GREENING UP

Greening

ofCANADIAN LIVING

Fostering strong community bonds can help us care for the environment. Here’s how.

BY JILL BUCHNER ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUSTINE WONG

of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but can you name people who live down the street? And do you know who grew the vegetables on your plate? Those face-to-face connections, commonplace 100 years ago, are important to sustaining and caring for the world around us. “Throughout history, the way that we were able to get our goods and services was through relationships,” explains Severn Cullis-Suzuki. “Now, with the explosion of the globalized economy, we’ve replaced relationships with economic interactions.”

When our food comes from across the ocean, we don’t think to ask how its production has impacted the land, the water or the people who live there. That disconnect allows for injustices to go unnoticed and our planet to go unprotected. “We live in a way that doesn’t allow us to see our exquisite dependence on nature for our health and well-being,” says Cullis-Suzuki’s father, David Suzuki.

Community building, suggest David and Severn, is part of the solution to environmental degradation, whether you live in a small town or a big city. And guess what? Strengthening community ties can be fun, says Lindsay Coulter, the David Suzuki Foundation’s Queen of Green. Here are some tips for creating stronger, greener neighbourhoods.

Host a repair café We often rely a bit too much on the third R: recycle. A repair café refocuses our attention to reusing and refurbishing household items, and it allows participants to learn basic repair skills. Enlist the help of some tech wizards and handy people in the community, then put ads in the local newspaper or spread the word through Facebook. “Fixers can repair computers, toasters, lamps, chairs, clothes, jewellery, books and more,” says Coulter. “It’s one way neighbours can help neighbours keep things out of the landfill and shift us from a throwaway to a fix-it society.”

Get involved at your child’s school “Engaging with your school as a unit of community is pretty powerful,” says Severn. Her own mother started a greening committee at Severn’s elementary school, which, at the time, featured a concrete yard. With the committee, she started a butterfly garden and got the kids to help with planting. Now, Severn is on the parent advisory committee of her child’s school, where she can work with teachers and other parents to help make the school better. Host a clothing swap Gather your neighbours, coworkers and friends to trade their gently used clothes with someone else’s for a wardrobe refresh. A swap is a great way to pass along kids’ items, and anything that’s left over can be donated to charity. “It’s a simple way to keep textile waste out of the landfill and to fashionably embrace ‘reduce, reuse and recycle,’ ” says Coulter.

“We live in a way that doesn’t allow us to see our exquisite dependence on nature for our health and well-being.” — DAVID SUZUKI

Get groceries straight from the farm Sign up for community-supported agriculture (CSA), in which you invest money in a farm. As a kind of shareholder, you reap rewards when the farm succeeds and you get fresh produce each week. Just search online for a CSA in your area. Online directories such as csafarms.ca (Ontario), acornorganic.org (Atlantic Canada) and csamanitoba.org (Manitoba) help you find a farm near you. Taking this easy step will “get you one step closer to the farmer who grows your food,” says Coulter. You’ll not only help support local farmers but also gain a greater connection to your food. Plan an outdoor project There are all kinds of ways to clean up your community. Coulter suggests taking advantage of organizations that help you create your own local program; for example, registering for the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (shorelinecleanup.ca) or with Nature Watch (naturewatch.ca), an organization that gets everyday Canadians involved in environmental study by gathering local data for scientific research. “Listen for frog calls, record flowering time and monitor worms to help foster understanding of global warming,” says Coulter.

GREEN COACHING Paying It Forward

In 2011, Melanie Smith won a green-living makeover from Canadian Living. As Melanie’s prize, Lindsay Coulter, the David Suzuki Foundation’s Queen of Green, visited her St. Albert, Alta., home, where Coulter helped her and her family reevaluate their cleaning supplies, cosmetics, food preparation and energy usage from an environmentally conscious perspective. “Small changes to everyday things had a big impact,” says Melanie. “It changed our lives.”

The experience was so positive that Coulter decided to offer green coaching to more families across Canada by training everyday Canadians to be coaches who, in turn, offer their neighbours lessons. Melanie became one of those coaches. “There’s a stigma that green living takes a lot of time and money, but if I can do it, anybody can,” she says. “We didn’t have a lot of time to spend; we didn’t have extra money for solar panels or electric vehicles. But with a bit of education, it’s easy.” The program has reached 250 families across Canada so far. Interested in joining? Sign up for the Queen of Green newsletter at davidsuzuki.org.

CANADIAN LIVING COOKS WITH KRAFT

Your Bite, Your Way!

“It’s tough to watch my youngest get left out of his older brother’s bigkid activities, so we make this special treat together. I like to add sunfl ower seeds and dried blueberries; the chocolate chips are for Liam.” – JENN GRUDEN, Senior Web Editor

WEEKEND TREAT PEANUT BUTTER SNACK BITES

HANDS-ON TIME: 15 minutes TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes MAKES: about 13 bites

1 cup ½ cup

ɝ cup ɝ cup ¼ cup 2 tbsp large-fl ake rolled oats Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter dried blueberries mini chocolate chips liquid honey shelled sunfl ower seeds MIX together oats, peanut butter, blueberries, chocolate chips, honey and sunfl ower seeds in large bowl. CHILL until firm, about 30 minutes. ROLL by 2 tbsp into balls.

WITH KRAFT

PER BITE: about 149 cal, 4 g pro, 8 g total fat (2 g sat. fat), 19 g carb (2 g dietary fibre, 11 g sugar), 0 mg chol, 41 mg sodium, 60 mg potassium. % RDI: 1% calcium, 6% iron, 2% vit C, 8% folate.

Get more recipes at sticktogether.ca

“I was taught that where you are is where you should make a difference. Don’t look for a better school or place to live. Make yours better.”

— SEVERN CULLIS-SUZUKI