Local Climate Action

A group of students in a SUSTAIN course at McMaster University have partnered with Stop Sprawl HamOnt to get more youth involved in the Stop Sprawl movement. They want youth to know that 5400 acres of valuable natural lands such as farmlands and biodiverse regions and 1900 acres of land already protected in the Greenbelt are at risk of becoming suburban developments, driven by the Provincial Government. Advocates maintain that besides destroying valuable and limited farmlands for food production and environmental land where many plants and animals call home, it will cost taxpayers more money to expand the urban boundary and will actually make the housing crisis worse!

The group of students would like YOU to sign this petition to help show support for this cause – it is directed at youth ages 18-25, but the organizers would love the support of youth younger than that as well. Even if you aren’t old enough to vote yet, you can influence policy and positively impact the decisions made in your community by signing petitions or contacting your elected representatives to display your concern. Check out this link for more info about the McMaster students’ project and the Stop Sprawl HamOnt movement. Get involved to protect our natural environment today!

Spongy moths are an invasive species that wreak havoc on our tree canopy each year, so we are excited that we are able to bring together our community to help keep them under control through collecting their egg sacs. This project is now ACTIVE as winter is the perfect time to strike. Whether you are a family, community or school group we have the resources you need to care for our urban canopy and remove the egg sacs before they have a chance to hatch.

Request your free removal kit here.

If you remove any sacs, please fill out this form, and we will add it to our total.

Current locations the City of Hamilton has confirmed have spongy moth populations present in 2023 include the Dundas Driving Park, Red Hill Creek Valley Park, Albion Falls, Churchill Park Gardens, Woodland Cemetery, Bayfront Park, and more. Please email us at education@greenventure.ca for more locations.

Join us on March 17, 2023 at Dundas Driving Park for a community egg sac removal! Register here.

You may have seen us refer to these insects as LDD moths in the past, this is an abbreviation for the insects’ scientific name, Lymantria dispar dispar, and this was the only name used to refer to them for the period of time between June 2021 and March 2022. The Entomological Society of America (ESA), the group in charge of determining common names for insects, decided to remove the previous common name in June of 2021 as part of their Better Names Project because it included a derogatory term for the Romani people. The new name “Spongy Moth” was officially announced on March 2nd, read all about the decision here.

Check out the amazing impact we’ve had!

Green Venture is launching a new program to help keep our waterways clean and protect our communities from floods. Learn how more about catch basins and how to get your certificate today! Stay tuned for litter kits and community clean ups with Green Venture! 

Catch Basin Cleaning Guidelines: Steps to keep you safe and our catch basins clean! 

Catch Basin Ambassadors Certification Program: This is a 45min-1hr course that provides all the information needed to clean catch basins as well as information about Hamiltons sewer systems and nonpoint source pollution.

Pledge Form: This form can be filled out as a pledge for how many catch basins you will clean. It can be filled out after the completion of the certification course or just after reading about how to clean catch basins on our website!

Read the blog!

Completing a clean up at your school or in your community is a really impactful way to help our local environment and keep wildlife safe. By cleaning up your neighbourhood and using our free resources to track what types of waste you find you will help us determine what kinds of waste are making their way into various environments throughout Hamilton.

Doing a personal waste audit at home or in the classroom will help you to determine the things you throw away most often and how much of it there really is. This is a great step to complete when you are trying to reduce your waste – reducing waste is far easier when you get to know what’s in your bin!

By completing on or both of these projects you will have the opportunity to help keep our communities clean and move forward on your journey to reducing waste. We will compile all of the data submitted to us by the amazing groups and individuals participating in this project, and use it to inform future waste campaigns!

Sign up to participate and receive our free resources here

Contact us at education@greenventure.ca with any questions or more information.

Green Venture empowers Hamiltonians to take action and make our city a climate champion. Whether we’re connecting in the classroom, a community workshop or event, or even online, we can all make a difference when we come together to take climate action. 

In addition to our regular Green Venture programming, we also host month-long campaigns targeting various educational topics surrounding climate and the environment (and how you can get involved at home!) From learning about food and the environment, to waste management in our city, to active transportation (and so much more), we are always striving to learn about new ways to make our community greener.  

Check out some of our past Local Climate Actions campaigns below, and check back regularly to see what’s happening at Green Venture each month! 

In celebration of National Forest Week, Green Venture made September 18 to September 24, Urban Forest Week with Communi-TREE! The community had the opportunity to connect with us to learn more about our urban forest, engage in stewardship activities, and grow our canopy! Trees are important to our daily lives from cleaning the air we breathe, to cooling our cities, and helping keep us happy and healthy.

Check out our Commun-TREE blog to learn more about what we did and how urban forests are amazing!

We started off National Forest Week with Green Venture and CanPlant partnering up together again, with the support from the City of Hamilton Forestry Section to plant another mini forest – 600 native trees and shrubs – at Morton Park. We also hosted two tree stewardship events at 2 past planting sites to ensure the survival of our newly-planted trees by removing roughly 30 bags of invasive plant species with the help of our Hamilton youth and students from Mohawk College.

If you’re itching to get your hands dirty and help steward greenspaces around Hamilton, then head over to our Hamilton Stewardship Network website to check out other locations that need your help! 

The holiday season was here! The last of the leaves were falling,  and snow flurries were in the forecast, so we settled for a cozy winter and celebrate with family and friends. This past season you joined us as we made our holidays homegrown. We saved on cost and reduced waste by getting creative, thrifty, and supporting local.

 Green Venture’s Homegrown Holiday included, 

• #FrugalFridays, where we shared budget and eco-friendly tips on social media each Friday
• A live craft-along where we made eco-friendly winter and holiday decor, on Instagram and Facebook.
  • Watch the full workshop here
• An in person clothing swap which had over 800 items of clothing and 40 participants
• A  live plant-based eggnog taste test on Facebook
  • Watch the full event here
• And more!

As we transitioned into fall and (eventually) winter, many of us are start to think about upcoming events and holidays. And sometimes, these events can be very wasteful. So this during the month of October,  we encouraged everyone to join us as we rethought our habits to reduce waste

We started our month with a pop up from Park Market & Refinery, throughout the the month everyone was invited to: enter our #OctoberRethink Giveaway by sharing how they rethink waste, we hosted a virtual Playdough making workshop, and had 40 community members visit EcoHouse in person for our Family Fall Festival.

In celebration of National Forest Week Green Venture made September urban forest month with Communi-TREE! The community had the opportunity to connect with us to learn more about our urban forest, engage in stewardship activities, and grow our canopy! Trees are important to our daily lives from cleaning the air we breathe, cooling our cities, and helping keep us happy and healthy.

Connecting our community and forests is important since trees have SO many benefits from economic to health. We brought awareness to how urban trees support our lives and the inequity of forest coverage. Green Venture hosted a tree planting event with the City of Hamilton and Trees for Hamilton, planting 250 trees on a city boulevard at King / Nash and tree stewardship events at a previous tree planting site and new forest at EcoHouse. This included cleaning up litter, mulching and pulling invasive species.

Communi-TREE ended with the start of a new program – tiny forests in Hamilton! Green Venture has teamed up with CanPlant in partnership with City of Hamilton’s Forestry section and Clean + Green Neighbourhood Grant to plant these forests at Windermere Basin and EcoHouse. Follow our Canopy for Community program to learn more about this innovative method coming to Hamilton!

We had an amazing #PlasticFreeJuly 2021 filled with fun events, connecting with our community, and a giveaway! 

To kick off the month, we hosted an EcoHouse pop-up with our friends at Park Market & Refillery, filled with sustainable and plastic-free refills and lifestyle goods! Our staff team also took part in a neighbourhood clean-up around EcoHouse, Veevers Park, and Greenhill Plaza, where we collected seven bags of trash, and two bags of recycling. We also granted the #ZeroWasteWish of three members of our community in our giveaway, and shared how three of our Green Venture staff members are learning to go plastic free in their own lives.

We wrapped up Plastic Free July with our first annual Repair Cafe event, where we were joined by some of our mending, sewing, and fixing friends from the community. With their amazing help, we repaired bicycles, clothing, furniture, leather items, small electronics, and more! Repair Cafe also included another Park Market & Refillery pop-up, and a foraged flower workshop. 

In June 2021, we celebrated #BikeMonthHam with our contest and cycling education campaign, Cycling in the City. Over the course of the month, we connected with Hamiltonians and took over 80  bike rides within our community. 

We talked about important sociocultural issues involved in cycling and how these play into climate action and developing green, sustainable transportation infrastructure to reduce emissions. Our friends at the Bay Area Climate Change Council shared the importance of developing more sustainable transportation infrastructure in Hamilton with us, and what this means. We also reviewed bike safety basics with River, and talked about issues of bike equity within the community. To explore the city, we also found some new local bike routes and resources shared by others in our community.

Thanks for riding with us, Hamilton!

Our amazing community came together to celebrate Earth Month this past June during our Green Venture Litter Clean Up campaign! Over 50 participants took part, contributing a total of 15 hours this Earth Month to clean up over 23 garbage bags and 6 recycling bags worth of trash across the city. 

Some of the most common litter picked up included plastic bags, cigarette butts, coffee cups, water bottles, dog poop bags, and chip bags. 

We also hosted several workshops focused on reducing the plastic waste that might be hiding in your routine. From DIY personal care products to repurposing our kitchen scraps, we learned tons of new tips and tricks. Click here to watch the Waste Reduction Workshop hosted by Green Venture’s Manager of Environmental Education Programs, Heather! 

Thank you to all of the members of our community who took on the role of being clean earth stewards this spring. But the clean up doesn’t stop here – let’s make every day Earth Day! You can visit our great community partners as we work together to keep Hamilton beautiful: Beautiful Alleys, Beautify Hamilton, and Drop in the Bucket. 

Each week in March, we were joined by local Foodie Climate Champions to host Cooking for Climate: a series of FREE kitchen and cooking workshops discussing simple ways we can decrease our impact on the environment—while making something delicious. Our well-seasoned kitchen climate champs as demonstrated some of their favourite sustainable recipes or kitchen hacks, and shared tips on how we can make our kitchen more climate friendly.

We livestreamed four webinars, hosted by our great community cooking partners: Kate’s Baked, Ginny from Hamilton’s Community Permaculture Lab, The Joyce of Cooking, and Alex from Kitchen Island, to explore what sustainability can look like in our very own kitchens. Together, we learned six new delicious recipes, and were joined by 94 attendees!

Did you miss out on the live webinars? No worries! You can access the videos and recipes at any time on our YouTube channel.