The City of St. John’s and business and community groups gathered at the Memorial University Botanical Garden Saturday to celebrate various ways environmentally conscious citizens could reduce waste at home and work. 
The St. John’s Waste Reduction Fair featured information booths that covered subjects such as recycling electronics and paints, composting, recycling/reusing household items and education programs. There was also a free backyard composting information session and Island Compost was on hand to collect compost from residents.
In conjunction with Waste Reduction week Canada, the city is sponsoring a Selfie Contest for a chance to win prizes that include gift cards, a compost bin, a year’s supply of blue recycling bags, leaf compost, reusable mugs and bags and T-shirts. Just take your selfie and post with the hashtag #wrwstjohns for a chance to win.
Here are some of the sights found at the fair.
At top left: Simon Hofman explained to interested visitors to MUN Botanical Gardens Saturday morning how the St. John’s Tool Library can help people cut down on waste by providing household appliances and tools to people who need them only for particular projects. Hofman says that for an annual subscription fee – starting at $50 — users of the library can borrow tools and household items like sewing machines for special projects such as renovations. The amount of the subscription fee depends on the length of time users expect to borrow the items.
At right, a workshop on household composting was given in conjunction with the display shown here.
Below: One display at the St. John’s Waste Reduction Fair MUN Botanical Gardens Saturday morning showed how leaves break down as they compost.
The City of St. John’s will no longer take leaves in plastic bags, but householders can still put leaves out for pickup in paper yard waste bags.
Backyard leaf composting also diverts tonnes of waste from landfill each year.
