Photo credit: Brigitte Morin
Last week end, I attended the Ottawa Green Expo at Lansdowne Park. I was impressed with the crowd numbers; we had to squeeze through the masses of people to get just about anywhere. For the promotions, I don’t know what they did, but keep doing it; it works! However, on the Expo side, I didn’t see any new innovative products or amazing new technologies, nothing impressive.
The products being displayed were on average too expensive for the average person (a $ 70,000 solar panel is really nice, but I do not have the means to purchase it!). Also, I was extremely disappointed (MEGA disappointed) that all the sample containers were made of compostable materials, which would be great…if there were any COMPOST receptacles! I didn’t know that people still think that compostable containers will decompose rapidly in a landfill; they will not, in fact they become worse than waste as they will produce methane when they eventually decompose in the landfill (just like fruits and vegetables).
Its just incredible, the city of Ottawa has a compost collection program, and there was even a stand promoting the kitchen compost basket liners…but not a compost bin in sight. I have to thank the one person who did collect all the compostable containers for sampling at her food stand; I guess she took it home to compost. What’s more, the food choices, well, let’s say that pizza, fried doughnuts, and hot dogs aren’t the healthiest options!
Unfortunately, (Ottawa Green Expo) I am giving you a 3 out of 10.
-brigitte