| In 1978, when the Bow River was cleaner and traffic flowed more smoothly, Clean Calgary began turning people’s attention toward the city’s potential pollution problems. Today, as cars congest the roads and the safety of drinking water is no longer taken for granted, the non-profit urban environmental group continues to teach people how they can make a difference.
Global warming, urban sprawl and the limited capacity of landfills have created a sense of urgency about the need to reduce our impact on the environment, but getting people to take action is still the main challenge.
Clean Calgary, which marks its 25th anniversary this year, has been leading the revolution from the ground up, educating people on the finer details of how to reduce, reuse, recycle, replace and compost. In recent years, the group has focused on waste management and water conservation, holding paint exchanges, composting workshops and river cleanups, as well as promoting the use of composters and rain barrels. For example, the master composter waste advisor program has educated over 100 people free of charge.
"It’s much more gratifying to become active in your own backyard, rather than expecting change to be made from the government levels," says Christina Nikolic, composting education co-ordinator.
The message appears to be catching on.
"The city is growing, but the amount of waste going to the landfills remains relatively constant," she adds.
In fact, more residential garbage was going into the city’s landfill 15 years ago, says Karen Spelay, spokesperson for the City of Calgary’s waste and recycling services. In 1988, 630,000 people generated 204,000 tonnes of trash for the city’s landfill. In 2002, almost one million people generated 202,000 tonnes of trash.
But Nikolic says there is still a lot more that people need to do for the urban environment. In Calgary, approximately 11 hectares of land are required to sustain each person at the current standard of living, according to the city’s 2002 State of the Environment. The global carrying capacity is 1.8 hectares per person, which means Calgary is using far more than its share – and the more we consume, the more resources are needed to sustain those demands.
"If everybody on earth would consume resources in the same amount that North Americans do, then we would need another four planets to live on," says Nikolic.
That will continue to be the challenge for the next 25 years, as Clean Calgary tries to keep pace with a growing and constantly changing city. The organization plans to become more involved in energy efficiency – as heating bills in Alberta are on the rise, energy conservation is on everyone’s mind. The group already has plans to design a new program that will educate and help people understand how they can use less energy in their homes.
The group has also partnered with the City of Calgary, Sustainable Calgary, Calgary Dollars and the Sierra Club to explore the future possibilities of alternative energies such as solar and wind power.
For more information visit www.cleancalgary.com. |
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