Reflecting on EnviroWeek 2018

Posted on June 9, 2018

Canadian Environment Week is coming to an end, and we hope you found a way to engage with our environment in some way throughout the week. We’d like to take this opportunity to give you a last few things to think about.

First of all, yesterday was World Oceans Day, and we think it’s important to remember how the oceans affect us even here in Alberta. Despite being landlocked, Alberta’s waterways are not limited to Alberta alone. Our waters flow into and out of the province to our neighbours and eventually to the ocean. That’s why it’s our responsibility to treat the water in our home with respect. Now, you might be saying to yourself that you do respect our waterways, and that’s a great thing! But part of respecting water is understanding there are many things that affect our water:

• Single-use plastics take a lot of water to make, and choke our waterways. Even with our best intentions, plastics can get away from us. The next time you’re walking through a park or on a sidewalk and see a piece of single-use plastic on the grass, that plastic is breaking down there: it’s leeching chemicals into the ground, which will find their way into the groundwater!
• Meat production also takes a lot of water, and creates waste that can find its way into our waterways. One of the issues with meat production, and dairy, too, is just how much of it there is! Cutting down even a little on your consumption of animal products makes a huge difference. Cows in particular make a lot of waste, which our animal farmers do their best to keep from contaminating water, but there’s a lot to deal with. The Netherlands is in a cow waste crisis, and we don’t want to follow along!

The second thing we want you to think about is how you get to work. With the Commuter Challenge ending today, we want everyone to think about this past week. Where were you working? How did you get there? Were there any alternative forms of transport to get there? We often drive in Calgary because of the size of the city and the convenience, but with some forethought and planning, transit, biking, and carpooling, just to name a few, can all help cut down your time in the car by a lot! Also, there’s still time to register your commutes from this past week at the Commuter Challenge website.

We hope that these few ideas help you reflect on Canadian Environment Week and what you could do to help protect our environment. We call attention to it this week, but every week is really Canadian Environment Week when you’re living in Canada! You can see some of what happened this week in Canada by checking the hashtags #EnviroWeek and #EnviroWeek2018 on social media.

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