Good for your garden and good for our planet

By Rasiga Tnanasekaran and Luxmnina Luxmykanthan -Students of CW Jefferys C I

SNAP- Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plans

How would you like to have a vegetable and flower garden on your balcony if you live in an apartment? Or if you live in a house, a rain barrel attached to your eavestrough for watering your garden so you don’t have to use expensive city water !

Recently, our Conservation Authority celebrated the first five years of their Sustainable Neighbourhood Retrofit Action Plan.

Recognizing the need for a) increased awareness and b) programs preventing climate change, a program was launched to make existing communities more environmentally-friendly.

The San Romanoway balcony garden and Black Creek home rainwater barrel projects are part of the ambitious SNAP program of our conservation authority.

The objective according to chairperson, Gerri Lynn O’Connor, is to “create more vibrant communities that thrive together with a foundation of healthy natural systems (our environment)”.

SNAP has addressed these issues in five neighbourhoods by teaming up with private and public networks. These neighbourhoods include our Black Creek community and a neighbourhood in each of Brampton, Mississauga, Richmond Hill and Markham.

SNAP’S vision for the neighbourhood of Black Creek focuses on repairing damage caused by storms, training in local food production and training in jobs that assist our environment, now known as green jobs.

From harvesting rainwater for gardens to strategically coming up with ways to renovate homes, SNAP addresses a wide range of issues with creative solutions.

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Dutch Environmental Housing Expert Speaks to Meeting of Politicians and Environmentalists at Pioneer Village via Live Video

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The environmental sustainability of homes and apartment towers was the topic of a meeting of local mayors, city councillors, and environmentalists associated with our conservation authority on September 22nd, 2014.

Anke Van Hal, professor, spoke to the gathering via live video from the Netherlands.

Eleanor McAteer, Toronto’s engineer leading the city’s tower renewal project also spoke.

The meeting was a celebration of the first 5 years of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s program to improve the environmental sustainability of homes in five neighbourhoods of the G.T.A. Our neighbourhood, Black Creek, was one of the areas.

The program is called S.N.A.P – or the Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan.

It is good for our gardens, our homes, and for our planet, in that it helps reduce climate change.