Community Action!

Since our cross Canada tour this summer, we've had amazing feedback from folks who saw the film and felt inspired to take individual action! I can't tell you how happy it makes us to recieve these types of emails, and we wanted to share a few stories with you.

1) Sarah Ford, Laurie Westaway, and 4 other staff from the County of Peterborough Environmental Services Division started their own zero waste competition as an office challenge.

"we decided to try our own (less intensive - but still challenging) version of the Clean Bin Project.  Six staff members have undertaken a two month challenge (October and November) at home and work in an effort to be as "zero-waste" as possible."

They measured their waste and even graphed it out on a blog at http://environmentalserviceszerowasteproject.wordpress.com/ Check it out!

2) A group of people from Kimberley, BC started The Clean Bin Project Kimberley. At last report, they were having monthly meetings to encourage each other to reduce their landfill waste. It's this kind of community support that keeps people going over the long haul!

3) Yasmin from Peterborough contacted us the day after she saw the film and said:

We "began our one year trial TODAY. . .I am sure it will be fun with two teenagers and a husband who loves electronics. Even our dog tequila has a bin!!"

I may have convinced her to blog about her experiences, so stay tuned.

Many other individuals have contacted us to share their stories of reducing waste, and we hope to feature these from time to time here on the film website. It's so amazing to see people jumping on board with waste reduction! Keep it up!

Vancouver Island Mini Tour

I'll let the phots speak for themselves on this one. (You can check out more here)

All I can say is if you have never been to the gulf islands you are missing out. We ended up hitting Mayne Island during a craft fair tour, so I was in my element. A whirl wind island/recycling center tour, a great lunch, a cozy dinner, a packed house and a lovely stay at a local farm made for a perfect weekend.

Thanks to Ann who is an impassioned environmental advocate, zero waster, and all round go getter, and who saw us at the RCBC conference way back when and insited we come for a visit. Thanks also to Helen and John for sharing their beautiful farm with us.

From Mayne we went to Nanaimo where Grant grew up. His parents had been working tirelessly to coordinate a screening sposored by the Regional District of Nanaimo and Vancouver Island's Office of Sustainability. Lot's of people in the audience knew Grant from his "throw the McDonalds out the car window" days, so I think they were pretty surprised by the changes he has made. Thanks to Linda, Margot, Michelle, Sharon, Mick, and Sue. You guys are great!

Our final stop was in Victoria. Open Cinema organized the standing room only show. They follow their films with a discussion panel, so Grant and I got to sit along Monique from the Regional District and Jason from Refuse (check them out - they are doing some great recycling/compisting stuff). It was fun and kind of refreshing to let someone else lead the questions for a change, and it was really helpful to have have local experts on hand that can speak to what is happening in Victoria right now.

Once again, there was a team of awesome people who made this screening happen. Mandy, Denise, Monique, and Jason: thank you for inviting us and doing so much planning towards and successful event!

We just have one more screening before we take a little winter break (we need to hunker down and get this darn DVD finished). You can catch us on Bowen Island on Sat, Nov 27 at 7:30pm. See you there!

Sold Out in Vancouver Again!

Thanks to everyone who made our second Vancouver screening a success!

Metro Vancouver provided the venue and helped us with promotions. Recycling Alternative brought recycling bins so people could drop off their batteries, styrofoam, and unnumbered plastics for proper recycling. And all the enthusiastic folks who saw us the first time around obviously told their friends to come, because the place was packed!

We had some pretty sweet door prizes from MEC, Innate, and Moukisac, and CBC even came down to film a bit during our Q & A at the gorgeous SFU Woodward's theatre downtown. Brian Burke, Peter Cech, and Greg Moore, who are all in the film were in attendance, so it was pretty special to share the film with them.

At least 4 teachers came up afterwards interested in school versions of the film (we're slowly working on it), and the environmental group from Cleveland Elementary school called Kids Gone Wild were actually in the audience. They do all kinds of great eco things like going for hikes, doing beach clean ups, and organizing waste free lunch day at their school. I hope other 5-7th graders are inspired by kids like this and start taking some action in their own schools!