Thursday, July 16, 2009

strike.. ha!! More like craft day extrodinare!

So in case you've stumbled across this blog and you're NOT from Ontario, the Coles Notes version of whats going on in Toronto is... the city is on strike. The parks aren't being mowed, by-law inspectors are down to 20 (managers) for the entire GTA AND... the biggest complaint from residents is that the garbage is not being picked up.

Reports are that, although the strike is a major pain in the butt for everyone, there are some upsides. The clover that is growing is going to seed, which makes it good for the robins. The tall grass is offering protection to some of the smaller preyed upon animals, and the raccoons will MORE then flourish with all the garbage appearing in our parks and back yards.

The thought of the garbage that will be arriving in dumps at the end of the strike, as well as the damage to the "temporary dumping sites" that are usually used as parks for kids to play in hurts my head. Piles and piles of it attracting bugs, mice, rats, then to be cleared away, and having kids play on that grass... wow.

I don't want to be a part of it! I don't want the damage done to our Eco system at the end of this to be on the conscience of me OR my son. So Hayden and I have been trying to think of things we can do that will help. Ways to recycle, ways to reuse, and ways to spend our summer without doing more damage to our planet.

So far we've come up with a bunch of crafty ways to clean up, and most of them have been Hayden's. He got up one day and decided he wanted to make a recycle robot. So he went through our recycling, and a 3 foot tall robot was created. Then he brought it out to play, and the neighbourhood kids wanted one too. So back to the blue bin, and an army of robots are now floating around the neighbourhood.

We had an empty compost bin in the backyard that Shel and I picked up at the last house we had. We hadn't used it, but with the strike going on, what better excuse to get off our butts and get out there. So off we went to the back yard, armed with a week of green bin bags, and sorted through the compostable and non compostable.

Hmmm.. OK.. what to do next? I took a look at our recycling and garbage, to see some of the things we were throwing out the most. At the top of our list were tetra packs (juice boxes), chip bags, pop bottles, and newspapers.

On to the Internet to find some ideas of what to make. So far, on our to do list are... juice box iPhone and iPod holders, chip bag purses change purses and jewelry, a newspaper box to hold the recycled newspaper, and we even made a tote bag out of Bernie's dog food bag. We're still looking for something other then the usual "pop bottle bird feeder" to use our pop bottles for.

Its been fun, giving us craft time together, and hopefully teaching Hayden a good lesson about having fun while recycling.

Stay tuned for pictures of our creations.

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