtles. There are many animals in the park that cannot be found in the city or the suburban area I live in, so it was quite refreshing. Will have to visit the park once in awhile.

Now to tackle my midterms and reports.

I regret wasting 20 hours on a mask I didn't want to do in the first place. I don't even know how I ended up promising that person a mask. I could have used those hours to study and work on assignments... and now I'm late with my study schedule. I guess I'll be getting only an hour of sleep per day in the next 7 days. Everything is my fault: I should stop worrying about causing another person to want to commit suicide. Time to put up a mean wall again.


I will be uploading a few pictures I took at Rouge Park in this album by November 5:

Rouge Park

Manga Farming

I was surfing the net and stumbled upon manga farming. I was amazed!

Koshi Kawachi, an artist from Japan, used the pages of old magazines and manga to grow plants with. He has a gallery of photographs on his website with pictures of the plants sprouting from manga.

It seems manga farmning requires the pages to stay moist as it's in the way of sunlight. I wonder if I should try it with the extra Shonen Jump magazine I have. I'm not sure if it's wise to grow edible vegetables with manga though. Would the ink from the pages cause the vegetable to taste funny? It may even be toxic! I guess if I want to try this manga farming I should try growing daisies.

Source: http://www.koshikawachi.com