Green Deal

October 19th, 2015

How to lose 100lb in a week (From your garbage, that is)  Canada Waste Reduction Week, Oct 19 – 25, 2015

How to recycle electronics batteries and appliances at London Drugs

Waste is still piling up. It’s time to take action! And this week is a great time to make new commitments and shed those unwanted pounds.

Recycling and Waste Reduction Week started in 2001, when recycling councils and organizations from across Canada came together and expanded their local efforts into a national event.

Divert those food scraps! Use your municipal food scraps collection, if you have one. And compost the peels, rinds and uncooked veggie matter in a backyard composter.
Weight of food scraps an average Western Canadian family produces per week: 3kg / 6.6 lbs *

Recycle an old computer. Who needs a computer that can’t even open a 2015 web page? Bring it to London Drugs. We’ll make sure it’s recycled right, and the data destroyed.
Weight of an average old junky computer: 5Kg – 11 lb Weight of an old CRT style screen: 10Kg – 22 lb

Recycle those old batteries! The average household throws out about 8 batteries per year. That may not sound like a lot, but dry cell batteries contribute about 88 percent of the total mercury and 50 percent of the cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. (US stat*) So bring those in to us, and shave a few important ounces off your waste.
8 AA batteries approx .2 Kg – .44 lb

Recycle a small appliance According to one estimate, Canadians purchase over 24 million small appliances a year.* So what happens to the old ones? Well if it has a power cord, you can recycle your small appliances right at your local London Drugs.
Average weight of a clothes iron: 1kg – 2.2 lb

Recycle that old FatScreen It’s time to join the 2000’s. Flat screens are bigger, better, lighter and use way less energy. So if you have an old tube style TV lying around, don’t chuck it in the dumpster or leave it in the alley. Just bring it to London Drugs for responsible recycling.
Average weight of a 27” Tube TV: 30kg – 66 lb

Total Weight Lost: 46.2Kg – 101.64 lb

Way to go! You did it! Now make some all-year long waste reduction resolutions to keep that weight off! Here’s a link to all the things you can recycle at your local London Drugs store, and you can always search online for even more stewardship programs and depots in your area.

Waste Reduction Week Canada

Recycling Council of BC

September 20th, 2015

What is ORGANIC anyway?

To celebrate Canada Organic Week (Sept 19 – 26) we have put together a list of organic questions and answers, in a fun infographic. Scroll down for all the live links and a text version of all the info if that’s your thing.

Organic Questions and Answers Infographic for Canada Organic Week

Links:

Canada Organic Week

Wikipedia Organic Certification

Canada Organic

Organic Production Systems Standards

Environmental Medicine Organic Vs Conventional Foods Study

Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods study

(Text Version)

These days people buy, eat and wear more organic than ever before. But with all the certifications, labels and details, even the greenest shopper may not know exactly what it all means. So the London Drugs Green Deal Team delved into the world of organic certification to answer a few basic questions.

What makes a product ‘Certified Organic’? 

Requirements vary from country to country, and generally involve a set of production standards for growing, storage, processing, packaging and shipping. Synthetic pesticides and genetically modified seeds are not permitted, On-farm and facility inspections are conducted to verify that organic producers are operating within standards.   The Canadian Food Inspection Agency oversees the Canada Organic label. In the US, it’s the Department of Agriculture (USDA Organic)  Canadian Organic Standards also include principles like protecting the environment, minimizing soil degradation and decreasing pollution.   Other countries with organic certifications include Australia, the European Union, France, Germany and Japan

What about ‘Organic Ingredients’?

Multi-ingredient products with 70-95 per cent organic content may have the declaration “contains x% organic ingredients,” but may not use the Canada Organic logo and/or the claim “organic”. Multi-ingredient products with less than 70 per cent organic content may only use organic claims in the product’s ingredient list. These products may not use the Canada  Organic logo.  Only products with 95% organic content or more may be labelled as “organic” or bear the Canada Organic logo.

What’s the difference between Organic and Natural?

Natural means that:  • The food or ingredient must not contain an added vitamin, mineral nutrient, food additive or artificial flavouring agent.  • Must not have had any constituent removed or significantly changed (except removal of water).  • Must not have been submitted to processes that have significantly altered its original physical, chemical or biological state. (Source: CFIA)

Why is organic more expensive? 

It isn’t always. But organic farming is more labor and management intensive. Organic-certified operations must have a plan and keep records that verify their compliance. Organic farms are also usually smaller than conventional farms and may not benefit from the economies of scale that larger growers get.  Canada’s Organic Standards cover everything from seeds to weeds to transportation.

Is Organic food better for you? 

The jury is still out. Some studies show that organics provide greater levels of vitamin C, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus than non-organic varieties, while being significantly lower in nitrates and pesticide residues. Other studies have found there isn’t much nutritional difference between organic and conventional foods.  When you consider the effects of conventional pesticides in soils and waterways, more organic production is probably a good thing for everyone’s health.

The BOTTOM LINE:

Going organic is a personal choice, but it’s not a decision you should have to make on cost alone. That’s why London Drugs is committed to offering you some of the best organic options out there, at great prices.  That’s the REAL Green Deal! Happy Organic Week!

September 13th, 2015

Onyx+Green – a Canadian company making school and office supplies more sustainable.

One bamboo writing instrument may not seem like a big green deal, but consider this: According to the EPA, Americans throw away 1.6 billion disposable pens every year. (Yes, BILLION!) That’s a lot of waste to write off. So if you want to make a green difference you can see and touch every day, consider your school and office supplies.

Write with recycled pride. Onyx + Green offers pens and mechanical pencils made from from bamboo. recycled aluminum, recycled PET plastic (the kind from recycled drink bottles) and even recycled carton material.

Cut into waste with biodegradable scissors. Corn-based plastic handles and metal blades mean that these scissors won’t be around for hundreds of years in the landfill when you are done with them.

Go treeless for your notes. These Onyx + Green notepads are made from…. stone. That’s right, crushed stone is bound into smooth, white, water-resistant sheets that consume nary a single twig.

Contain it all with natural materials. Our modern fabrics contain a lot of plastic. But these styling pencil cases are 90% natural and biodegradable (made with a ramie leaf / jute plant blend fabric)

Less packaging is more better. OK, bad grammar. But by using simple paperboard designs (no bubble plastic!) and soy based inks, Onyx+Green has made it easy to keep packaging waste to a minimum. And that’s worth writing about.

The local connection. The products are made in China, but designed in Canada, and importantly, produced by a Canadian-headquartered company (Onyx+Green is a division of Onyx+Blue, a Quebec-based company) so you are supporting Canadian jobs and profits, while still getting affordable products.

If you want to add a sustainable reminder to your everyday school and office routine, take a look at the Onyx+ Green product line. It’s the write Green Deal for Back-to-School. (Sorry, that pun probably gets an F)

August 31st, 2015

The Green Teen Back-to-School Blog Hack

Green-Back-to-School-1

Text Version with Links:

Hello! My name is Jaxon, and I am temporarily hijacking this blog tell you about some cool, sustainable back-to-school stuff – with a tour through your classic nine-to-three school weekday.

Morning time! Here you are at the kitchen counter. Instead of blindly scrambling for something in the cupboard, grab a bag of Hippie Granola! Certified organic, it’s sure to help you realize how good sustainability tastes. Want a sweeter cereal deal? Try Envirokidz from Nature’s Path. Every box helps out endangered species… how cool is that! Done with cereal? Need protein? There’s always Adams Peanut Butter! Completely 100% natural with no preservatives, the only ingredients are peanuts and salt!

Get to school! Do you ask your parents for a ride? Absolutely not! You walk! If that’s too far, you bike! If that’s still too far, you bus! Or you can even walk your bike on a bus if you want to!

It’s the first day at school! You’re a little excited, but somewhat nervous. In fact, you even almost forgot your new pencil case! The Onyx Green one, made with natural and biodegradable materials. As it happens, your pens are also Onyx Green, with casings made out of recycled tetra-pak cartons! And the pencils? Staedtler brand, made of Wopex material, containing wood made from PEFC certified forests, which means the trees are treated nicely. And really. You would much rather have your pencils made of happy trees as opposed to sad ones.

Ahhh, recess. Everyone in the school desperately trying to cram as much exercise as possible into 20 minutes. And, of course, the time of the snack. You reach into the pit that is your lunch bag and what do you pull out? Why, it’s a Clif bar! But not just any Clif bar. It’s a Clif Z-bar! Certified absolutely organic! The hardest ingredient to pronounce is triticale(trih-tih-kay-lee), and that’s a plant! And look! It’s drizzled! This stuff is gold in kids eyes! Oh! There’s the bell. Back to class.

Now, it’s time to take some notes on something you haven’t heard of yet. Best take out your paper. Some random paper made out of poor badly-treated forests? Why, no! Instead, use recycled paper, like this Hilroy 150 page-pack! The trees will forever be your friends! Yay! There’s the lunch bell!

Lunchtime! My favourite time of the day. Pigging out on the delicious snacks packed in my lunch bag this morning. The best lunch bags are insulated and reusable, PVC-Free, BPA Free with no phthalates. Inside, go for reusable food containers – no more piles of lunch litter!
Whaaat…? Back to class already?! C’mon! Longer lunch periods!

It’s the last five minutes of class and I need to make my last minute homework notes. These Post-it notes are now made with 100% recycled paper, and are recyclable! And the glue is made from plants! They’re classic, they’re sticky, and they’re sustainable. And how about this. Did you know that you can make paper out of rocks? I know, crazy huh!? But somehow, the people at… guess who… Onyx Green did it, with their tree-free notebooks. Yeah! Final bell! Time to go home.

OK, gotta keep up with the texting. But at the end of the day, all your new technology becomes old. And when you get new stuff, just remember, you can recycle your old stuff.
LD takes care of that stuff sustainably and securely, destroying any… questionable data with care. Cause hey. If you don’t recycle your old stuff, why should you get any new stuff?

August 24th, 2015

London Drugs sponsors Stewards of the Future, with the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia

What happens when you take 150 students away from their phones, pads and screens, to talk about the future? Magic.

This was the vision of The Honourable Judith Guichon, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, when she created Stewards of the Future, an innovative conference bringing young people from all over BC together to talk about issues, the environment, the economy and the road ahead. The conference was held at Pearson College, a wooded campus on the idyllic shores of Vancouver Island near Sooke, BC. Participants got a chance to take an eco tour of Race Rocks Marine Park, watch stars from the hilltop observatory and absorb inspiration and information from an amazing group of speakers and mentors.

Green Deal blogger Lorne Craig (yours truly) was on hand to speak on a panel about Corporate Responsibility, and share the London Drugs recycling message.

London Drugs was incredibly proud to sponsor this event, and if this group of students are indicative of who will be stepping into leadership, we are in good hands.

August 20th, 2015

London Drugs Takes Recycling Tracking to the Next Level with ReTRAC

Part of our ongoing commitment to waste reduction takes us to events like the Recycling Council of British Columbia’s annual conference, where we find out about leading technologies for helping us to make our good waste work better.

That’s how we learned about Re-TRAC, an exciting waste diversion software program that lets us track our waste numbers right down to the store level.
In early 2015, London Drugs adopted Re-TRAC Tracker as our waste diversion tracking system. Within a week of the first training session, all 78 stores and our service providers were tracking data in Re-TRAC Connect.
Now the London Drugs team can generate reports to see exactly what materials are being recycled at each store and how that contributes to our overall sustainability goals. We can compare performance across store locations, measure any trends, and monitor progress towards achieving our 95% diversion rate target.

If you want to learn more about the London Drugs Re-TRAC story, you can read our full case study on the Re-TRAC website.

And remember, you can always contribute to our waste diversion total just by recycling at London Drugs!

July 30th, 2015

Lethbridge store recycles with the best of them in London Drugs Waste Audit

Every year, we visit every single London Drugs store to dig through their trash. But it goes deeper than that. The Waste Audit is part of a continuous process of improvement that looks at the recycling output of each department in the store, and helps make suggestions on how things can be tweaked to keep every last gram of recycling out of the landfill.

Retail Operations Sustainability Specialist Maury McCausland recently visited our Lethbridge London Drugs store, and found that their waste diversion rate is going strong. We captured the Waste Audit process on video, as Lethbridge store Manager Chris Mabie was on hand to help wrangle the bags and pick up on improvements his team can still make.

Let’s raise a bag of recycling and toast the Lethbridge team – you are the real Green Deal!

July 30th, 2015

How DO you recycle Styrofoam™, anyway?

When London Drugs began taking back its packaging and recycling expanded polystyrene (better known by one of its trade names, Styrofoam™) it was a challenge. The stuff is bulky and requires specific equipment to process. But in its condensed form, its actually a valuable commodity.

Our recycling partner, FOAM ONLY, has made a business out of recycling this much-maligned packaging material, and we went inside their Coquitlam, BC plant to find out more.

So the next time you bring back Styrofoam™ to recycle from one of your London Drugs purchases, you can rest easy knowing its not going to be polluting our environment or hogging landfill space. It will have another life, somewhere down the road.

And you won’t even have to deal with the squeaking…

July 28th, 2015

Yahoo! Annual Stampede Breakfast Waste Diversion Up Again

214 kilograms of waste diverted from the City of Calgary’s landfills

For the third year in a row, London Drugs has partnered with Green Calgary and Rocky Ridge Royal Oak Community Association (RRROCA) to green its annual community Stampede breakfast. Through various reducing, recycling, and composting strategies, 89.3% of all waste was diverted. This is up slightly (0.3%) from last year and up 10.3% from the first year of the partnership. Yahoo!

The greening of the breakfast helped prevent 214 kilograms of waste from going to the City’s landfills including:

75 kilograms of organics (now that’s a lot of pancakes!)
3 kilograms of beverage containers
5 kilograms of mixed recycling diverted (paper plates, cutlery, etc.)

Over 4000 guests attended the event for pancakes, music and sustainable Stampede fun.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

July 21st, 2015

London Drugs in Regina brings more recycling to the Grasslands

Stepping inside the spacious store in the Grasslands Mall on the south side of Regina, Saskatchewan, the size and layout are impressive – but the Recycling Centre is one of the the first things you see.

“We have had good uptake on recycling from our customers,” says Assistant Manager Michelle Pitters, “Especially for light bulbs, batteries, and for some reason, microwave ovens!”

Since London Drugs’ What’s the Green Deal program expanded to include small household appliances, customers can now easily drop off electronics, small kitchen machines, hair dryers – just about any small appliance with a cord. And it’s not even a problem if the old appliances were purchased elsewhere.

Other local resources, such as SARCAN, will also take electronics, but not microwaves – so perhaps that’s helping drive more customers to bring those items in.

The Green Deal teams at Grasslands, and the other Regina store on Prince of Wales Drive, are also proud of their local recycling connections. Light bulbs are handled by Regina’s K-Light Recyclers and the stores are also looking at local resources for helping to avoid food waste from near-expiry-date items.

Pitters encourages all Saskathewanians to go beyond their blue box with their recycling. “It’s all right here,” she says, “You can bring back a huge variety of recyclables on your regular shopping trip. We’d love to see you!”

Keeping the Grasslands waste free – now that’s the REAL Green Deal!

How to lose 100lb in a week (From your garbage, that is)  Canada Waste Reduction Week, Oct 19 – 25, 2015

What is ORGANIC anyway?

Onyx+Green – a Canadian company making school and office supplies more sustainable.

The Green Teen Back-to-School Blog Hack

London Drugs sponsors Stewards of the Future, with the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia

London Drugs Takes Recycling Tracking to the Next Level with ReTRAC

Lethbridge store recycles with the best of them in London Drugs Waste Audit

How DO you recycle Styrofoam™, anyway?

Yahoo! Annual Stampede Breakfast Waste Diversion Up Again

London Drugs in Regina brings more recycling to the Grasslands

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