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If you have ever had to deal with overflowing garbage bins, trash blowing around buildings and related residents complaints, you know that this is not only unsightly – it can also be costly and time consuming. Reducing and recycling are not just trends or nice ideas, they are ways to lower operating costs and improve living and working conditions.

Sioux Lookout recently demonstrated how community-led efforts can help solve big problems. This north-western Ontario town of 5,500 recently became the first community in Ontario to move towards the outright banning of plastic bags, a ban that started with a citizens’ environment committee and a survey by high school students.

Why are plastic bags a problem?
The chemicals used to manufacture disposable plastic bags are toxic to both people and the environment. The phthalates used to stabilize and soften plastic are known endocrine disruptors. Vinyl chloride is a proven carcinogen and can also cause liver, kidney, and brain damage.

Although these bags are designed to be disposable, they are highly resource-intensive to manufacture, process, transport and dispose of – especially given that they’re intended for single use. But even if you re-use a disposable bag, most will still end up in landfill, where they can take up to 1,000 years to break down. Like plastic garbage patches in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the bags may be out of sight, but their negative impacts to the environment, the economy and human and animal health persist long after they’ve been used.

Other Jurisdictions
To date, Sioux Lookout is among only a handful of global leaders in their move to ban the bag.

In March 2002, Bangladesh banned plastic bags in its capital after they were found to have been the main culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. Discarded bags were choking the drainage system. Notably, the ban has produced an unexpected positive economic effect: the revival of the jute bag industry. Jute grows abundantly in Bangladesh and requires a lot less energy to process than polyethelene.

Also in 2002, Ireland introduced a PlasTax of about $0.20 per bag. The money raised from the tax is put into a “green fund” to further benefit communities and the environment. The result has been that consumption has decreased by more than 90%, thanks to an intensive environmental awareness campaign, which made the carrying of plastic bags socially unacceptable.

The Power of Community
In the cases of Ireland and Sioux Lookout particularly, engaging the community proved to be critical to the success of the ban and its environmental and economic outcomes.

What does this mean to people in the housing sector? Well, there are many simple and inexpensive actions which you can take to lower costs and complaints in your buildings and improve health, comfort and maintenance. GLOBE’s Community Champions program, recently recognized in the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s recent annual report as a notable initiative, educates and enables the residents themselves to become agents of change in their own communities.

In addition, GLOBE’s soon to be released Sustainability Toolbox is a “starter kit” to identifying opportunities which will provide you with sector-specific examples of improvements that you can make to increase the efficiency of your operations.

To find out more about it, email us!

• Replacing roofs is an excellent opportunity to improve energy efficiency
• Using light coloured shingles, surface coating and gravel can further add to your energy savings
• ENERGY STAR® cool or reflective roof products reduce the amount of heat transferred into a home
• Strategically planning and timing your projects together will help you achieve maximum savings
• Roof replacement time is the best time to consider a renewable energy system

An important part of any housing providers’ energy efficiency program is ensuring that major appliances are as efficient as possible. One way of achieving that outcome is to switch to ENERGY STAR® appliances.

One of the biggest consumers of energy in the home is the fridge. Although energy savings are attained at the unit level when an old unit is replaced by an ENERGY STAR® unit, the story does not end there.

Unless a fridge is taken off the market and out of use through a decommissioning process, the energy saved in one place is used in another. That means that from a community standpoint, and when it comes to reducing the effects of Global Warming, the goal has not been accomplished.

There are also other important considerations to take into account. Reducing waste streams headed for landfill is an important outcome as is reducing the amount of hazardous waste entering the atmosphere. Of these materials, one of the most dangerous in terms of environmental hazards is Fluorocarbon refrigerants.

Fluorocarbon refrigerant contained in air conditioners and refrigerators can be extremely harmful to the environment. 1kg of refrigerant emissions (R410a) has the same greenhouse impact as two tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is comparable to the equivalent of running your car for six months.

A technician that holds a Refrigerant Handling License has the training and skills to minimize the emissions of these refrigerants to the atmosphere. It is an offence for anyone else to handle fluorocarbon refrigerants.

According to the OPA, a proper decommissioning process ensures that more than 95 per cent of materials from all old, inefficient fridges, freezers or air conditioners are recycled.

In many jurisdictions decommissioning is mandatory in any incentive program. SHSC supports the decommissioning of appliances in all replacement programs.

What follows is a step by step description of the decommissioning process.

Step One

Cords are cut and thermostats are broken to disable appliances. At the processing plant, refrigerators are placed onto one of five lines of rollers. As many as 300 refrigerators can be loaded at one time. The bar code of the fridge is scanned, recording that the unit has been received and decommissioned.

Step Two

All loose plastic and aluminum is removed and separated. Plastic is later baled or crushed and recycled. Aluminum and copper are salvaged from each air conditioning unit. Specialized hoses are then attached to extract the propellants — commonly known as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) which can be harmful to the environment. The process for freezers varies slightly. Their mercury switches are removed. (More propellants are housed in the insulating foam than in the refrigerator lines; both sources are disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner.)

Step Three

A hole is drilled in the back of each refrigerator’s compressor. The refrigerators are placed onto a “Tipper Table” so that all of the compressor oil can be collected and properly disposed of. At this point, units with polyurethane foam insulation have their compressors removed; the units insulated with fiberglass are left with the compressors inside to be baled later. Air conditioners have their covers and PCB capacitors removed and disposed of properly before they are sent on for baling.

Step Four

The units arrive at the baling machine, which crushes the remaining metal, i.e., the “shell” of the refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners.
Refrigerators are crushed four at a time into “blocks”. Refrigerators and freezers with foam insulation are baled and taken to a steel mill, where they are destroyed. Units insulated with fiberglass are baled and sent to a shredder. The material is reused.

Outcomes

Reusing, recycling, and disposing of the various components of the retrieved units means less landfill. Each refrigerator has about four kilograms of foam insulation. About 10 to 15 per cent of the weight of the foam insulation is comprised of CFC-based blowing agents. The destruction of these CFCs prevents 1.8 – 2.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. Most of the steel produced through the decommissioning process is used to make reinforcing bars for bridges (rebar) and other useful materials.

• Damage to buildings under construction and the materials that go into construction are not usually covered by property insurance
• As a member of the SHSC Group Insurance program however your policy does provide coverage for physical damage to property under construction up to a limit of $500,000 on any one project to existing properties
• This saves you money because contractors can eliminate the cost of this insurance from their bids
• For coverage of projects estimated at more than $500,000 you can purchase a dedicated Builder’s Risk Insurance Policy through SHSC Group Insurance
• Wrap-Up Liability Insurance can also be purchased through SHSC to provide liability insurance for everyone involved in the project

Planning a Renovation, Retrofit or Regeneration Project? Make Sure you Have the Right Insurance Coverage

Are you planning a project as part of the Social Housing Renovation and Retrofit Program? SHSC can help with your insurance needs, which will be above and beyond the regular requirements of your day-to-day operations.

Typically, damage to buildings under construction and the materials that go into the construction are not usually covered by property insurance. However, as a member of the SHSC Group Insurance program your policy does cover physical damage up to a limit of $500,000 on any one project for changes, alterations, repairs or additions to existing properties. This is important to know as your contractors can eliminate the cost of this insurance from their bids and save you money. To make sure this cost does not get reflected in your bid, we can provide standard wording to exclude this insurance from your contract.

If you need coverage for a project with a contract price of more than $500,000, you can purchase a Builder’s Risk Insurance Policy through SHSC Group Insurance. This may be a good option to consider, as purchasing this policy through the group may be more cost-effective than getting the contractor to buy this coverage through their own broker.

You may also want to consider purchasing additional Wrap-Up Liability Coverage, which is not included in the standard policy of the SHSC Group Program. Wrap-Up Liability Coverage provides liability insurance for everyone involved in the project – building owners, consultants, contractors and all sub-contractors – for injury or damage to property of third parties. By purchasing this coverage yourself you will know the insurance limits everyone in your project carries and will be confident that all parties, including sub-contractors, are adequately insured.

• Replacing roofs is an excellent opportunity to improve energy efficiency
• Using light coloured shingles, surface coating and gravel can further add to your energy savings
• ENERGY STAR® cool or reflective roof products reduce the amount of heat transferred into a home
• Strategically planning and timing your projects together will help you achieve maximum savings
• Roof replacement time is the best time to consider a renewable energy system

Replacing a roof due to damage and/or age presents an excellent opportunity to improve energy efficiency, comfort levels for tenants, reduce operating costs and C02 emissions which cause Global Warming.

In the case of a sloped roof aim for a minimum of R40 or, preferably, R50. Insulation will not meet its maximum effect in an attic setting unless the attic is properly sealed and a continuous vapour barrier has been installed.

For a flat roof aim for a minimum of R30. This may not always be achievable because of other structural issues such as rooftop mechanical rooms, roof access points and ridge height, but it is important to instruct your contractor to achieve as high a level as possible.

Further savings can be achieved by using light coloured shingles, surface coatings or gravel. These materials reflect heat during summer months rather then absorbing it as dark coloured materials do. An energy efficient roof should reflect a high percentage of solar energy and radiate away energy (heat) after it is absorbed. ENERGY STAR® cool or reflective roof products reflect more of the sun’s rays, lowering a roof surface temperature by up to 100 degrees, and reducing the amount of heat transferred into a home. The ENERGY STAR® program presently considers reflectance only, not emittance. A Roof’s emissivity relates to how quickly it releases heat it has absorbed. Because of this property cooling costs are reduced. This measure also helps to reduce “heat island effect”, a contributor to global warming, particularly in dense urban areas.

As with every energy efficient retrofit measure, maximum results are achieved by combining efforts. The savings gained by a well insulated roof are leveraged by caulking and weatherstripping the building envelope which, in turn, maximizes the efficiency of the HVAC system or, in the case where a system is being replaced, can result in a smaller, less expensive replacement.

Roof replacement time is also the best time to consider a renewable energy system. Because Solar systems have a life span of at least 20 years and, in the case of Solar PV, Solar Thermal and Solar Air roofing, a considerable portion of the cost is installation on the roof, a new roof gives a much greater degree of certainty that these systems will not need to be removed for re-roofing.

Combining all of these measures will result in a healthier, more comfortable building, reduced operating costs, a revenue stream (in the case of Solar PV) from the Feed In Tariff (FIT) and a greener community.