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April 2010 • Volume 2 | Français
Summerhill | Summerhill Impact | Summerhill Foundation | Summerhill Innovation | Summerhill Strategy
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Join us in celebrating the 10th annual Mow Down Pollution program taking place at all Home Depot locations across Canada from Thursday, April 22 to Sunday, May 2.
We are very proud to be running Mow Down Pollution in partnership with the Home Depot Canada for the 10th year in a row. Since the inception of the program, through this partnership, we have taken 34,000 gas powered mowers and trimmers out of commission and had them recycled responsibly. A 2-stroke small engine lacks the processing and filtration systems, and usually requires an oil and gas mixture to power. This ghastly mix is essentially spewed out of the engine in unadulterated concentrations, and can pollute the air in one hour of use with as much emissions as would come from driving a car for 320 km! You can actually taste this while you are mowing your lawn. Gas powered lawn equipment releases about 80,000 tonnes of emissions in Canada every year, and uses about 151 million litres of gasoline. To date, Mow Down Pollution has prevented 1,100 tonnes of smog forming emissions from entering the air, and this year, we are hoping to see this number go up.
The goal for Mow Down Pollution this year is to retire 10,000 pieces of gas powered lawn care equipment, and to encourage the uptake of environmentally preferred alternatives. Between Thursday April 22 and Sunday May 2nd, you can bring your old gas powered mower, string trimmer, hedge trimmer or leaf blower to any Home Depot location across Canada and receive up to a $100 rebate on the purchase of an eco-preferred mower, blower, string trimmer or hedge trimmer.
See www.mowdownpollution.ca for more details!
Summerhill Foundation Chair, Mary Bowyer, presented the Ontario Automotive Recycler's Association with a plaque, thanking them for their $125,000 donation, at the OARA Convention held last month in Toronto.
Is it possible to have a crush on an Association? If it is, it is safe to say that we have one on the Ontario Automotive Recycler's Association; in fact, we have pretty big crush on auto recyclers in general. And not just because of this donation, which will allow Summerhill Foundation to work on a number of very worthy projects, but just because they are really a stand up bunch.
That being said, Summerhill Foundation is thrilled to accept this donation that will be used to support a number of great projects and help with capacity building. Summerhill Foundation will have the opportunity to explore end of life vehicle management and material recovery in the North West Territories, an area that is in desperate need of a strategy and infrastructure to address end of life vehicles and their materials that are currently polluting the fragile Northern ecosystems. Part of the donation will allow Summerhill Foundation to do a sector scan of the Ontario automotive recycling industry. There is also very exciting news: a portion of the donation will be used to support an endowed $40,000 OARA-Summerhill scholarship, for undergraduate students in the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Environmental Studies. We are all very excited! Thank you to OARA for making it all possible!
The Industry Stewardship Plan for mercury-containing thermostats, developed in partnership with the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI) has been approved in Ontario, making it the first industry-led program of its kind in Ontario.
After a lot of hard work, it is now high five time for Summerhill and HRAI. The Industry Stewardship Plan has gotten the thumbs up from Ontario to move forward with an industry-led thermostat collection program. This program is modelled after our highly successful Switch the 'Stat program which works with heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractors to ensure the responsible recovery of older, mercury-containing thermostats. It also creates the opportunity for contractors to promote the installation of more energy efficient programmable thermostats.
Older thermostats can contain up to four mercury filled switches. Each switch contains approximately 2.5 grams of mercury. To put this in perspective, just one gram of mercury is enough to contaminate an eight hectare lake! To date, the Switch the 'Stat program has collected over 29,000 mercury containing thermostats, representing the safe recovery of more than 110 kg of mercury.
The Industry Stewardship Plan allows this work to be more standardized, so that the Switch the 'Stat program can be replicated and rolled out across Canada. The British Columbia thermostat collection program will begin in July 2010, and we will be operational in Manitoba by April 2011. Thanks to the commitment of HRAI we will soon see a harmonized national program that is Industry-led, instead of just Industry-fed.
Check out the Green Living Business Forum this year at the Green Living Show at the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto: Friday, April 23 at 7:30 am. http://www.greenlivingonline.com/torontoshow/forum.html
Look for the Summerhill Booth at the Toronto Green Living Show April 23-25 at the Direct Energy Centre.
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Toronto residents: keep your eyes open this June for THE GREAT EXCHANGE, a program run by Toronto Hydro that will combine Summerhill Impact's Keep Cool Air Conditioner Exchange program with an energy efficient light bulb exchange. Keep an eye out for more details to come!
Best Buy will be collecting e-waste at 3 Vancouver schools on Earth Day, April 22
Bring your e-waste to Square One on April 24th and you can be entered into a draw for a $1,000 Sony gift card
In just two days in two cities, through the sale of low flow and higher efficiency toilets, the Home Depot Canada has helped save over 77 million litres of water annually!
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Over 65,000 older vehicles retired and responsibly recycled representing the prevention over 3,450 tonnes of smog forming emissions.
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Over 10,000 vehicle mercury switches recovered in 2010 so far! In total the program has collected more than 380,000 vehicle mercury switches resulting in 323 kg of mercury diverted from landfill.
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Over 8,300 mercury switches recovered from old thermostats so far in 2010. In total the program has collected more than 44,000 mercury filled thermostat switches resulting in 110 kg of mercury diverted from landfill.
Hey everybody – newsflash: STRAWS SUCK! Next time you are out getting a drink, do yourself and the environment a favour, say no to straws. Just say no! Or no thank you. However you like to roll. Let's just keep them out of landfill.
CONTACT
Ersilia Serafini
Chief Executive Officer, Summerhill
eserafini@summerhillgroup.ca
Summerhill
www.summerhillgroup.ca
(416) 922-9038
1216 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON M4T 1W1
Summerhill | Summerhill Impact | Summerhill Foundation | Summerhill Innovation | Summerhill Strategy