JUST HOW much do North Shore residents know about

recycling — or care?

That was what a team of UBC researchers from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology decided to find out last summer. Working in tandem with En- vironment Canada, UBC's Neil Guppy, Valerie Bednarski and Linda Stirling surveyed iocal en- vironmental practices as part of the Going Green on the North Shore project.

Their preliminary report, based on questionnaires filled out by 224 North and West Vancouver resi- dents, was released not long ago and contains some _ interesting statistics that will help the North Shore Recycling Program and the Green Advisory Board in their plans to promote environmental lifestyle changes.

The survey was done last sum- mer, before the advent of the North Shore blue box program. A follow-up will be done this sum- mer to see if attitudes towards en- vironmental action have changed over the year. In short, some of the research findings were as follows:

e In general, a high concern for the environment was indicated by the vast majority of the respon- dents, regardless of age, sex or educational level. Or a scale of 0 (no concern about the environ- ment) to 36 (major concerns), the

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average response was 26.4.

© However, when it came time to set priorities for the govern- ment, 45 percent of the respon- dents (especially men, older Ca- nadians and those with post- secondary schooling) felt that reduction of the deficit was more important than environmental clean-up.

¢ And who can do the most to save the environment? The greatest number of respondents (38 per cent) said individual citi- zens can — it’s good to know that individuals feel they can make a difference!

The next greatest number (31.9 percent) said private industry can do the most good, but ‘‘although almost one in three people felt in- dustry could act to clean up the environment, fewer than one in 10 felt industry was actually doing so.”’

@ While residents indicated a strong commitment towards the idea of recycling (the average was a score of 40.9 out of 52), there was quite a bit of confusion over what could and couldn’t be recycled on the North Shore.

NOTHING UNEXPECTED... § NOTHING UNEXPLAINED... }

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984-9711

UNPAID, DEFAULTED AND OTHER CONSIGNMENTS .

CANADA GOVERNMENT CUSTOMS CLEARED

CERTIFIED AS PERSIAN CARPETS,

ASIAN, TURKISH, AFGHANISTAN, CHINA, etc.

HUNDREDS OF RUGS, RUNNERS, PALACE

CARPETS OF WOOLS AND SILKS, CATEGORIES

INCLUDE TABRIZ, KASHAN, SAROOK, KIRMAN, BOKHARA, AFGHANISTAN, CHINA, ETC.

AUTHENTIC HIGH VALUE CARPETS §

e released only for immediate disposal, payment and removal ® 10% freight, brokerage and warehousing charges to be added * each bale will be unwrapped and pieces tagged individually for

public inspection

* each carpet labelled with country of origin and fibre content. Certified genuine hand made, hand knotted

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20.5 percent thought magazines could be in- cluded in the curbside newspaper pick-up (not true) and 10 percent

For example,

didn’t think tin cans were recyclable in North or West Van- couver (also not true; drop-off depots had been operating for years at the time the question- naires were being answered).

© On the plus side, over 80 per- cent of the respondents recycle their newspapers, and over 90

a

Friday, February 8, 1991 - North Shore News - 23

Study shows local residents care about environment

percent of those polled reported taking their beer and pop bottles back for deposit or to a drop-off site.

eWhy recycle at all? Most people said it was to conserve resources and reduce waste vol- umes. Peer pressure and monetary gain did not appear to be impor- tani factors.

Why not recycle? Most said because there were no pick-up services (now remedied with the blue box program) or a lack of facilities (stay tuned; drop-off depots will be expanded to include more materials in the future).

* There was also a good deal of confusion about where our gar- bage actually goes.

“A majority of local residents believed, incorrectly, that their waste was landfilled locally. A smaller contingent also mistakenly believed that their garbage was in- cinerated on the North Shore. The largest proportion of North Shore garbage is actually incinerated at the GVRD’s Burnaby incineration facility, but only one in four peo- ple correctly reported this as a destination for their waste.’’

In fact, the GVRD Solid Waste Department estimates that ‘‘in

1990, 85 percent of North Shore

garbage will be incinerated at the Burnaby incinerator, 10 per cent will be landfilled (mainly at Cache Creek) and the remainder wilt be salvaged through resource recov- ery processes (e.g. gypsum, bat- teries, cardboard).

e Finally, residents were most willing to have their tax dollars spent on the following:

1. The support of household and community recycling pick-up service (87.8 percent found this acceptable).

2.Tax credits making products from materials (74.6 percent)

3. Conservation education pro- grams for schools (74.5 percent)

The main raison d’etre for the Going Green on the North Shore program is to work through ai- ready-existing community pro- grams and agencies to help resi- dents translate their positive en- vironmental attitudes into concrete action.

Hopefully the foilow-up research that will be done this summer will show that this has indeed happened.

Send your environment news or questions to Ecolnfo, North Shore News, 1139 Lonsdale Ave., N. Vancouver, V7M 2H4.

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