Green Deal

March 2nd, 2012

London Drugs store diverts 89% of waste from landfill with Cascades Recovery, and helps close the recycling loop.

Every London Drugs store recycles as much as possible – cardboard, plastic wrap, cans & bottles, etc – along with all the materials our customers bring in, but London Drugs store #9 in Guildford, Surrey, has pushed its recycling to new heights.

Cascades Recovery has developed a handy sorting system that lets our stores more efficiently handle plastics, containers and cardboard to maximize recovery rates. In a recent pilot project, we tracked recovery of waste from four of our stores. They all increased their diversion rate, but Guildford was the hero of the day.

“It’s a great program”, says London Drugs administrator of retail operations Maury McCausland. “Our employees separate recyclables at the store into colour coded bags so separation is easy once the materials get to the plant. This sort of program will help us achieve our target rate of 95% waste diversion from all of our stores by 2015.”

Cascades Recovery offers another green connection as well. They are part of the Cascades Specialty Products Group, manufacturers of the Cascades line of recycled paper products, including bathroom tissue and paper towels sold at London Drugs.

“This means that when a customer brings back cardboard packaging to London Drugs for recycling, they could eventually be buying paper products from us that contain some of that same material.” McCausland continues. “That’s pretty exciting.”

February 29th, 2012

Salt Spring Coffee Really Chips In to Help Their Growers.

I recently attended a ‘cupping’ (coffee tasting) at Salt Spring Coffee’s offices in Richmond BC. This local company, founded on the BC island it is named for, has some of the tastiest roasts around, organic and fair-trade to boot. But they do a lot more than just importing and roasting great coffee.

Salt Spring supports Fair to Farmer Direct™, a third-party-certified program that goes beyond the traditional trade relationship. This means the company does a lot more for the small organic coffee growers:

They purchase coffee from certified organic farms and co-ops only
They pay farmers more than the fair trade base price
They encourage long-term purchasing contracts
They visit Fair to Farmer Direct coffee growing communities at least once every three years; many once a year

But sometimes even that is not enough. While visiting coffee co-ops in northeastern Nicaragua last March, Salt Spring made good on a project that’s been in the works for three years – delivering chippers to help make organic compost from readily available farming waste. Check out the video.

It shows that when you decide to buy Salt Spring Coffee at London Drugs, you’re getting a whole lot more than great tasting cup of java.

February 10th, 2012

Feel the Green Love this Valentines and help give a Million Dollars to Food Banks!

Here’s a heartfelt Valentine’s Day gift that says ‘I want our high-fiber love to live forever!’ And to share the love, for each bag sold, Nature’s Path will donate an equal value, up to $1 million in cash and food, to food banks!
Nature’s Path makes some of the best organic cereals around, and their new line of Love Crunch Granola takes it over the top. Check out these flavours:

Apple Crumble – with tart organic green apple pieces, roasted organic pecans and cinnamon.

Aloha Blend – Toasted coconut, juicy pineapple and white chocolate chunks. It’s like a crunchy pina colada for breakfast!

Dark Chocolate & Red Berries – Chocolate covered strawberries and raspberries! Made with real organic Italian chocolate, organic freeze dried berries and organic flax seeds. Each has at least 14 grams of whole grains per serving and no cholesterol, sodium or trans fat. Crazy love!

Bring a little Love Crunch to your morning. It’s a breakfast romance that you can keep going all year long!

January 26th, 2012

Recycled Batteries – Where do they go?

Modern electronics could not function without batteries, from sophisticated internal rechargeable cells to the single-use batteries in your emergency flashlight. Besides stored electrons, these batteries also contain complex compounds that can be harmful to the environment. Fortunately, many of these materials are also valuable enough to recover for use in remanufacturing.

Both rechargeable and single-use batteries may be dropped off at your local London Drugs through a program operated by Call2Recycle™ – a free battery and cell phone collection program funded by product manufacturers.

So what happens to old batteries once they leave our stores?

Lithium Ion batteries (one of the more common rechargeable types) are sent to Toxco, in Trail, BC. There, they are cooled to -325° F for safe remote-control processing. (Lithium is a very reactive element at normal temperatures, but much safer to handle when it’s almost as cold as outer space) The recovered lithium is converted to lithium carbonate for reuse. Metals recovered from other battery types at Toxco include nickel, iron, cadmium, lead, and cobalt. Plastic casings and other scrap are converted to energy.

Alkaline batteries are recycled at Inmetco, in Pennsylvania, USA, using a High Temperature Metals Recovery Process (HTMR) with other metal bearing materials, for an overall material recovery rate of 83%. Metals recovered include iron, nickel, manganese, copper, and zinc.

Ni-CAD, Ni-MH, Ni-Zn and single-use batteries are also sent to Inmetco. They are one of the only facilities in North America that recycles nickel-cadmium batteries.
Cadmium is recovered in a special furnace, where it is reduced, vaporized and condensed, producing a minimum 99.95% pure cadmium metal. This reclaimed cadmium can then be used in the production of new nickel-cadmium batteries, in the manufacture of corrosion-resistant coatings and to enhance pigmentation.

So don’t throw all that toxic, valuable material in the trash. Recycle your batteries at London Drugs. It’s well worth that little bit of extra energy.

For more information, call 1-888-224-9764 or visit www.call2recycle.ca

January 17th, 2012

Meet the Green Team: Ken Vannucci – Green meets the Real East Vancouver Deal

Walking into the office of Ken Vannucci, the first thing that hits you is the scent of fine coffee, as he fresh-grinds a quick batch before brewing it right at his desk. With 9 brands of Fair Trade and/or organic beans in the London Drugs lineup, it’s just one area where Ken’s green passion and product expertise shine.

“Educated customers want to buy ‘green’ when it comes to food,” Vannucci explains, as he steps up to a shelf merchandising diagram on the wall, “Look, we have Kashi, Nature’s Path, Annie’s Naturals, New World Natural Foods… all right next to the traditional brands. And check out these coffees. Ethical Bean, Commercial Drive and Salt Spring are all roasted right here in the Lower Mainland. You won’t find that at other drug stores.”

Being Merchandise Manager for OTC, Vitamins, Diet and Nutrition, Grocery, Baby and Paper products puts even more on his plate, including herbal and homeopathic products.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a product like Melatonin to help you sleep. But maybe you want to try something like Traditional Medicinals Organic ‘Nighty Night’ Tea first, and see if a more natural remedy works for you. Or try a combination of the two to use less medication. And if you have any questions, our pharmacists are right there to answer them. Basically, our role should be to help people do a little better overall. And if natural and organic is part of that for you, we have options.”

So does buying with all these ‘green’ variables in mind make his job more difficult? Vannucci just smiles.

“Sure, it would be easier to stock only traditional big brands. And we obviously love those brands, too. But I think giving people choices like organic, natural or gluten-free is part of the positive impact the grocery section can have on peoples‘ health.”

If that all sounds a bit green and fuzzy for a mainstream retailer, Ken’s 20 years of East-Vancouver practicality quickly puts it in real terms.

“There’s no question we are here to make a profit, but London Drugs management really supports me in longer-term decisions to do the right thing. The bottom line is, I want to give people a chance to buy better stuff without having to mortgage the house.”

We’ll raise a cup of fair-trade java to that.

For more of Ken’s Real Green Deal realism, you can follow him on twitter @KootenayBorn

January 4th, 2012

Happy Green Year! 10 Sustainable Resolutions for 2012

The tree is at the chipper and the organic eggnog is past its expiry date. So if you are the resolving type, now may be a good time to consider one or two New Years resolutions of the sustainable variety. Here are a few on my list. Because everyone is on their own green journey, I have listed them in ascending order of difficulty. Got any green resolutions of your own? Please comment below and let me know!

Easy as shelling a green bean:

1. Recycle your batteries. Nowadays, all types of batteries can be brought back to your local London Drugs (and many other places as well) with the Call2Recycle program drop-off boxes. I keep a small bag in my kitchen drawer for watch batteries, single-use alkalines and the rechargeables that just won’t recharge any more.

2. Keep track of your mileage. It’s amazing how much difference low tire pressure or a heavy accelerator foot can make to your gas consumption, but you never know until you track it. Note mileage when you fill up and calculate the difference next time you top up. Divide liters into kilometers, move the decimal point a few places over and you get your liters per 100km rating. Example: At last fill, my 2003 Honda Element used 36.07 liters to travel 397 km. 36.07 ÷ 397 = .09 or approximately 9L/100km.

3. Wash your clothes in cold water – Not only is it easier on fabrics, but cold water washing saves energy and money. All it takes is a flick of the switch.

Greener and a little tougher – (more like celery):

4. Take your bike or transit one day a week to work or school. This is a no-brainer if you live downtown, but a lot tougher if you have a rancher in the ‘burbs. Try it anyway, just to see. You may be pleasantly surprised at the fun and exercise, or end up lobbying city hall for better transit service!

5. De-Clutter all of your old electronics and recycle them. From the ancient cell phone in your desk drawer to the old PC in the garage, give up on the idea that you will ever be able to sell them. Take them somewhere you know they will be recycled properly and any leftover data securely destroyed. Like, say, London Drugs.

6. Shop at a farmers market once a month. This is a fun day trip for the family. Take along a little extra cash, because real hand-grown food is generally more expensive than the Food Incorporated variety. But its a great way to remind the kids that food does not grow on shelves.

Deep Hippie Green

7. Know where everything you buy comes from. Read labels. Do some online research on your favourite brands. Do you know where your regular stores’ head offices are? (London Drugs is 100% Canadian owned and headquartered in Richmond, BC) The more you know about global supply chains, the better equipped you will be to vote with your wallet.

8. Buy power bars and really turn off the appliances you aren’t using. ‘Standby Power’, or the small trickle of electricity many appliances use even while in the ‘off’ position, really adds up. (A 1998 study estimated that devices on standby accounted for about 5% of U.S. residential electricity consumption, adding some $3 billion to annual energy costs) Sure, your DVD player will flash 12:00, but do you REALLY need it to tell you the time? Note: Be sure not to disconnect your alarm clock.

9. Commit to using more rechargeable batteries. This is a bit of an expense as you get going, but trust me – you will save money in the long run. And it is quite satisfying to reach for batteries you charged yourself and know that’s one less set of cells that need to be paid for and disposed of.

10. Replace your old major appliances. From the ancient, wheezing, refrigerator to the avocado-coloured washing machine from 1972, to the giant fat-screen TV in the den, old appliances suck. (Water and power that is) Look for the EnerGuide Label and get the most efficient unit that will suit your needs. Like this sweet LCD TV.

Keep on Sustaining!
Most importantly, wherever you are on the great green journey, stay on the course. Every little bit counts, and we are all in this crazy New Year together. That’s the real Green Deal!

December 19th, 2011

The Last-Minute Green Christmas Gift Guide

Well here it is, a week til Christmas, and as usual I’m just getting started. Good thing London Drugs is open late! I found a basket of greener goodies from $3 and up all in one quick visit. Check out the show and let me know what you think!
Happy Holidays from What’s the Green Deal!

November 29th, 2011

The Green Deal Team: Jenny Sine – Green behind the scenes at the London Drugs Warehouse

The London Drugs Distribution Services Center (DSC) is a building big enough to build jet planes in, loaded with all of the merchandise destined for stores throughout the chain. Merchandise Handler and Trainer Jenny Sine confidently leads me through this cavernous world of darting forklifts, towering racks and a million cardboard boxes, to tell a different side of the What’s the Green Deal story.

“I’ve been working here over 10 years,” she tells me, “Things have changed hugely in that time.”

We pass work stations where handlers pick stock orders. Jenny explains that each station has a series of colour-coded containers for recycling common packing materials. “There’s a place for styrofoam, wrap, and even the plastic strapping. The same coloured containers are all through the DSC so people know where to put things.”

“Making recycling easy for people is the key,” she continues, “It has to be almost right where they trip over it.” She should know. Part of Jenny’s role is to send out ‘Green Flash’ emails to the DSC team, keeping the Green Deal front and centre for them on a regular basis.

“I keep those really short and sweet. Just a simple point every time. It’s supposed to be a ‘flash’, after all.”

The recycling doesn’t end in the warehouse itself. Jenny was instrumental in setting up organics collection for composting in the DSC lunchroom, and a prominent posting area for notes and ideas on recycling and sustainability.

When asked about the results, Jenny says there has been a significant reduction in garbage pickups. “It feels good to know the hard work is making an impact.” she says.

So what is on the green horizon for the DSC?

“I would love to have an annual fun event, where we get out of the DSC and volunteer to clean up an area, or adopt a street or something. It would be fun to get everybody competing to see who can pick up the most trash.”
Jenny admits to taking a little ribbing over her role as the ‘DSC Queen of Green’. “I once got asked if we were going to have to wear green spandex outfits.”

Given Jenny’s Green Deal track record so far, the bright orange DSC safety vest seems to be working just fine.

November 25th, 2011

Now available at London Drugs: A Whole Organic Coffee Store.

I love coffee. I love all of its nuances of flavour and aroma, from the subtle Sumatran to the richness of a French Roast, to the sharp kick-start of a well-pulled espresso.

I also know that coffee is a global product, with all the labour, environmental and supply-chain sustainability issues that come with it.

So it makes me doubly happy every time I see the awesome selection of organic and fairly-traded beans available right at my local London Drugs. It’s like having a specialty organic coffee store right there in the aisle. At last visit (in Vancouver) I counted 9 different brands, each offering several varieties. Enough to keep my taste buds awake for years. Best of all, it seems there is almost always at least one brand on sale, at prices that would strike fear into the heart of a Starbucks accountant.

Here are some highlights:

Ethical Bean– Certified organic and Fair Trade. Roasted in East Vancouver by a company that buys direct and even provides programs to help the locals. Check out this GreenDeal video if you want to know more.

Salt Spring Coffee – Certified organic and Direct Fair Trade. Used to be roasted on Salt Spring Island BC, now expanded to the Lower Mainland. Bonus points for being carbon-neutral and Bullfrog-Powered.

Commercial Drive Coffee – A recent addition to the stable. Fairly Traded and Rainforest Alliance Certified.

Kicking Horse Coffee – Roasting in Canada for over 15 years. Certified organic, FairTrade and Kosher, they also support the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Marley Coffee – Started by Bob’s son Rohan, Marley Coffee is certified organic and Fair Trade, with partial proceeds going to youth soccer programs.

Level Ground Trading– Based in Victoria BC. Certified organic and Direct Fair Trade

Doi Chaang – Grown in Thailand, roasted in Canada. Certified organic and Fair Trade.

Pacific Coffee Roasters – Certified organic and Fair Trade. Roasted in Chilliwack.

Resiprocate – A division of Canterbury Coffee, certified organic and Fair Trade. They also give back through partnerships with local causes and organizations.

London Drugs Merchandise Manager Ken Vannucci is largely responsible for this wealth of choice, giving local roasting companies more shelf space than any drug store I know of. So whether you are a coffee connoisseur, a tired green shopper or just a discriminating caffeine addict, take a stroll down the green coffee lane at London Drugs.

It’s the real Green Deal!

November 17th, 2011

How Johnson & Johnson received top-10 status in Newsweek’s Green Rankings for Business

Healthcare giant, Johnson & Johnson, recently was ranked #6 in the US and #26 in the world for their green practices, according to Newsweek’s advisory panel of corporate sustainability experts.

This was the result of some pretty impressive sustainability measurement and improvement for a massive company; they introduced the “Johnson & Johnson Healthy Future 2015” initiative, which lays out its environmental goals for the next few years, reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 23 percent from 1990 to 2010, recently tripled their solar-energy capacity to 13 megawatts and are one of the largest users of solar energy in the U.S. Between 2005-2010, the company also decreased hazardous waste by 25 percent and non-hazardous waste by 12 percent.

Newsweek’s Green Rankings claim to ‘…cut through the green chatter and compare the actual environmental footprints, management (policies, programs, initiatives, controversies), and reporting practices of big companies.’ The overall ‘Green Score’ is derived from three component scores: Environmental Impact, Environmental Management, and an Environmental Disclosure Score. If you want to dig deeper, you can see more on the full Newsweek methodology here.

Of course, no one company is perfect. Even as this news hits the wire, J&J are responding to claims they have not done enough to deal with ingredients of concern in their product line in different countries.

Still, it is encouraging to see large mainstream companies moving toward a more sustainable future, even as we celebrate the new up-and-coming green brands that are evolving.

London Drugs store diverts 89% of waste from landfill with Cascades Recovery, and helps close the recycling loop.

Salt Spring Coffee Really Chips In to Help Their Growers.

Feel the Green Love this Valentines and help give a Million Dollars to Food Banks!

Recycled Batteries – Where do they go?

Meet the Green Team: Ken Vannucci – Green meets the Real East Vancouver Deal

Happy Green Year! 10 Sustainable Resolutions for 2012

The Last-Minute Green Christmas Gift Guide

The Green Deal Team: Jenny Sine – Green behind the scenes at the London Drugs Warehouse

Now available at London Drugs: A Whole Organic Coffee Store.

How Johnson & Johnson received top-10 status in Newsweek’s Green Rankings for Business

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