The Regional District of North Okanagan has announced six projects that will receive funding through the 2021 ReTHINK Waste Project Grant program.
The six unique projects were announced at the RDNO’s Board of Directors meeting Nov. 18. Each will receive a portion of the $47,000 available through the grant program.
The approved projects include:
- $1,000 to Beairsto Elementary for waste reduction and waste management education.
- $600 to the Crafting a Change Program at Clarence Fulton Secondary to produce reusable produce and snack bags from clean, repurposed fabrics.
- $5,000 to City of Vernon for the extension of the City’s organics collection bin program and development of materials and programming to increase understanding of composting in the community.
- $7,065 to Habitat for Humanity’s Kitchen Salvage Program that dismantles, picks up and reuses/resells used kitchens (fixtures and appliances), diverting them from landfills.
- $32,750 to Interior Freight & Bottle Depot to develop a program and infrastructure to accept food scraps from residential and small restaurants, which will be processed and fermented into fertilizer.
- $1,500 to Interior Provincial Exhibition to help IPE fair guests divert food and compostable waste from landfills.
“We designed the grant program to support innovative solutions to reduce waste throughout the North Okanagan, and we were happy to receive a lot of interest in the program. The increased awareness and the quality of applications led to us being able to distribute more funding than in previous years,” said Kevin Acton, chair of the RDNO Board of Directors.
The aptly named ReTHINK program supports projects that re-imagine waste well before it is generated — an important strategy in waste reduction. The RDNO says forward-thinking projects like the ones listed above can make “a substantial impact in conserving our landfills and resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in our region.”
The district is already encouraging those forward-thinking types to look ahead to the fall of 2021, when applications will be open for the 2022 ReTHINK grant program.
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