The online world is chock full of quizzes to figure out things like which Game of Thrones character you are or what your favorite colour says about you. These are fun, but do they really tell us anything (other than Brienne of Tarth, and that turquoise = balance & creativity)? How about a quiz with a bigger picture in mind?
Enter the Inter-hospital Challenge for Waste Reduction Week. Before we get to that, let’s look at Waste Reduction Week (WRW), held across Canada, October 16 – 22. It encourages us to conserve natural resources through the 3R’s: Reduce, Reuse & Recycle … not Rubbish, Ruin & Restrict. Yes, I love my Thesaurus :).
Behold the CN Tower light up blue and green (like the planet we all know and love) on Monday to kick-off Waste Reduction Week in Canada. Each day has a theme. Day 1 will focus on the Circular Economy, then go to Textiles Tuesday with a massive pop-up clothing swap at Nathan Phillips Square. For a peek at the rest of the week, Wednesday celebrates innovators & champs, Thursday focuses on plastics, Friday is food waste, and the weekend features Swap/Share/Repair.
Back to the nail-biting, second annual Inter-hospital Challenge between University Health Network, SickKids, Sinai Health System, and new to the table is Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. If you work or volunteer at any of the above location, let’s play!
The challenge is easy … 2 minutes to answer a 7 question quiz, and find out how green you are. The site with the greatest participation rate will win the top prize. There are also individual prizes at each site. The quiz is open from Oct 16 – 29, giving an extra week to celebrate. Last year had over a thousand entries. How about we double that?
Earn extra credit by getting caught “green-handed.” Send in a picture of you and/or your colleagues practicing the 3R’s: Reduce, Reuse & Recycle. You may pose with your reusable coffee-mugs, hug your blue bin … feel free to get creative. E-mail your photos to green@uhn.ca or tweet #WasteFreeUHN.
Not at UHN/SickKids/Sinai/Sunnybrook? No problem. For toolkits (school, business or municipality) and events across Canada, see the tremendous resources at http://wrwcanada.com/en by our friends at the Recycling Council of Ontario (RCO).
And I’ll leave you with some good brain food on the subject: “The Story of Stuff:
May this be the year we all get our stuff together.
Talkin' Trash With UHN 