Clean Up Peterborough founder Steve Paul might always be coming up with new initiatives that promote environmental stewardship, but his latest effort is focused on reusing and repurposing the old.
From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 29 at the Morrow Building, Clean Up Peterborough will be hosting RE:Connect, Peterborough’s inaugural circular economy event, during Circular Economy Month.
Presented with support from the City of Peterborough, Volunteer Peterborough, and kawarthaNOW, the free family-friendly event will give participants the chance to learn practical and innovating ways to reduce waste, repair things they own, and repurpose things they no longer need.
“With only ten years (of capacity) left in our landfills, we have to make some dramatic changes,” says Steve. “So, a lot of what I’m focusing on right now is immediate diversion.”
Though it takes inspiration from Toronto’s REmarket, a community event to promote the remarketing of usable post-consumer goods that can be reused, repaired, and recycled, Steve says RE:Connect is a bit different because it’s more community-driven and focused on initiatives that are already being done locally to divert waste from the landfills.
“I wanted to bring circular economy together with community so that we could educate and celebrate doing more for our environment,” he says. “I came up with a tagline ‘where community and circularity meet’ and I think it’s perfect because it allows us to do both simultaneously and learn from each other, because there’s a lot more we could do in this area. I’ve continued to learn and grow and, as Clean Up Peterborough’s grown over the last 19 months, one thing I pride myself on doing is being able to take what I learn and share it with others.”
Throughout his work for Clean Up Peterborough, Steve has realized that a lot of people are still learning about recycling and what it even means to have a circular economy.
“It makes sense to have a celebration where we can have people bring in items for collection, but at the same time, come in and learn about the various businesses and programs that we have in Peterborough that focus on reusing items or materials for repurpose, so one entity’s waste becomes another one’s resource,” Steve says. “It’s going to be a great opportunity for people to learn all of it under one roof.”
At the event, visitors can drop off a number of items that Clean Up Peterborough collects such as writing instruments, eyeglasses, milk bags and tags, ink cartridges, and batteries. Some of these items will be recycled through TerraCycle while others will be given to community groups to be repurposed. Clean Up Peterborough has also taken over the TerraCycle collections at the Peterborough Public Library to now collect toothbrush tubes, toothbrushes, razors, and other personal care products.
Clean Up Peterborough will also be educating participants on some of the other free recycling programs TerraCycle offers for hard-to-recycle items, such as Angie’s Boom Chicka Pop popcorn bags, Babybel cheese packaging, Burt’s Bees products, and Royal Canin and Open Farm pet food packaging. A full list of items RE:Connect will be collecting will be announced closer to the event date, alongside other resources on brands that divert from the landfill and where these items can be dropped off locally.
“We’re going to educate people that there are amazing organizations like Open Farm,” says Steve, referring to the Toronto-based pet food company that is the first to introduce a nationwide recycling program with TerraCycle for their pet food bags. In addition, some of Open Farm’s pet food bags are also recyclable at curbside.
Over 95 per cent of all pet food bags are considered unrecyclable because they are made up of multiple layers of paper, plastic, and foil that cannot be easily separated by recycling collectors.
“There are companies that care and try to take the time to make their products more recyclable,” says Steve. “What I’ve learned over the last ten months since I’ve been doing the recycling and circular economy initiatives is that we all live in silos, so we don’t tend to have an opportunity to see everything. It’s good to have everything in one area so that we can open everyone’s eyes.”
More than 25 local organizations, services, and changemakers will be in attendance at RE:Connect to showcase practical and creative solutions for reducing waste. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the membership at B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop which provides guidance on bike repairs, as well as Repair Café Peterborough, OPIRG Peterborough’s FreeMarkets, Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawarthas Region’s tool library, Lend-it.ca, and many more initiatives.
The event will also feature vintage makers and artisans who will be selling products that have been crafted from repurposed items and materials.
“It’s going to allow everyone to learn from various organizations about what’s happening locally,” Steve says. “The big thing I really want to come out of this is to showcase all of the people that are circular economy champions and to give the organizations and businesses a platform, showing they are viable and open to everyone.”
Though this is only the first event of its kind, Steve is hopeful RE:Connect will become an annual or semi-annual event and continue to grow as he learns about even more opportunities and solutions to give Peterborough a more sustainable future.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to make more dramatic changes and organically grow and offer even more, because I think there are even more programs out there (like) TerraCycle that we could find,” he says. “I’m excited to find out what more there is out there and bring all of it to Peterborough.”
For more information and updates on the full schedule, visit the RE:Connect Facebook event or join the Clean Up Peterborough Facebook group. To discuss vendor opportunities at RE:Connect, email Steve at cleanuppeterborough@gmail.com.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of Clean Up Peterborough’s RE:Connect event.
