Local Climate Action

As we transition into fall and (eventually) winter, many of us are starting to think about upcoming events and holidays. And sometimes, these events can be very wasteful. So this month, join us as we rethink our habits and reduce waste! Welcome to October Rethink. 

We started our month with a pop up from Park Market & Refinery, and throughout the rest of the month you are invited to: enter our #OctoberRethink Giveaway by sharing how you rethink waste, join us virtually to make Playdough Party Favours, and visit EcoHouse in person for our Family Fall Festival.

Campaign Events

#OctoberRethink Giveaway

October 13 – October 31

What is one way you have been able to #RethinkWaste? Whether it’s eliminating something from your routine, repurposing or upcycling, share your waste rethink with us for a chance to win a $30 gift card to a local eco-friendly business of your choice.

Find contest details and rules here.

Playdough Party Favours

October 21 at 7pm

It’s that time of year again! Whether you’re celebrating the fall harvest, Halloween, or even starting to think about the winter holidays, you might be starting to think about favours or gifts. This can be an expensive and wasteful time of year. This year, join Education Manager Heather and learn how to make your own low waste, eco-friendly playdough. 

Learn more & register here.

Fall Family Festival

October 30 10am-12pm

The leaves are changing, the sun is setting earlier… and that means it’s time to celebrate everything fall at EcoHouse! Join us Saturday, October 30th for our Fall Family Festival. We’re going to get all dressed up, carve pumpkins, explore Ecohouse’s gardens and surrounding trails, learn about our local bats, and more.

Learn more & register here.

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! 

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.