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Adventure Traveler Garry Sowerby in his own words:
Friday, August 27
Markham and Peterborough, Ontario
Environmental Initiative #22
Mission Green meets Mission Green, Markham, Ontario
When we were first trying to come up with a
name for this project, Mission Green seemed a natural. We were
excited about it. We of course had to ‘Google’ it
to make sure that there was no reference to it on the internet.
Imagine our disappointment when we found out that there was a
Mission Green already in existence in Markham, Ontario.
The town was rolling out their 3-Stream waste management program
which was being put into place to help divert an ambitious 70%
waste, the highest in Ontario, from the landfill stream. And they
had called the rollout Mission Green. It was obvious they should
be a stop on our environmental tour.
It so happened that their Mission Green was being implemented
at the same time that our Mission Green would be coming through
Markham.
Part of the 3-Stream initiative is the distribution
of the ‘green
bin’, a large bin where residents collect organics and compostable
material, leave at the curb and have the city collect on a specific
day of the week.
We’ve been doing ‘green bin’ in Halifax for
quite a few years now and it feels like a natural thing for me
(Lisa and the kids have helped me a lot I must admit). The naysayers
have complained that they stink, it attracts bugs and larger foragers,
but by and large, it’s a successful program that seems to
be getting the bugs out! A period of adjustment is quite normal.
When we pulled into Markham to salute their
Mission Green, it was like a family reunion. Our trucks, decaled
with ‘Mission
Green’, fit right in with the ‘Mission Green’ buttons
our hosts were wearing.
It sounds a bit corny but I felt honoured to
be driving the truck that would deliver the first ‘green bins’ in
the Town of Markham. Our mission was to distribute them to a
cozy 487-home community known as Swan Lake. I felt like it was
an historic mission and that I will remember forever, every time
I drive past or through Markham.
My delivery colleagues were as excited as I was. Mayor Don Cousens
and Jim Karygiannis, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of
Transport and I tooled the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid on the loop through
Swan Lake, loaded with our important cargo and made our drop-offs
to the enthusiastic residents.
It was almost like Christmas. You get your big bin, open it up
and inside is a small bin for under the sink, these shiny new presents
delivered to the front door.
I realized that here too, education would play a role in how the
residents would now think about what they were throwing away.
Mission Green salutes Markham’s Mission
Green. Roll out the Green Bin!
http://www.markham.ca/markham/channels/wastemgmt/missiongreen/overview.htm
You are now leaving the mission green website to an external
website.
Environmental Initiative #23
Straw House, Peterborough, Ontario
Our schedule said we would be at Glen Hunter
and Joanne Sokolowski’s
Off Grid Straw House near the town of Bethany at 2:00 PM on Friday.
Precisely at the time we pulled up the long driveway, Mother Nature
decided to give us a little lesson in her off-the-grid power.
Lightning flashed, sheets of rain washed down and teeth-chattering
thunderclaps heralded our arrival at the sleek, über-modern
Hunter/Sokolowski residence.
When we first contacted Glen about being featured
as one of our 85 environmental initiatives across Canada, we
wanted to know how he’d ended up ‘off the grid’.
He’d always wanted to live in a rural setting, he told me.
And when he and his wife, Joanne were ready to break free from
the city, they found a great 100-acre piece of land that hadn’t
had a building on it since before the second World War. As a result,
it didn’t have power lines strung across the road side of
the property. These would have to be installed.
Because of certain environmental restrictions, they could only
build in the middle of the property. That meant that they would
have to run power lines down their driveway, almost a kilometre
long.
Since part of Glen’s dream had been to
live, not only in a rural setting in a straw bale house, but
also off the main power grid, when Glen and Joanne considered
the cost of connecting to the grid, it seemed like an idea whose
time had come.
Six hundred bales of straw and a lot of elbow grease and brain
power later, the house, which uses passive solar energy, is almost
complete. Glen tells us it will be a work in progress for a long
time.
To live off the grid means that the Hunters are not connected
to the electrical grid, water, sewer or gas mains. They create
their own power with solar collectors and a wind generator.
On sunny days the sun provides the primary source of heat, coming
through the walls and heating the concrete floor. On cloudy days,
the radiant- in-floor heating system does the work. The pumps in
this system use electricity so as a backup they hope to add an
efficient wood stove or fireplace insert soon.
Because of the house’s dependence on
the sun, it had to be properly positioned to allow the sun to
heat the house in winter but not in the summer. The architect
had to be very precise about roof overhangs and shading, since
a mistake can result in a house that acts like a sauna in the
summer and a freezer in the winter.
The interior looks like something out of a
slick design magazine. In fact, when the building inspector came
to have a look, he suggested they were building ‘too much house’!
It is open, cheerful and spacious, a home that celebrates the
sun. There is a framed window set into the wall that shows the
humble straw beginnings of the home.
Every aspect of the energy and climate of the
house is recorded and studied in the control room, the ‘brains’ of the
system. When they first started using wind power, Glen tells us
that he became fixated on the wind generator and the level of electricity
it was producing. Glen’s father, Ron Hunter, also on hand
for Mission Green’s visit, felt the same way and would have
to know that information the moment he’d arrive for a visit.
Aspects of everyday life that most of us take for granted are closely
monitored here.
As we were leaving, I thought about how their 10-month-old son,
Gil, would grow up. I guess this is where it all starts, the future
is now. Gil will know this energy-efficient lifestyle as the norm
and will probably wonder what all the fuss is about.
http://www.glenhunter.ca
You are now leaving the mission green website to an external
website.
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