 Topic: Plastic Waste and Recycling Where: Wolseley Residents Association monthly meeting (on-line by Zoom, see below for login information) When: Monday, Sept. 21st, 7 p.m Click below to join the meeting by Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87813674386?pwd=cU02Vk5mVlNXelJMR1ZCMGVSYVlTZz09 Meeting ID: 878 1367 4386 Passcode: 860380 One tap mobile +15873281099,,87813674386#,,,,,,0#,,860380# Canada +16473744685,,87813674386#,,,,,,0#,,860380# Canada Dial by your location +1 204 272 7920 Canada Meeting ID: 878 1367 4386 Passcode: 860380 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdHw13FFQR Workshop Overview:
Dr. Joe Ackerman, a Wolseley resident, is a research scientist and Bio-Systems Engineer who has been examining both ways to reduce plastic consumption as well as ways to recycle and reuse plastic and other waste. He has lived in Wolseley for over 25 years and has made passive house conversions to his home; eliminating natural gas heat and super insulation relying on scrap wood for heat and his yard is an urban farm. He will be sharing his research on what is happening with plastic waste in Winnipeg and options to improve our situation. After the workshop the WRA is open to a working group taking some action to follow-up on the issue. This session is motivated by the increase in plastic use during the pandemic with more food packaging, back sliding on plastic bags, more take out food, and PPE all using plastic. Information links from the Green Action Centre: Here are some resource links regarding plastic: https://greenactioncentre.ca/category/green-your-routine/ https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/break-free-from-plastic/ https://www.storyofplastic.org/ https://www.storyofstuff.org/ https://pollybarks.com/ http://greenactioncentre.ca/plasticfreejuly Information links from Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/act/plasticpolluters2019/ greenpeace.org/canada/en/act/support-complete-single-use-plastic-bans/ https://act.greenpeace.org/page/63162/petition/1?locale=en-US
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 The Wolseley Residents Assocation is hosting its AGM this year COVID style – outside with physical distancing. Come to Vimy Ridge Park Tuesday, August 18 at 7pm with a lawn chair or a blanket. Free ice-cream sandwiches donated by Ruby West Cafe for the first 30 in attendance!!! In the case of rain you can attend by Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85710732338?pwd=SnZ2Z2E5WFhObVUweDFHY0dMR3ZOQT09 Meeting ID: 857 1073 2338 Passcode: 819905 One tap mobile +16475580588,,85710732338#,,,,,,0#,,819905# Canada +17789072071,,85710732338#,,,,,,0#,,819905# Canada Dial by your location +1 204 272 7920 Canada Consider running for one of the open position on the WRA executive:
There will be information about the new WRA Green Space Committee community garden going into Vimy Park. Plus, in response to various local issues this year the meeting features a discussion of community input into decisions about green space. The guests confirmed include:
 Come to the Aug. 18 Annual General Meeting of the Wolseley Residents Association (Vimy Ridge Park, Tuesday Aug. 18, 7pm) to find out more about Greenspace issues and opportunities in Wolseley, including a discussion of how we can ensure that changes to greenspace in our neighborhood has public input.
Recent Greenspace Issues: Recently there was the removal of the tot-lot on Westminster near Ethelbert that caught parents and kids by surprise. And the loss of green space at Dominion Park when a lease agreement lapsed and the property changed owners. There is currently riverbank stabilization across the creek and tracks and ongoing changes at Vimy Ridge Park. Over the years Wolseley has had a number of other examples of partnership with the City such as designing Aubrey Park and of course the legendary the proposal for a big bridge across Omand’s Creek. In all of this the common denominator the desire for more community gardens and green space is the community wants to know about plans ahead of time, and the community wants a say in those plans. The World Health Organization [36] recommended the availability of a minimum of 9 m2 of green space per individual with an ideal (urban green space) UGS value of 50 m2 per capita. These statistical values correlate with a number of UGS standards, including: (1) linkages between sustainable cities and better health, (2) core health indicators to monitor progress and identify success, (3) expanding indicators values (e.g., governance indicators, access to health and sanitation services, food markets and urban infrastructure for social, recreation and livelihoods), (4) adding value to health indicators and (5) feasibility of data reporting via cross-cutting issues (e.g., equity, governance and climate change). In retrospect to the amount of greenery and relating UGS availability in cities and urban areas we delineate a linkage between the World Health Organization’s UGS values with a reduced amount of social and environmental discontent. An example of an ideal compact city is Ljubljana, Slovenia, awarded the 2016 European Green Capital, in which almost 560 m2 of UGS is available per inhabitant and virtually all its residential zones lie within a 300 m radius from public green space [41]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6209905/#:~:text=The%20World%20Health%20Organization%20%5B36,50%20m2%20per%20capita.  The WRA’s community garden committee is working hard to get the funds needed to build the Vimy Victory Garden, a community garden in our very own Vimy Ridge Park. We’re applying for a variety of grants and have approached the city for support – stand by for more news on that! - but we also need to fundraise in the neighbourhood to demonstrate our community’s commitment to the project.
So we’re launching a “Covid-19 Safe” GoFundMe Campaign and asking our friends, neighbours and supporters to consider making a donation. Your contributions – whether big or small - will go towards building the 20 allotment plots, 2 community plots, 2 composting stations, a garden shed and the plumbing we need to get building and growing! Please feel free to post the GoFundMe link below on your own social media feeds and encourage your friends and neighbours to donate. With your help we can make the Vimy Victory Garden happen! https://ca.gofundme.com/f/vimy-victory-garden Sincerely, The Community Garden Committee  The Vimy Garden is a Go!!I It’s been a few months since we posted our community garden survey and conducted our door-to-door campaign to see if residents would support the idea of a community garden in Vimy Park, and your response was overwhelming Wosleley! Almost 300 residents from every corner of the neighbourhood participated, with more than 90% indicating they supported the project, and over 70% responding that they were interested in gardening.
And here’s the great news! Thanks to your support, the City Of Winnipeg, Parks and Recreation Dept. has now agreed, in principle, to lease us the northern half of the old bowling green for the Vimy Victory Garden – an allotment garden that will feature 20 4 X 8 beds where residents can grow their own organic produce! The garden will also feature 2 community beds – produce to be donated - and a native plant and berry bush garden. Now that we’ve secured city permission, the WRA’s community garden sub-committee is busy applying for grants, and assuming we get the money needed, we hope to build the garden over the course of the summer. Which is where you come in. We’ll be looking for volunteers to help haul soil and build the raised the garden beds, and we’re hoping you’ll respond with the same enthusiasm you brought to our initial survey campaign. So if you can lend a hand, let us know. You can email us at wracommunitygardens@gmail.com and we’ll notify you as soon as we set the dates for the garden build, which will include food and beverages as well as a large dose of community spirit and celebration! So stay tuned for more updates and a Community Garden Town Hall to be held in early May, where we’ll present the garden site plan and mission statement, field your questions and get your input! Til then, thank you Wolseley! We hope that the Vimy Victory Garden will benefit the entire community. We look forward to growing with you! The Community Garden Subcommittee On Feb. 10th, the Wolseley Residents Assocation organized a community consultation on the proposed Bike Corridor project. There were about 40 people at this meeting, At the meeting we had the boards from the City open house and large paper on the walls for people to write their comments. The feedback from those there was very positive and can be view by clicking here.
 What is Hazardous Waste and How Do I Get Rid of It?
Don’t know how to rid yourself of those half empty paint cans? Tossing aerosol cans, left over garden fertilizer and motor oil containers into the garbage or recycling, because you don’t know what else to do with them? If you are, you’re tossing hazardous waste into city landfills where it doesn’t belong! So consider this easy alternative: collect the following items in a separate bin and dispose of your hazardous waste safely by following the suggestions below! Hazardous waste includes:
How To Dispose Of Your Hazardous Waste The City offers three 4R Depots where Winnipeggers can drop off hazardous waste at convenient times throughout the week. The closest of the three 4R Depots to Wolseley is 1120 Pacific Ave. It's open weekdays (except Wednesdays) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Depot on Pacific is about a 10-minute drive from Wolseley. The fastest route is north on Wall Street, left on Notre Dame Ave and right on Weston Street. Once on Weston, look for the large "Liquor and Lotteries" building on the right - that's Pacific Ave - and turn right. The street sign is small and easy to miss, but the liquor and lotteries building is not! Continue east on Pacific Ave. The 4R Depot (1120 Pacific) is on the right hand, side marked by a 4R sign (it's very close to the lights on McPhillips). I drove into the depot, to a stop sign. A gentleman came out, when I told him I had hazardous waste, he asked me to put my paint cans on a table beside the car... and that was it! I thanked him and drove away! The staff deals with each type of hazardous waste appropriately. The drive out took me past the well-organized and very clean sites for other recyclable material. If consumers bring other recyclables - glass, lumber, scrap metal - they will be directed to the appropriate bin and drop it off themselves. For more information, visit the The 4R Depot website  Want to keep your recycling out of landfills? You may think you know what’s recyclable, but if you’re like me, you may be wrong. So here’s how to make sure your recycling is actually recycled.
How to prepare your recyclables before putting them into your bin:
 Background:
On September 1st, the City of Winnipeg will take over setting all speed limits within the City. In preparation for the changeover, the Public Works department has recommended the continuance of all existing speed limits. On June 25th, the Public Works Committee of Council considered this recommendation. Submissions proposing reduced speed limits were made by a number of groups, including Winnipeg Trails, Bike Winnipeg and Safe Speeds WPG. The Committee chose to accept the recommendation of continuing all existing speed limits, 4 to 1. Come out on Tuesday July 9th and Make your Voice Heard if you want lower speed limits in Winnipeg: The next step in the process is the Executive Policy Committee (EPC) meeting on Tuesday July 9th at 9:00 a.m. at City Hall. Among the members of that Committee is our councillor, Cindy Gilroy. Come out to the EPC meeting on July 9th and make your voice heard. After that, the proposal goes to City Council on July 18, at 9:30 a.m. Safe Speeds Winnipeg .. Sign the On-line Petition: Check out Safe Speeds WPG , is a volunteer, grassroots organization that is urging the City to set default speed limits at 30 km/hr for residential roads and 40 km/hr for collector roads, together with a dedication of the $2.5 million in the Road Safety Budget (2019), along with any additional available funding, to support infrastructure for these new default speeds. The Safe Speeds website includes an online petition for Winnipeg residents. It also encourages us to contact our councillor (with a downloadable letter) to support this change.  On June 10th , The Tree Town Hall in Wolseley brought together members of Winnipeg’s Urban Forestry Department (UFD) and Trees Winnipeg to deliver some good news, as well as a warning, to a large audience of Wolseley residents: the fight to preserve our urban forest isn’t over yet. While UFD has caught up on the backlog of boulevard tree re-plantings in our neighbourhood, and promises to stump and replace those taken down this summer within two years, Winnipeg is now facing serious threats to its ash trees. Two pests, cottony ash psylid and the emerald ash borer, may well result in the loss of almost half-a-million ash trees citywide. Wolseley is fortunate. Only a small portion of our urban forest, 17%, is made up of ash trees, while 50% is composed of Elms. As a result the primary focus here will continue to be on the fight against Dutch Elm Disease. For more information on Wolseley’s forest, Winnipeg’s urban forest as a whole and the current threats to ash trees see the power point presentations below. So what does it all mean? In response to the continuing problem of Dutch Elm Disease and the looming crisis with our ash trees, UFD’s aim is to diversify Winnipeg’s urban forest as quickly as possible, to ensure, that in future, no one pest can wipe out a huge swath of our forest. That plan is already underway, with a wide variety of trees now being planted on boulevards, parks and public land across the city. As a result, our neighbourhood and others across Winnipeg will feature a very different tree canopy in the future – one that is as bio-diverse as our human community. For more information on the tree varieties UFD is now planting on city land click here. What You Can Do:
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September 2020
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