Have you ever thrown an old battery or an empty hair spray can in the garbage? Maybe you’ve seen a family member pour used car oil down a drain. All of these things are substances called “hazardous waste” and are dangerous to people, animals, and the environment if they end up in our water or a landfill.
When we are finished using these substances they, and other hazardous waste items, need to be disposed of carefully, not just thrown or poured away, so that they don’t hurt people, animals, or the planet.
We all need to think about what we put in our garbage or pour down our drains. If a nasty substance is thrown into the garbage it can escape from the landfill and enter our water or dirt or air, making people, animals, and the environment sick. When a harmful substance gets poured down a sink, it travels with the water to a treatment plant. There, the water is cleaned and put back into the environment. But if there is a nasty substance (hazardous waste) in the water, it can’t be cleaned up this way and there is nowhere else for it to go but back into our water, dirt, or air where we (people and animals) may drink it, eat it, or breathe it. Yuck!
For example, if motor oil ends up in a river or lake instead of being cleaned up properly, it forms a thin layer on the top, making it hard for animals and plants and even insects living in the water to breathe. If oil coats the feathers of waterbirds or the fur of animals that swim in the water, it can make them so sick they die.1 You can see it’s important for all of us to make sure that hazardous waste is looked after properly.
How do we know what is safe to throw away and what is hazardous waste? Examples of hazardous waste are leftover paint, paint thinners, oil, batteries, and some cleaning chemicals. There are other things that we use at home that are nasty if they end up in the environment. Electronic waste, like computers and televisions, is a special kind of hazardous waste. You can read more about it in the “e-waste” link on the Ecoschool website. If you want to see a bigger list of what things in our homes need to be disposed of as hazardous waste, you can look at this website from the City of Winnipeg: http://www.winnipeg.ca/waterandwaste/garbage/hhw.stm.
What about you and hazardous waste? What can one person do? You can start by talking to your teacher, and your family, about ways that your school and your family are making sure that their hazardous waste is disposed of properly. The Government of Manitoba has passed laws to help make sure that hazardous waste is carefully looked after, and in Winnipeg there is a place where people can bring their hazardous waste. But the government depends on each of us to clean up our hazardous waste properly.
Just as important as dropping off our hazardous waste at the right place is making less of it! Sometimes there are easy changes we can make to use nice instead of nasty substances in our houses. For example, environmentally friendly cleaners can be used for cleaning instead of harsher cleaners. This is a change that your school division has decided to make in all of its schools, including yours!
Sustainability + You = Disposing of hazardous waste properly, and making less of it in the first place!
Yes, our students and teachers are making a difference!
Yes, our division is making a difference!
Bulb Eater funded by Green Manitoba
Our Division has acquired a "bulb eater" with funding support provided by Green Manitoba. The bulb eater is just one initiative in a proactive approach to making sure our facilities are meeting the aim of our Sustainable Living program.
The fluorescent light bulb crushing system will keep mercury out of landfills and reduce the school division's overall volume of waste. The machine is one of only a few in Winnipeg and Richard Lyons, Assistant Manager, Facilities and Maintenance, estimates that the machine will crush over 15,000 fluorescent bulbs over the next five years! The bulb eater will break up old fluorescent tubes, filter out the mercury and phosphorus, which will be sent to a hazardous waste facility to be recycled along with the crushed glass. "Our department has been working on a number of environmental solutions for some time now,” says Lyons. “The new bulb eater will make the disposal process of fluorescent bulbs safer and environmentally friendly. It will reduce our storage needs, create a safer, cleaner work environment, and cut overall recycling costs."
In addition, the Facilities and Maintenance Department has tendered its custodial supplies for the next year which will see “certified green” chemicals, compostable or biodegradable materials and recycled content in almost all the supplies used in the schools beginning in the summer of 2009. The custodial department has been using micro fiber technology for some time to improve cleaning methods and reduce the need for chemicals. In addition, Lyons said a test piece of floor was done over the spring break whereby a special coated 3M pad is used on a freshly stripped stone floor (cement, terrazzo, marble) to polish it. This will eliminate the use of wax stripper and floor finish and the associated labour and drying time. No more wax build up, discolouration and scratches. It mechanically seals the floor and people can basically walk around the custodial staff while they are polishing the floor.
The aim of our Sustainable Living program is to further St. James-Assiniboia School Division’s principles and to challenge students and staff to explore activities and learn about conserving resources, protecting the environment and ensuring human health and welfare through education about the consequences of our actions and our responsibilities to each other and to the planet. To learn more about this initiative, please contact Richard Lyons, Assistant Manager, Facilities and Maintenance. (2009)
