Our newsletter is also available on our website in English and French

September 2007
Back to life, back to reality!

Message to Members

Due to technical difficulties we were not able to send our July/August newsletter via email. You may now read it, including a story about collective organic gardening by Anna Lee-Popham, on our website by following this link

We welcome you back to school, back to work, and back to La Maison Verte after your summer vacations! The store is in full swing, and we've got plenty of ecological school and office supplies for you, including 100% recycled printer paper, notebooks, agendas, binders, biodegradable pens and more!

Also Stop by La Maison Verte every Thursday afternoon from 3-7 p.m. to visit Ferme du Zephyr's Summer Organic Veggie Market, offering organic seasonal veggies and other products for sale all summer long! Enjoy the harvest.

This week in Eco Logic, our online blog, you can read the conclusion to Vero's bike adventure from Montreal to Cape Cod, and Roger's look at greener conferences. We are currently expanding our Eco Logic team. If you have experience in environment, community, social justice, education or the arts, and would like to contribute environmentally-focused blogs to our website, please email Aimée at newsletter@cooplamaisonverte.com for more information.

Finally, some of you may have heard that North America's heads of state (Bush, Harper and Calderon) met in Montebello, QC in August to discuss the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). This agreement has been criticized for its potential threats to our country's resources and social programs, and due to lack of public consultation and secrecy. Please visit our website for links to more information.

Thanks to: Gilles Rondeau, Johanne Deshaies - Translation; Johanne Bouthillier - Revision

September Member Specials

When you switch to our 100% post-consumer recycled paper, not a single tree gets cut down. On average, 17 mature trees are saved for 48 boxes of letter size paper, 80% less water than the industry average is used, and the paper is whitened without chlorine! During September, members will receive 15% off when buying a 10-pack box of Rolland New Life DP100 printer paper!

Events

Members' Corner (continued from above)

At first sight, the TOHU, whose name is inspired by the French word tohu-bohu, which means the effervescence of city life, stands out as an intriguing city indeed. It is home to the Cirque du Soleil's international headquarters, and Canada's first permanent circular performance hall. This unique building catches the eye from afar, but once you walk in, you quickly realize that the Cité des Arts du Cirque's creative design plan goes much further than a fun circus act. Their stairs are built with an old La Ronde bumper car ride, the geo-thermal air-cooling system can be examined through a transparent floor, and the roofs are lush with oxygen-producing greenery. But that was just the start of the tour.

Just across the road is the Centre de récupération des matières recyclables (Recycling Center). Have you ever wondered where your milk carton ends up after the recycling bin? Search no further. Here, more than 85 000 tons of paper, glass, plastic, and metal are sorted and packaged every year. It's actually quite startling to see all the bottles and newspapers being sorted by human hands.

We continued our tour around the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex, which consists of an old landfill where more than 36 million tons of waste was dumped between the 1960s and the mid 1980s. Now the vast 192-hectare territory is being transformed into an urban park.

To do so, hundreds of pipes run through 80 meters of disintegrating waste to capture the biogas and the leachate that is produced when rain water percolates through the trash, a liquid that could rapidly contaminate fresh groundwater. The biogas is dealt with by Gazmont, who directs it to their power plant to generate electricity - which self-sufficiently supplied the neighborhood with essential electricity during the 1998 ice storm! As for the highly toxic leachate, it's filtered to a "safe" degree and dumped back in the sewers. (I write "safe" with caution, because there's apparently still some toxins left in the water when it is rejected from the plant...). Finally, dry waste and compost is piled up to build a safe and sanitary base for the park, which should open as soon as 2020. It's an amazing transformation!

By the end of the tour I had mixed feelings. While the use of green building materials and revitalization of an old dump was inspiring, I was questioning the "greenness" of the system itself. My fellow touring friends brought up the fact that much of our recycled materials are sold to foreign countries like China so they can make items for North American consumers. That's a lot of transportation. I also learned that some of the waste isn't recycled, including any wet paper. And the wasteland in which those workers sort our junk all day long isn't pretty.

There's no question that recycled materials are better than virgin paper, plastic, or glass, but the tour was also a good reminder that reducing our consumption of packaged materials may be the best way to deal with this type of waste.

There are definitely a lot of things to learn at the TOHU. If I've stroked your curiosity, good news: you can go see it for yourselves! Tuesday October 23rd a bus will pick us up at the Co-op at 1pm for a free afternoon tour of the TOHU, and will drop us off by 4pm. The tour will be bilingual, and children are welcome. Please phone to reserve a spot!

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Members' Corner is a place for members to write or suggest articles about environment or community-related subjects of all kinds. Email your ideas to newsletter@cooplamaisonverte.com

5785, Sherbrooke street West, Metro Vendome + bus #105 - call us! 514-489-8000