Louise Schwarz ~ "Garbage, Our Gateway to Action"
Facing our trash and doing something about it, provides an opportunity to actively engage in concrete solutions that ‘start at home’, but also drive large scale change beyond our doorsteps, in terms of industrial practices, manufacturing, producer responsibility and government legislation.
Louise’s background in Political Science and Spanish Literature, coupled with a Teaching Degree from Scotland, may strike some as unlikely catalysts for a recycling revolution, but in 1989, before Blue Boxes became a common feature on our curbsides, she and business partner Robert Weatherbe, founded The Recycling Alternative. Equipped with a hatchback, they set about promoting recycling and waste reduction services to businesses throughout the Lower Mainland. From those early hatchback days, Recycling Alternative’s fleet has grown to 12 trucks, serving over 3500 businesses and community events. Ahead of the curve again in 2003, they committed to running their trucks on recycled biodiesel, produced from the waste stream. Since that time, The Recycling Alternative has hosted the Vancouver Biodiesel Co-op and launched the city’s only 100% biodiesel pump. Louise believes that ‘getting to know our garbage’ can be an agent of change and to this end is always happy to ‘talk trash’.