Last year we spoke to Darren Welner—sales and marketing coordinator for Scotia Recycling, the largest recycling business in the province—about a trial project to recycle Tim Hortons cups. As an update to that piece, he reports the Yarmouth trial run had positive results: Cups were successfully processed and their constituent fibres were found to be […]
Carsten Knox
Posted inNews + Opinion
Green is the New Normal
Items like CFL’s were already off the list when we put together last year’s Green Halifax guide. As P’lover’s co-owner Liz Crocker told us: “When we opened, we sold compact fluorescent lightblubs. Now you can get them everywhere.” This year we’re more stringent. There are plenty of practices and behaviors we’ll acknowledge, but aren’t worthy […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Wolfville: the small town example
The first page of the Wolfville municipal website shows the importance the town of a little under 4,000 puts on being ecologically sustainable. Along with the budget planning notifications and community services guide is a column dedicated to green initiatives: A green mobility forum meeting and a town council sustainable community planning task force unveiling […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Living off the grid
Sue and Simon Melrose live in an extremely rural area of Nova Scotia, on a beautiful treed property with waterfront views near Musquodoboit Harbour, some 400 metres from the highway in a 1,500 square feet, one-and-a-half storey Cape Cod. They’re one of the few people in the province not tied into the power network, provided […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax cycling coalition
One of the most prominent pro-cycling organizations in Halifax, the approximately 200 members of the HCC take their two-wheeled transit seriously. Steve Bedard, director of education and advocacy for the group, says the membership even includes people who don’t own bicycles but are “interested in taking steps to ensure Halifax is planned in a more sustainable […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bottled water versus Tap
In an article published in a 2007 issue of the Air Canada in-flight magazine enRoute, their food critics put together a list of positive trends in the food industry. Next to the environmental benefits of blackboard menus, they listed the return of tap water as a great thing, saving them from having to spend money […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Eco-grants
The ecoENERGY Retrofit Program Natural Resources Canada offers a residential energy efficiency assessment service for homes. Owners can qualify for federal grants by improving the energy efficiency of their homes. The maximum grant is $5,000. For more information, visit: oee.nrcan.gc.ca. The provincial arm of the program, the EnerGuide for New Houses and EnerGuide for Homes, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
100 Mile Diet
It started only 5 years ago, with a couple in Vancouver. Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, who, discovering that the average North American eats food with ingredients that have travelled at least 1,500 miles (2,414 km.), set out to spend a year only eating food that came from within 100 miles of where they live. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Green Guide 2009
What has changed since last year? That was the main question when we began planning this second edition of Green Halifax, a guide to sustainable and environmental living. The answer: lots. We’re in a recession. The good work local businesses are doing to exercise their ecological conscience is now so much harder. But the need […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to get sustainable seafood
In a feature called “The catch” in The Coast’s February 26 issue, news editor Tim Bousquet explained why it’s so very difficult to get sustainably caught seafood here in Halifax. The expression “sustainable seafood” is itself fraught with problems. There isn’t enough of a demand for it, as there is in the organic produce and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Elegy
Penélope Cruz is Consuela, a Cuban-American student in New York, bangs framing her face with a deceptive innocence. Ben Kingsley is Kepesh: narrator, writer and Consula’s English lit prof, 30-plus years her senior. While fretting about his age and virility he seduces her, becoming obsessed by, and possessive of, her beauty and body. As his […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Local and environmental cookbooks
The Trout Point Lodge Cookbook by Daniel Abel, Charles Leary, and Vaughn Perret(Random House) Offering dishes with New Orleans Cajun flavour, tracing them to original Acadian recipes in Atlantic Canada. Eating By The Seasonsby The Food Action Committee of the Ecology Action Centre A collection of 160 recipes featuring largely Nova Scotia-grown food, with a […]