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Posted April 27, 2011 "In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again." -David Suzuki The environmental movement at VCC has been almost non-existent over the last decade, except for the hard work of a few people who have invested their own time and resources. The biggest achievement has been to recycle corrugated cardboard, toner cartridges and batteries. This was started by a CUPE member with the support of the Receiving Department but no financial support from the College. I was elected to VCC's Environmental Committee in 2006 as the representative of the Support Staff Union. I discovered that the committee had not met in the previous 30 months. At the same time, the planning for the new building at the Broadway campus was underway - a lost opportunity for the Environmental Committee to have input. The committee was revitalized in 2007 as part of the VCC 2015 Strategic Planning sessions and has been trying to meet regularly since then. This small group has representation from a cross-section of VCC staff, students, faculty and administration, and has been chaired by several different people over the years. We have held two Green 365 Sustainability Fairs and managed to get $50,000 earmarked in the 2009 budget for recycling. A temporary recycling program was started. This has a very limited scope - only deposit beverage containers and mixed paper. After these small moves forward, the work seemed to stall and environmental initiatives seemed to be a low priority for action within VCC. During this time, the Provincial Government has required all public buildings to be carbon neutral, charging a carbon tax to those that are not. This has resulted in VCC paying more than $82,000 dollars in 2010 in carbon taxes, rather than spending that money to work towards becoming carbon neutral. In addition, the Facilities Department continues to see this work as being outside of their scope. This has been a frustrating outcome for years of committee work. I am proposing a grassroots plan of action for recycling at VCC. Recycling should only be one part of a much more comprehensive environmental plan, and so I will continue to represent CUPE on the Environmental Committee for as long as I am elected to do so. However, in discussions with other members, I have heard their frustrations at having limited options for disposal of items that are clearly recyclable in the lower mainland. Many of these items are prohibited from some city garbage collections (numbered plastics) or are toxic when disposed of in landfill (batteries). This plan would rely on CUPE volunteers and would proceed without approval from VCC. Extensive record keeping is built in to the plan so that we can build evidence for the commitment of staff, the feasibility of this kind of program and the potential cost savings for the College, were they to officially implement a comprehensive recycling program. I have received CUPE Executive approval to strike a CUPE 4627 Green Committee, the primary task of which would be to implement the plan. The main backbone of this plan is members identifying key areas that they can help out with, or specific items that are unique perhaps to the area(s) they work in. We never want a member doing more than they (or their boss) is comfortable with. Please contact me if you would like to help out. My local is 7064. Thanks, Daniel Rohloff Vice-President of CUPE Local 4627 & CUPE Rep for VCC's Environmental Sustainability Advisory Group
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CUPE Local 4627
CUPE
Local 4627
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