Environmental initiatives have been drilled into me from a young age. My grandparents used to recycle, reuse and reduce everything! They showed me I didn't need a Swiffer to properly clean the floor, or Fabreeze my make my home 'smell' fresh. I'm really shocked at the number of new products on the market that are popular yet so environmentally irresponsible. So many are one use, and they're in the trash.

My educational background is in Environmental Management. About 15 years ago, I helped plan recycling initiatives for the City of Toronto. The committee I worked with examined initial plans/costs to bring organic recycling to Toronto. Fast forward 15 years and Toronto now has weekly pick-up of organic recycling (called the Green Bin Program read more here), weekly blue box pick-up and remaining garbage gets picked up once every two weeks. The success rate of diverting organic waste from landfill is amazing with the Green Bin program!

We had an Energy Audit completed on our house and are almost finished implementing the energy recommendations. We live in a century old home, so fixing it up to save energy costs and help the environment is a win-win situation. Many of our home renovations were completed using re-used materials from renovation stores and we donated many items back to these stores to continue the cycle.

We will be converting our outside gardens/landscaping using Xeriscaping methods. If you're unfamiliar with this, check out this link: Xeriscaping

At the cottage, we use all natural products, keep the landscape as natural as possible, and will be installing a solar hot water tank.

On a day to day routine in the city, we try to use public transportation whenever possible, we buy things with the least amount of packaging and the least impact on the environment.