Category Archives: social enterprise

Toronto 2066: The Future of Waste

Right now, we are facing a decision that will affect Toronto for the next 50 years. How will we deal with the city’s waste?

A future vision of Toronto. Credit: Flickr/Daniel Calero Jimenez 2014

Over the next 6 months, members of the public and city councillors alike will discuss and debate the fate of Toronto’s waste via the proposed Long Term Waste Management Strategy. At ZooShare, we firmly believe that there is no such thing as “waste”, only wasted resources. But how does a city like Toronto implement this philosophy into a 50-year plan?

Here to help kickstart our imagination is a new report by Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), “Zero Waste Toronto: A Vision For Our City“.

A Zero Waste future is “a future where there is no waste, where everything is designed to be reused or to become the materials and resources to create something new”.¹ As you know, at ZooShare we’ll be doing just that. There are other local examples too: Take our former contest partners Furniture Bank and/or Toronto Tool Library (read more about each of us in the report). We are all examples of local businesses participating in the circular economy, “where unwanted materials are not disposed in a landfill or incinerator, but…keep valuable resources circulating in the local economy, supporting good green jobs, benefitting the community and reducing harmful environmental impacts”.²

Credit: Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Toronto A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 7

But Toronto still has a ways to go. According to TEA’s report, a lot less could be going to landfills, especially organic waste (food, plant and yard waste). Despite the Green Bin and Yard Composing programmes, 182,000 tonnes of organics are still put in the garbage and sent to the landfill each year!⁴ This is why waste Education and Effective Communications is one of the priorities outlined in TEA’s report.

Credit: Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Toronto A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 15

Toronto is ready to take the next step towards a zero-waste future. As outlined in TEA’s report: “We have the programs and infrastructure to reduce, reuse and recycle almost all of our waste. We have an excited and robust group of businesses and communities ready to scale up with creative solutions that support a circular economy. Now is the time to continue our zero waste journey.”⁵

Hopefully, in 2066, Torontonians will be living in a zero-waste city. Make it happen. Do your part now.

Credits:

1 Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Strategy A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 03
2 Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Strategy A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 06
3 Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Strategy A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 16
4 Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Strategy A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 18
5 Toronto Environmental Alliance “Zero Waste Strategy A Vision for Our City” 2016 Page 24

Blog: Help to Crowdfund CaribShare

Hello ZooShare supporters,

I would like to share a letter with you from one of our friends, Carol Lue of CaribShare Biogas. Carol is a fellow-entrepreneur and biogas developer, located in Jamaica. Drawing inspiration from ZooShare’s business model, CaribShare will use biogas technology to produce renewable power, reduce poverty and take action on climate change. They have enough funds to cover 85% of the construction costs for their pilot project, but they need your help to raise the last $20,000. If you are inspired by Carol’s work, we urge you to support CaribShare’s crowdfunding campaign. Please read Carol’s letter below to learn more.

Thank you,

Daniel

Support CaribShare Biogas-HD from Carol Lue on Vimeo.

Dear ZooShare members,

Unexpected wins are one of the joys of being an entrepreneur.

I am the Founder and Executive Director of CaribShare Biogas, a social enterprise and registered charity in Jamaica. A few weeks ago, I was honoured to speak at a Virgin Unite event in NYC to celebrate the launch of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (there are 17, covering poverty, inequality and climate change). As CaribShare touches on several of these goals, this was indeed an unexpected win and an amazing highlight to share our story there. I was especially honoured to also share the platform with Sir Richard Branson himself who has inspired me and so many other entrepreneurs to use business as a force for social good. Our mission is to produce clean energy in a way that reduces poverty and allows us to take action on climate change.

In partnership with Ch4 Biogas in Ottawa, we are developing and operating the first biogas plant in Jamaica to generate electricity on a sustained basis. And, drawing inspiration from ZooShare’s business model and developing a partnership with ReGenerate Biogas, we are working with the hotel and small farming communities to deliver biogas solutions to the entire Caribbean region in a socially impactful way.

What We Do

We collect tremendous quantities of food waste from hotels and animal poo/manure from small livestock farms to produce biogas (type of biofuel) and organic fertilizer for sale.

The biogas is sold to businesses that are high energy users so they can self-generate electricity at a significantly lower cost than purchasing from the grid. And, the fertilizer is sold to farmers at a highly discounted rate to help lower their production cost and promote organic farming.

We then share up to 50% of our surplus revenues with our participating farmers as meaningful income to help support their livelihood and the vitality of their communities.

Our Current Project

Construction of our pilot 100 kW biogas plant in Montego Bay will be completed next month. It will process organic waste from the Sandals, RIU, Iberostar, and Half Moon Resorts as well as from 50+ small pig farms in the surrounding areas. The biogas will be used to generate electricity to help power a highly energy intensive sewage treatment facility.

My Path to Launching CaribShare

Bringing CaribShare along over the past 3 years to launching next month has been both extremely rewarding and challenging. Continuous ups and downs and incredible struggles have been faced: raising capital with limited collateral, negotiating the bureaucracy of getting our environmental permit approved, and negotiating both the seen and unseen political and competitive dynamics that come with developing a pioneering venture that is both a waste and energy company are just a few examples.

But despite these challenges, what has kept me going, beyond my confidence in CaribShare’s business model and my own personal resilience, is the clear vision that I have for CaribShare to grow and deliver clean energy in a socially impactful way across the Caribbean.

Growing up in rural Jamaica, I felt so blessed to be close to nature and to have that connection. But, I was also affected by the poverty that was around and the struggles that good hardworking people were facing. I also felt that it didn’t have to be so, and I was determined to help from then.

Fast forward many years later to 2012 after having left Jamaica to study and having worked in business and sustainability for about 15 years in Boston and Toronto, that opportunity arose. Having just been laid off and looking to begin the next chapter in my life, I entered the proposal for CaribShare into the IDEAS Energy Innovation Contest that was being sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank. And, out of 3000 proposals, CaribShare was one of the lucky 8 winners. And, as a result, I gladly moved back to Jamaica.

From the competition, I was awarded a $200K grant which I have been leveraging to raise $600K to launch CaribShare’s pilot thanks to funding assistance from Caricom Energy Program, GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation), and the Development Bank of Jamaica.

The Way Forward

Amazingly, our biogas plant will also be the first in Jamaica to generate electricity on a sustained basis, which is a significant contribution to solving the energy woes of Jamaica and the Caribbean. Plus, we will be diverting immense quantities of organic waste from landfills for clean energy generation and rural development. And, I can clearly see developing up to 6 of these centralized 100kW generating biodigesters in Jamaica before expanding to other Caribbean countries that also have a lot of hotel and farm waste.

But, this excitement to expand comes with sobriety in knowing that I am going against the odds in developing CaribShare from the ground up. Luckily, my supporters have remained committed despite my struggles and lengthy delays in launching the pilot because they too support the vision and see my persistence. And, through divine intervention, somehow I have been brought in touch with persons in crucial moments willing either to offer some meaningful intervention or to be truly collaborative. So, despite the never ending exhaustion that I feel as an entrepreneur, I have a tremendous amount of gratitude, optimism, and certainty in knowing that with the right connections, partnerships, and collaborations CaribShare will be unstoppable in improving people’s lives. And, yes together we can all make the Global Goals come true.

We have launched a crowdfund campaign to raise additional funds to successfully implement our pilot, which can be found here . To support our social impact, contribute to our fund, share our campaign link, and like our facebook page. Thank you for your support, and I would love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Carol Lue

Founder & Executive Director, CaribShare Biogas

Blog: Furniture Bank: Turning Houses into Homes

Spring cleaning? Donate your things to Furniture Bank and stop “waste” from going to landfills while turning someone’s house into a home…

Like ZooShare, part of Furniture Bank’s mission is to divert “waste” from landfills. Since 1998, Furniture Bank has saved over 320,000 tonnes of furniture from being thrown out. Items are given, at little or no cost, to individuals and families in need. So far, 62,000 people have been made to feel more at home.

^{A look at some of the quality items donated to Furniture Bank}

The History of Furniture Bank

Furniture Bank began almost 20 years ago thanks to one woman and her car: Sister Anne Schenck was working at a refugee centre in Scarborough, when she realized that newcomers to Canada “were literally moving into apartments with nothing”. When the Refugee Centre closed in 1994, “I finally had some time to think about how I’d set up what became Furniture Bank,” says Schenck, adding “There was no business plan. I was just doing what I could do and I started talking about my dream.” As word spread, Torontonians who were downsizing or upgrading saw donating to the Furniture Bank as a “natural opportunity to help,” she says.¹ With the help of numerous volunteers, countless hours of pro-bono work and financial donations, small and large, Sister Anne formally incorporated Furniture Bank as a charity in 1998.²

Furniture Bank isn’t simply a warehouse for donated chairs and tables–it is a resource to find the confidence to build a better life. 70+ agencies refer over 5,000 people every year to Furniture Bank. Clients are newcomers to Canada, people transitioning out of homelessness, mothers with children exiting abusive relationships and many others in need.

ZooShare Visits Furniture Bank

ZooShare recently visited Furniture Bank in Etobicoke to learn more about the process: “It was incredible, like walking into an IKEA showroom of quality furniture,” says our Communications Coordinator, Frances Darwin. To learn more, Frances sat down with Noah Kravitz, Community Manager and Fundraising Coordinator at Furniture Bank:

^{ZooShare sat down with Noah Kravitz, Community Manager and Fundraising Coordinator at Furniture Bank.}

“Donations are not limited to furniture,” explains Kravitz. “We also accept artwork, pots and pans, carpets, TVs, computers, printers and small kitchen appliances.” Thinking of getting a new mattress? Even your old bed can be donated. Furniture Bank also works with Sleep Country as part of their Mattress Recycling Programme, receiving 20-25 beds every 2 weeks. Concerned about bed bugs? No need to be. Furniture Bank has a 99.98% prevention rate due to the extreme care of inspection of all donated items (before pick-up, during processing, after processing) and even bring in a special dog once a month to sniff out the little critters, just in case!

^{Furniture Bank also accepts beds, artwork, pots and pans, carpets, TVs, computers, printers and small kitchen appliances.}

Keeping Money in the Bank

How does furniture bank make money? “As a charity, we are grateful for monetary donations, but we also recognized the need to be self-sustainable,” explains Kravitz. For this reason, Furniture Bank launched its Social Enterprise delivery service 10 years ago “which has been the bread and butter since then,” he explains. How does it work? “There is a fee to pick-up your donation, which starts at a competitive ~~$99~~ $150*.” And why would you choose Furniture Bank over other “junk-haulers”? “Because, as a registered charity, Furniture Bank can issue a “donation-in-kind” tax receipt for the value of the donated furniture. When you donate your furniture, you change a life and reduce you tax bill at the same time!

Recycling Materials into Dollars

In addition to donations and revenues from their pick-up service, Furniture Bank is also able to recycle unsuitable furniture and e-waste to earn additional dollars to help their mission. “Where items aren’t in good enough condition to make it into our showroom, we can recycle the raw materials,” says Kravitz. According to the Furniture Bank blog, over 4500 kgs of cloth and fabrics, 2000 kgs of electronics and 50,000 kgs of metal last year.³

Employment Programme

By training and employing youth and newcomers to Canada through a skills training and employment programme, Kravitz says, “Furniture Bank offers employment to individuals facing barriers in our warehouse, call centre, in furniture repair, upholstery and woodworking.” In the near future their employees’ skills will enable Furniture Bank to provide an additional revenue generating arm: a furniture repair service. Are you a carpenter, cabinetmaker, upholsterer or designer? Click here to learn more about how you can help.

Win a $99 $150* furniture pick-ip!

This month, let ZooShare and Furniture Bank help you with your Spring Cleaning. You could win a Furniture Bank pick-up worth ~~$99~~ $150* when you enter our monthly contest. (Please note: There may be additional charges based on the volume of donated goods and the location of the pickup.) To learn more about Furniture Bank’s pickup service, click here.

References:
1. Interview with Sister Anne Schenck by Cam Gordon: http://www.furniturebank.org/discover-sister-anne-started-furniture-bank/
2. http://www.furniturebank.org/us/furniture-bank-story/
3. http://www.furniturebank.org/furniture-donation-recycling/

*pricing updated as of Feb/2021