Up in Northern Ontario here, it’s quite cold today so I’m going to make one of my most grandparent-impressing soups. I don’t know about your grandparents, but mine are all about root vegetables.

This warming and tangy soup has a really pretty muted-orange glow, and has just a touch of spice. I’m a big fan of lively soup! Be sure to try this recipe with organic carrots, potatoes, onions and celery, as their flavor is so much better than those grown on industrial farms.

Organic root vegetables like these are considered seasonal no matter where you live, and are found easily in health food stores and plenty of grocery stores, too. Choosing organic oranges is especially important when you make an orange zest, so as not to ingest the surface pesticides found on industrially-grown orange skin. Nothing good about pesticide soup, folks!

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Well, folks, I’m on vacation!

Yesterday was spent traveling (for many, many hours) from here to here — to visit my grandparents and other members of my dad’s side of the family in Haileybury, Ontario. Let me tell you, the scenery here is breathtaking.

Today I’m going hiking at Devil’s Rock Trail (see photo). Devil’s Rock is a granite escarpment dated to be 2,200 million years old! It’s face is 600 feet, rising 300 feet above Lake Temiskaming.

Apparently this beautiful cliff has some terrible scars from the early 20th century when minning tunnels were blasted into the sides of the cliff during the silver rush era. Since then the rock has been preserved as a historical landmark and is a popular site for tourists, rock climbers, and… Hardy Boys enthusiasts!

Though it’s not an especially eco point of interest, I’d definitely say it’s a point of interest: Leslie McFarlane, who was a Canadian journalist and ghostwriter for many of the Hardy Boys books under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon — was born and raised in this small town. The Devil’s Rock is featured in many of the Hardy Boys books. Maybe that’s what it takes to keep this beautiful landmark standing.

I’ll report back later with some on-the-spot pictures of the Devil’s Rock and its plant and wildlife from up close and personal!

After writing up yesterday’s Stewardship Ontario post, I did a bit more digging and found that there’s more to know!

As an enhancement to the Stewardship Ontario program, many cities around Ontario have signed up to the Take It Back! Directory — a handy source of information for residents looking to get rid of unwanted items.

The directory connects Ottawa residents to local businesses and organizations that reuse, recycle, or safely dispose of the unwanted material. Almost 600 partner retailers are now accepting 130 different household waste products that don’t belong in the Blue or Black recycling boxes. Take it Back! partners divert household waste from going to landfill each year. That’s the equivalent weight of almost 300 mid-sized cars.

“Take it Back! retailers and charitable organizations each year stop over 500 tonnes of material from going to our municipal landfill through their take back efforts. The Take it Back! initiatives of local businesses and charities within my Ward and across the City are saving landfill space through their combined environmental efforts” – Councillor Georges Bédard.

On the Take It Back list of drop off locations for the Ottawa area are these phenomenal eco-friendly places looking to help out. Here are some of my personal favourites:

Topia Greenstop (1621 Woodward Dr.) – Here you can drop off all kinds of things like rechargeable batteries and appliances. Give them a call today and find out where and when to drop off your not-quite-garbage. (1-613-722-0660)

Twenty-Twelve Electronics Recycling (14 Bexley Place) – Owner Nancy Coulter took back 12 tons of e-waste in 2006! Call ahead though, and let them know you’re bringing things to them so they can make room! (1-613-596-031)

For further help with the Take It Back program, check out the City’s website here!

In my usual news forums this morning, I ran into someone talking about Stewardship Ontario (which I initially thought was a town in Ontario that I’d never heard of, to be honest).

But it turns out that Stewardship Ontario is something even more interesting than that: it is Ontario’s first Industry Funding Organization (IFO). Here’s how they describe themselves:

It was created in 2002, in response to Sections 23 and 24 of the Waste Diversion Act, 2002 under which the Minister of the Environment is authorized to require Waste Diversion Ontario to develop a waste diversion program for a “designated waste” in conjunction with an Industry Funding Organization (IFO).

What does that mean in English?

Stewardship Ontario is an industry organization that operates two programs, one for Blue Box materials and the other for Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste (MHSW). They operate these programs on behalf of Waste Diversion Ontario, an agency created by the provincial government to oversee a range of waste diversion programs, authorized under the Waste Diversion Act, 2002.

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Today is a holiday here in Canada (hrmm only in parts of Canada, it seems) Ontario? Err well sort of — apparently most of Ontario celebrates it as various things including Simcoe Day in Toronto, James Cockburn Day in Cobourg, and Peter Robinson Day in Peterborough… Okay, well then what about Ottawa? Bingo! While it’s celebrated for various reasons all over Canada, here in Ottawa I’ve just discovered that it is Colonel By Day.

Lieutenant-Colonel John By (1779 – 1836) was an English military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and, in the process, founding what would become the city of Ottawa.

So now you know! I will be returning regular posting as of tomorrow, but for today my eco-friends, you should know that while most shopping centers and grocery stores are open for holiday business, recycling and garbage will be post-poned today for the holiday, as usual, and will return tomorrow but will be delayed by a day for the rest of the week.

So get out there and enjoy the holiday! But be sure to put out your garbage on the right day

I’ve been living in Ottawa for nearly 9 years now.

I grew up in a very small farming town about an hour and a bit outside of Ottawa, along the St. Lawrence River. The population there, according to the Welcome sign, is 1000 people. As plenty of country folk do, we burned a lot of our paper garbage. My mom loves fire, so really we burnt anything that would burn and not smell terrible — in hindsight, I suppose that’s not a good idea. We had a recycling bin — a blue box — but only one: For cans and bottles and nothing else. We didn’t have a compost heap, despite having the perfect area for one, because it wasn’t something that occurred to us.

Moving to Ottawa, I figured I’d see a system that was much more advanced and efficient than ours was back home.  Looking at some of the statistics from the City of Ottawa website, it’s easy to see that while there are plenty of areas that could be improved upon, but Ottawa’s got some game plans! Check out these recyling stats for Ottawa:

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As many of you know by now, I’m located in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada).

As promised last week, I will be focusing on my home town this week – Ottawa facts, businesses, and the eco-scene in general in the nation’s capital.

I got tonnes of responses to my call for members of the Ottawa eco-scene to spotlight right here on BambiGoesGreen this week and I’m excited to talk about them — Go Ottawa! And it’s not too late either — if you’d like to be featured this week, shoot me some information to: bambi(at)bambigoesgreen.com and we’ll chat! I look forward to hearing from more of you!

So, without further ado — let Day 1 begin!

What are you waiting for!

As I said in my post earlier this week, I’ll be focusing entirely on Ottawa next week on BambiGoesGreen and I’d love to spotlight you and your business!

I’ve heard from a few businesses that I’m excited to learn more about and feature, but I haven’t heard from YOU yet. Yes you!

As always, you can contact me via the comments section of any post or at: bambi (at) bambigoesgreen.com

I am really looking forward to hearing about all of your local green initiatives and projects, so please do get in touch with me.

I thought that with all this talk of the garbage strike in Toronto, I could write about the Green Lane landfill which is owned by the city of Toronto.

The Green Lane landfill is a landfill near London, Ontario in Canada. It is, as I just mentioned, owned by the City of Toronto.

It operates a leachate collection system and an on-site leachate treatment plant. Green Lane also has an extensive landfill gas collection system. This gas is roughly 50 per cent methane and 50 per cent carbon dioxide, along with traces of other gases. Currently the gas is collected and directed to the flaring system that allows for release into the air.

History and politics

As the city’s last remaining landfill site, Keele Valley, neared capacity during the 1990s, it was found that no other municipality in Southern Ontario was willing to accept the garbage, but there was also no political support for a change to incineration. A deal was eventually made to ship Toronto’s garbage to the Adams Mine, an abandoned open pit mine in Northern Ontario, once the Keele Valley site closed. But objections grew into vociferous controversy as the time neared, and eventually the agreement was canceled.

By the time the Keele Valley site closed at the end of 2002, the city had made a new deal: its garbage is now shipped by truck to a site in Michigan.

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Recently I tried out Green Beaver’s “Rejuvenating Cranberry Shampoo and Conditioner for dry, damaged or colour-treated hair” (two separate bottles, to be clear). Picked these up from Topia Greenstop (Clyde and Woodward) right here in Ottawa, Ontario. These products are 100% natural, biodegradable, vegan and gluten-free. They do not contain: Paraben or hydantoin preservatives, sulfate detergents, artificial aromas, fragrances or dyes, phthalates, quaternium, EDTA, propylene glycol or petrolatum. All kinds of awesome, especially considering my hair colour.

I dye my hair regularly. But I don’t use just any hair dye — my hair, as many of you have noted — is quite a bright, fluorescent, unnatural red. Most over-the-counter pharmacy/grocery store shampoos and conditioners cause my hair colour to bleed out significantly. Because of this I usually limit myself to one good shampoo/conditioning per week. This plan works well, but isn’t ideal as by the end of the week my hair is getting oily enough that I can’t wear it the ways I would like to because it’s heavy and unmanageable.

I gave Green Beaver a shot because I figured that maybe, just maybe, the chemicals in ‘normal’ shampoo/conditioner are what strips the colour from my hair.

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