This April, let's choose to reuse

Whistler’s Climate Action BIG MOVES Strategy identifies the six most impactful action areas we need to focus on as a community to reduce emissions and make Whistler a more climate resilient community. You have a role to play! The RMOW, in partnership with Whistler’s environmental charity AWARE, has created Small Steps for BIG MOVES: 12 months of climate actions we can each take to support Whistler’s six BIG MOVES.

TAKE ACTION! This April, let’s:

Choose to reuse

Reducing our consumption puts us well on the path to BIG MOVE #6: Close the loop and shift toward lower carbon consumption.

From big brands to individual actions, the world is waking up to the damaging effects of single use items and working to reduce the amount of disposable items in our waste systems. Reducing and re-using is a grassroots call to action that stands the test of time and is more needed than ever.

From asking for that to-go meal in your reusable container to the travel mug from your favourite coffee shop, making choices to use and re-use what we already have in our day to day lives is a shift that designs out waste before we have to think about landfill.

Ready to take action? Let’s try one (or some) of these Small Steps for BIG MOVES:

1. Bring your own reusable mugs, grocery bags, cutlery and containers.

Keep these items close at hand for regular use.

Get more tips:

From AWARE on Plastic Free Living
From the Plastic Action Centre on How to Have a Plastic Free Summer

2. Adopt litterless lunches.

If you're buying your lunch out, sit to enjoy your meal at the restaurant. If it’s a quick to-go, ask them to put the meal in your clean reusable container and bring your own reusable utensils.

3. Purchase bulk and take snacks with you on-the-go.

Filling your pantry with reusable containers keeps things organized and helps avoid food waste. Bulk snacks can be easily portioned into reusable containers or bags to take with you on outings, road trips, or to work and school.

4. Rethink Easter candy: skip wasteful wrapping and opt for local.

Build a tradition by reusing decorations and baskets year after year, and buying local candy!

5. Join Whistler’s annual community clean up Pitch In Day.

As the snow melts each spring, we often see the result of what happens when we choose not to reuse as snow piles give way to litter piles. So each year community members come together to pitch in and clean it up together in support of local charities.

FInd Pitch In Day in the Events Calendar

What We Heard ~ Stories Shared

Thank you for sharing your stories!

Check out these small steps for BIG MOVES that some of our community members have taken:

Cheeying's family uses reusable containers, bags and wraps of all kinds. They do use some plastic ziplock bags but mostly compostable ones that they wash out and re-use over and over - otherwise they use beeswax wraps and containers. They don't use bags for produce or fruit at the grocery store, they just pack them loose. They purchase their cleaning supplies from a local refillery, which provides everything in re-usable mason jars that they collect and re-use. These small choices make a big difference in waste reduction!
Lauren loves to upcycle old items from the reuse it centre into art - for example, she used an unfixable skateboard as a canvas... so cool!

We invite you to share your stories about your small steps for BIG MOVES every month. There's a chance to win some great prizes if you submit a story! Have a look at our May theme: whistler.ca/GoByBike.

Check Out These Quick Facts For Why We Should Reconsider Our Wasteful Ways:

1. Canadians toss 1.6 billion coffee cups per year into the garbage.

It takes nearly 650,000 trees and 400 million gallons of water to meet Canada’s annual coffee cup consumption.
In Whistler, over 8,000 coffee cups end up in central Village waste bins per week.

2. About 2.8 million tonnes of plastic waste ends up in Canadian landfills every year. That’s the weight of 24 CN towers.

In Whistler, we’re targeting early 2023 for a potential ban on plastic bags and other plastic items. As well, the Canadian government is targeting zero plastic waste by 2030. These are big steps to reducing our collective plastic consumption.

3. Canadians use almost 15 billion plastic bags every year and close to 57 million straws every day.

More than one-third of our plastics are created for single-use. Unfortunately, many of these single use items go unrecycled and the vast majority of them end up in our landfills, oceans, lakes, and rivers. Changing habits around easy to replace items like bags and straws are often the first steps in rethinking our relationship with other single-use items.

4. Single-use bags, plastic bottles, food containers and food wrappers are the four top items polluting the world's oceans.

Approximately 80 per cent of plastic that ends up in the ocean comes from land-based sources. Other common plastic polluters are disposable toiletries, bin liners, straws and cups.

5. There are water bottle fill stations located throughout Whistler.