It’s happening at a store near you.

Waste reduction at the point of purchase; it’s a simple idea, and one Jasper’s environmental stewardship co-ordinator Lori Rissling-Wynn is trying to get everybody to do, not just this week, but every week. This week, however, is Waste Reduction Week, and the Rissling-Wynn is trying to get the message out that there are many ways to reduce your waste, starting before you even have it.

One of the things that Rissling-Wynn is trying to encourage is to get people thinking about waste reduction when they are purchasing their products, instead of when they are trying to decide whether to put it in the recycling, compost or garbage.

“I’d like to be able to shift the focus so that thought process happens at the grocery store or at Wal-Mart or at Home Hardware, wherever you may be. If you have a choice between two items, which one should you pick that actually starts with the least amount of waste?” she says, adding if they are packaged differently, choosing the one that has the most recyclable packaging is a good start.

Rissling-Wynn says there are many easy ways to reduce your waste, and to promote Waste Reduction Week in Jasper there are a few fun activities going that anyone can be a part of.

To start, all you need to do is take a walk around your neighbourhood. The Curbside Take it or Leave it swap will be happening on Saturday, and anyone who has any lightly used household items or sporting goods that they think might soon end up in the landfill are invited to place their items on the curb in front of their homes. Signs are available to download on the website at www.jasper-alberta.com and be printed off that indicate those items are free, or you are welcome to make your own personal sign.

The only rule to this ‘free’ game is to remove any items that were not picked up at the end of the day.

On Sunday the town will be hosting a dinner and a movie at the Jasper Activity Centre. There is no charge for the dinner, as restaurants from around town will be donating food, however donations to the Food Bank are appreciated.

After the dinner, Rissling-Wynn is going to show the movie Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home, by documentary filmmaker Andrew Nisker.

Nisker was in Jasper last fall, and also has done work with Jasper high school students at the Palisades Stewardship of Education Centre. The movie profiles his friends who he gets to hold onto their garbage for a month to realize how much garbage they really create at home.

“So that’s the idea, to have folks come and have dinner and then show the movie afterwards, and if we can generate some discussion following that, that would be great too,” Rissling-Wynn says.

She says the town has been very good about diverting its waste into the proper places, but that they can take even more advantage of the town’s recycling opportunities, and hand-in-hand with that comes using the community compost bins.

Organic waste accounts for 30 per cent of the waste-stream, and it is the heaviest waste. Rissling-Wynn says we pay to truck it to the landfill in Hinton, and then pay to tip it at the landfill, and once it’s in there, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent as carbon dioxide.

“There are so many things wrong with burying organic waste that we really need to make people understand that. I think a lot of people think ‘oh, well it’s going to the landfill, so it’s going to decompose, and eventually disappear anyways. Well it does, but in the process it produces methane, so it’s way better for it to be composted than to be in a landfill,” she says.

Jasper has a very extensive recycling program, and if people don’t know where the recycling bins and bottle depot nearest them are, they can contact her at 780-852-1563.

Unlike larger municipalities that have more infrastructure, Jasper isn’t able to run a curbside pickup, and Rissling-Wynn says that is a little more of an inconvenience for residents, however if they put a little effort, there’s no reason they can’t do it. It’s just a matter of deciding it’s a priority in your life, she says.

“If people understood the consequences of what happens to that stuff when it ends up in our garbage, a light bulb would go off and they would change their behaviour accordingly. Because recyclables and compost and organics in our garbage really shouldn’t be happening in this day and age, we have programs in place to deal with that stuff. Those are resources that are too good to waste.”