April's Community Focus: Urban Impact & Wasteaid

Local sustainabilty with Urban Impact

Making an Impact --- Nicole Stefenelli, founder of Urban Impact, has a clear passion for environmental protection, waste management, and local partnership. Building her initiative from a university project in 1989, Nicole’s vision that businesses could reduce their waste costs while conserving natural resources has come alive through this family owned and operated business based out of Richmond, British Columbia. Nicole’s vision has spread throughout the lower mainland as Urban Impact now serves the community with 5,500 locations from Whistler to Chilliwack.  Urban Impact offers a range of recycling, waste audit and secure paper shredding services within these locations with a strict importance on environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Urban Impact sets itself apart from other recycling companies with exceptional environmental performance and high standards of personal service, earning it “Top Private Sector Business in BC” by Recycling Council of BC. To encourage their zero-waste philosophy, Urban Impact has invested in two Materials Recovery Processing Plants located in New Westminster and Richmond. The company also maintains their carbon neutral operations goal with Hybrid diesel-electric collection trucks.

Looking beyond the progressive services offered by this company, Urban Impact has successfully contributed to their community and to the cause of environmental justice through means of education. The company has taken initiative to offer employee recycling education within the workplace setting and has committed to sponsor Grade 4 and 5 school tours of their plant in Richmond. The company also maintains a blog to spark conversation about the environment and our responsibility to protect it. Ultimately, by making small changes in our local workplaces and community environments, Urban Impact hopes to initiate large-scaled change in terms of the way we think about our waste.
For more information on Urban Impact Recycling check out their website: www.urbanimpact.com 

#PuttingitRight with Wasteaid

WasteAid is an organization that connects vulnerable communities to waste management resources and expertise. This organization was officially founded in 2013 out of a passion for waste management and international development. This passion was first fostered through a LinkedIn group named Waste Management for Development composed of global individuals who have a passion for waste management. Since its founding, WasteAid has attempted to connect global communities to a global environmental responsibility.

WasteAid believes that it is most important to understand the issue of waste management as a global responsibility and thus seeks to act as a resource for others looking to “put it right” in terms of waste management. On top of providing resources and connections to the emerging environmental management leaders, this initiative would like to bring together projects, ideas and knowledge that can be easily accessible to anyone looking to support this movement. WasteAid aspires to share this information via the web, so that it may be free and accessible to everyone.

In terms of waste management programs, WasteAid plays a key role in developing and perfecting pilot projects in order to ensure their success across a variety of communities. WasteAid also offers their expertise and input to projects of NGOs, especially in terms of brokering knowledge between different global regions, coordinating small projects to prevent overlap and offering seed funding to bigger projects.

There are many different ways to get involved. WasteAid offers memberships and roles on their Council. The organization can benefit from financial support through donations and project sponsorships, or through volunteering in a fundraising role. WasteAid can also benefit from an increased social media presence with the help of volunteer ambassadors via their social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter and website.

For more information on Wasteaid check out their website: www.wasteaid.org