Throughout the year, we host annual events to educate people on how they can reduce their environmental impact. These are fun and engaging ways to learn how to take care of our planet.

Celebrating environmentally conscious people

Strathcona County is full of creative, fun and environmentally-conscious people. We want to celebrate and recognize those that are thinking outside the cart and going the extra mile.

Need a Waste in our World quiz? 

Elk Island Public School fourth grade teachers, Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Bessette from Pine Street Elementary School, put their students to the test that is perfect for the grade four curriculum. It guides students through the Strathcona County website to test their knowledge on the Green Routine. Download your copy today!  Waste in our World pop quiz (44.1 KB)

Water bottle refill station drive

Clover Bar Junior High's Leadership students are choosing to refill, not landfill. During the 2015 to 2016 school year, the leadership students sold reusable and custom designed water bottles in order to raise money to purchase a water bottle refill station for their school. These young leaders understand the importance of reusable water bottles and how they keep plastic out of landfills. Way to go Cloverbar Junior High!

Piggy pail project

Brentwood Elementary has a creative way to help reduce food waste that goes to the landfill. They created the Piggy Pail Project this year with great success!  Mrs. Johnson’s grade three class picks up the pails of fruit and veggies scraps from classrooms twice a week.  The scraps are picked up and taken to a hobby farm by one of our Educational Assistants.  Pigs, a donkey, goats and sheep look forward to this feast and the students and staff are pleased that this food waste does not end up in our landfill.

Way to think outside the cart Brentwood Elementary!

Robots tackling waste

Students from Ardrossan Junior Senior High won high marks at the 2016 For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Lego League Championship in Edmonton. Students representing the Ardrossan Bison Robotics Team, made up of five Grade 7 students from the school, were presented with the prestigious Strategy and Innovation award.

The Ardrossan Bison Robotics Team were tasked with designing and building a robot—complete with sensors, motors, gears, and software—capable of improving the way people handle trash.

Using a themed playing surface, the students quickly got to work designing, building, programming, and testing a Lego-engineered robot that addressed the theme of the day: waste reduction.

The complete news release is available online at Elk Island Public Schools

Souls4Souls

Cassandra Tomas is a Strathcona County resident that saw a need to reduce waste while doing one of the things she loves most, running. As an avid runner, she wears out shoes on a regular basis and wanted to keep them out of the landfill. Soles4Souls is a global not for profit enterprise committed to fighting poverty through the collection and distribution of shoes. Through provincial shoe drives, with the help of great volunteers like Cassandra, over 8,000 pairs of shoes have been centrally collected in the Edmonton area. 

All of the donated shoes will be sent to Soles4Soul’s distribution warehouse in Toronto. From there, the shoes will be sorted and distributed around the world to be reused, refurbished in micro enterprises (creating sustainable jobs in developing countries), or recycled. This contributes to fighting poverty and reducing waste. 

To donate your shoes, please remember to tie an elastic around them, and drop them in the blue shoe carts that have been set up at front entrance of Millennium Place and the Ardrossan Recreation Complex. 

Thank you Cassandra and your team for your great work on reducing waste and fighting poverty. 

Guru's get grants

The Young Citizens team at Jean Vanier Elementary school has been expanding their waste diversion efforts and doing a mighty fine job of it!  The group of 10 grade four students were trained by Strathcona County's Waste Diversion Program Liaison to be Green Routine Guru's. Green carts were placed outside, and the team teaches the rest of the students in the school about how to use the compost catcher in their classrooms.

They received a grant from the Alberta Emerald Foundation for $400 and a $100 donation from Staples to help fund the project. In the first three months of the program they have already diverted over 20 full green carts from the landfill.  The future is looking brighter with these guys on the horizon!