People can reduce their 'ecological footprint'
By Bill Rea

The York Region Environmental Alliance has been making progress in encouraging people to care more for their surroundings.

Gloria Marsh of the Alliance outlined some of its progress recently to members of Concerned Citizens of King Township at their annual general meeting.

She told the audience the Alliance was formed in 1999, when the main issue was the use of pesticides in Newmarket and Markham. She said they didn't have a lot of success at first, with there being a very "usagainst them" attitude, with a lot of hostility.

But things progressed from there. She said they designed a power-point presentation on organic lawn care, and they made it to various groups. In that way, the Alliance learned it's not enough to just tell people they can't use pesticides; they have to give them tools as well.

The Alliance has been involved in other efforts too. They set up a friendly challenge in Newmarket and Markham to get people to stop idling their cars, and the result is both municipalities now have anti-idling bylaws.

They are hoping more municipalities will follow that lead. The main excuse for not having such rules is they would be too costly to monitor, but Marsh said that's not so. "Citizens will do it for you," she said, adding Canadians are fairly law-abiding people. If the rules are in place, most of them will obey.

She stressed accomplishments like this can be realized in a nonhostile environment.

Marsh also gave a plug for the Alliance's free newspaper; Our Ecological Footprint; "Our biggest initiative so far," she declared.

"An ecological footprint is the amount of biologically productive land and sea required to sustain one human being," the paper stated, adding there's about 1.89 hectares of productive area per person in the world, but the average Canadian uses between seven and nine.

Marsh said the paper's focus concentrated on home, food, consumption and transportation, and is aimed at showing people how to shrink footprints.

The Alliance is primarily a volunteer organization, with one paid member. There are representatives from all nine municipalities in York on the board, and Councillor Jeff Laidlaw is currently King's rep.

As for the future, Marsh said waste reduction is the issue they are working on. If people dealt with the amount of garbage produced, and addressed issues of excessive packaging, there would be no need for incineration.

There are other ways to reduce garbage. Marsh said food courts in shopping malls could greatly reduce the trash they produce simply by installing dishwashing facilities, rather than serving everything on disposable dishes. She said such examples are followed in other countries.