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rfmcdonaldThis human-interest story in the Canadian National Exhibition, by the Toronto Star"s Jessica Botelho-Urbanski, interests me. I am going this year, I know. (Will I try the food? Maybe.)
Even the “greenest” fair in North America couldn’t avoid throwing out an estimated 300,000 kilograms of waste on its first weekend, according to the facility’s services coordinator.
Brian Dow said over 18 days, from Aug. 19 to Sept. 5, the Canadian National Exhibition collects about 1.8 million kilograms of waste. The CNE also boasts an “extremely aggressive” waste-diversion program designed to offset the fair’s environmental impact, said general manager Virginia Ludy.
And though CNE staff says they’ve diverted about 86 per cent of waste from landfills in the last decade, they’re still looking for ways to improve.
“There’s still 14 per cent to get better at and hopefully at some point in time, we’ll get to a complete 100 per cent diversion,” Ludy said.
Food waste is especially focused upon, with at least 111 vendors in the food building this year, 26 food trucks scheduled to arrive next weekend and about 1.6 million visitors — most of them hungry — to the fair.
