Turning waste to want at REmarket
St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association event keeps thousands of pounds of goods from landfill
Talking about climate change can be unsettling. Some of its challenges seem almost too big to comprehend. But there are things that can have a real impact. And climate “action” doesn’t always look like you think it might. In a limited series, the Star profiles Torontonians who are making grassroots contributions in their communities.
It’s the second day of the busy St. Lawrence REmarket on Toronto’s Esplanade, a two-day event organized by the local neighbourhood association.
Customers, sitting on fold-out chairs, are patiently waiting for their turn to find out if the beloved household item they’ve brought with them can be fixed for free by one of many volunteers working as part of the Repair Café at tables under the North Market tent.
When that happens, the sound of a ringing bell momentarily interrupts the chatter of the volunteers and visitors, like one of those rare moments on BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow” when someone discovers a family heirloom is worth much more than just memories.
On the west side of the market, patrons are dropping off items to be recycled or reused, a list that has grown from the early days of the REmarket and now includes used eye glasses and pill bottles that will be shipped to other countries and repurposed; working phones that will be donated to the CNIB; used batteries, masks, toothpaste tubes, cosmetics, all destined for recycling.
Further on, large bins hold donated clothing and electronics, as well as other household items, destined for the Salvation Army.
The REmarket is just one of three initiatives the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association has founded to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill.
It’s estimated that Toronto’s landfill will be full in 10 years, and the city has a goal similar to the neighbourhood association’s — to create a circular economy and divert 70 per cent of waste from landfill by 2026.
At the last REmarket, which is held every four months, people donated nearly five tonnes of clothing that will either be reused or recycled and kept out of landfill.
“Textiles is an extremely important part of pollution, or landfill, and there’s no reason it should be,” said Bruno Leps, a member of the association’s waste reduction committee, as he showed a Star reporter around the market.
It was Leps who came to the association with the idea for the REmarket.
The neighbourhood association represents members who live in the area that runs east from Yonge St. to Parliament St., and south from Queen St. down to the railway corridor. Its budget comes from buildings that pay a fee to belong as well as from fundraising.
“I’m passionate about the environment and I’m passionate about climate change,” explained Leps.
He started working in internet in the late 70s — he has a masters in computer science — and could see then that it would revolutionize the business that he worked in, then telecommunications.
He sees the same parallel with waste.
It’s “about having to change the way we look at things,” said Leps. “Because what we’re doing now isn’t sustainable.”
The REmarket also accepts donations of computers. A Mississauga company, Renewed Computer Technology, will refurbish them and donate them to schools, libraries, charities or individuals who qualify. Computers that can’t be fixed are recycled by the Electronic Products Recycling Association.
Leps, and the other waste reduction committee members, have spearheaded two other initiatives, a “BYO” program, short for bring your own container, at 35 businesses, mostly eateries, in the St. Lawrence area. And a “Butt Out!” program, setting up containers on lampposts and fences where smokers can deposit their butts.
The plastic is pulled out of the butts and recycled into a hard plastic material that can be used to make street furniture, said Leps.
But the committee’s big success is the REmarket.
“It’s one of those things that has kind of morphed its way into being well respected and something that people look forward to in terms of being able to get rid of things without feeling guilty about throwing them in the trash,” said Stewart Linton, president of the neighbourhood association.
On the first day of the event — when people can shop for free at tables full of donated items — Leps said it was so busy that customers couldn’t get close to the merchandise unless they elbowed their way in.
On the day the Star was there, Naomi Tyrrell was sitting beside jeweller Ken Vickerson at the Repair Cafe.
She came to the REmarket with a box of old jewelry that was sitting in her cupboard.
Vickerson had already repaired a beautiful brooch, with a pale square stone in it, for Tyrrell, an artist in her own rite, now retired from performing as a mime and clown, as well as making masks for theatrical use.
“I’m a legend in my own mind,” joked Tyrrell.
Further down the table, Paul Magder — not the late Toronto furrier but the one who sued former Mayor Rob Ford for municipal conflict of interest — was attempting to fix a VCR. Magder, Fern Mosoff, and Wai Chu Cheng founded the Repair Cafe in 2013.
Magder, an electronics technologist, said he volunteers at the cafe because “I love helping people.”
“It’s one of those things that has kind of morphed its way into being well respected and something that people look forward to. STEWART LINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSOCIATION