I despise clutter. If there’s something sitting around the house that I have no use for, it generally finds its way to the garbage, recycling or donation bin pretty quickly. My mother is just the opposite.
When I was home at Easter, Mom was beaming over her accomplishment in the basement, and I have to admit it was much improved. At Christmas one room had been packed with a hodgepodge of kitchen appliances, books, magazines, enough clothes to cover the bodies of a small army and who knows what else. A few months made all the difference, spurred in part by a shelving collapse.
My esteemed co-worker, Thalia Bock, has been busy cleaning her apartment over the past couple of weeks as well. She, like many others, has a collection of many unwanted items and has been searching for eco-friendly ways to dispose of them.
Commuters are encouraged to ditch their vehicles for a bike, bus, carpool or comfy pair of walking shoes during the eighth annual Shifting Gears campaign, beginning Friday.
Clifford McCarten, returning for his second year as the Shifting Gears ambassador, said the month-long event motivates residents to use alternative transportation to get to work during the month of May.
Individuals, or teams from businesses who sign up for Shifting Gears are challenged to use alternate forms of transportation as often as possible.
Participants have a shot at winning a $750 gift certificate for Resorts of Ontario and are entered into weekly draws for prizes.
(PETERBOROUGH) When everything runs smoothly, the Otonabee Region Conservation Authority (ORCA) operates out of view from most of us.
The public trusts the safety of water, enjoys flood-free properties and walks through some of the 10,000 acres managed by the conservation authority—all without thinking about ORCA.
When the conservation authority does make the news, it’s usually a conflict over development.
After picking up litter from around Peterborough for Earth Day, about 340 students representing five high schools, congregated in Millennium Park Thursday afternoon for a celebration.
Music, pizza and prizes awaited the students from Crestwood, Holy Cross, St. Peter’s, Kenner and Adam Scott as part of the Kawartha Rotary Club Super Spring Clean Up.
This is the third year for the event, which has collected 650 bags of garbage and recyclables over the last couple of years, said organizer Gunther Schubert.
Teacher Lynn Holland was glad her pupils were standing around with not much to do.
As her Prince of Wales School Grade 7/8 class scoured the green area across from the GE plant on Monaghan Rd. for garbage on Thursday morning, many came back either empty-handed or with a single coffee cup.
“I just can’t believe how little garbage there is this year,” Holland said during the annual Earth Day cleanup, peering at half-full garbage bags sitting limp in front of her. “It means the message is really getting across.”
This is the 12th year that pupils and students from across Peterborough have picked up litter as part of the Green Again, Clean Again campaign during Earth Week.
Seeing the world from outer space is something people have dreamed about for generations. I recently came across a news story about a man from the U.K. who actually turned the dream into reality.
Robert Harrison, who describes himself as a computer geek, was hoping to acquire some images from high above the Earth. He expected nothing more then shots similar to those you would capture from an airplane -was he ever in for a shocker.
After spending about US$800 on equipment, Harrison launched a weather balloon above the English countryside with a digital camera he purchased from eBay and a GPS tracking unit to locate the balloon when it fell back to the earth.
The camera was set to automatically snap images. When he recovered it, Harrison was surprised to find stunning images and videos of the curvature of the earth, the blue haze that is our atmosphere and the land masses and water features below. The quality of the images was something you’d expect to see from a NASA spacecraft.
Just 45 more days until the first day of spring! Isn’t that exciting? For me, it is. Even though we’ll see snow, ice and cold long after this symbolic day, the idea is enough to bring hope that there is light at the end of a very long, cold, and frosty tunnel.
This winter has been ideal in my books for one main reason -a lack of snow and extreme cold. When I visited the Maritimes over Christmas I think I saw more snow in two weeks than we’ve seen here in Peterborough all winter. No word of a lie.
The snow we have seen, what little of it there is left, always makes for a challenge for anyone who wants to get out and about -drivers and pedestrians.
When it comes to reducing the winter risk, the most common tool we reach for from our ice melting arsenal is salt, but should it always be the first? Something we don’t tend to think about is where the salt we apply goes after its job is done.
