www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, November 3, 2016 | 38 John Bkila Sub-Editor jbkila@oakvillebeaver.com Artscene "Connected to your Community" Talking trash: Heather Govender amasses 1.1 kg of waste in a year, after challenge by John Bkila Oakville Beaver Staff A year ago, on Oct. 8, Oakville's Heather Govender challenged herself to reduce the amount of waste she produces. Last month, when her challenge was of cially completed, the lifelong resident had amassed 1.1 kilograms, or 2.4 pounds. To put that in perspective, the average household waste in Halton was 151 kg (333 lbs.) per person in 2015, and 157 kg (346 lbs.) per person in 2014. The #HaltonWasteChallenge was modelled after The Clean Bin Project, a documentary that tells the story of a Vancouver-based couple who go head-to-head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least amount of garbage. The lm was screened by Halton Green Screens in Heather Govender was at Film.ca Cinemas last month for the screening of Greenvaders, which features footage about her year-long waste-reduction chalOctober 2015. The Oakville-based non-pro t organization brings environmental lm screenings to the re- lenge that she began in October of 2015. Govender brought a display of garbage and items she went through as part of the challenge. | Jayson Mills photo gional community -- Govender is program co-ordinator for the environmental-awareness group. the world, and it was almost suffocating trying to picture that commitments from more than 1,000 children and youths." "I decided to replicate the (couple's) challenge early in 2015 much waste." Footage of Govender's year-long, waste-reduction challenge when I was walking through the aisles of Target before it closed. Govender said that's when she started asking herself if things was featured in a documentary titled Greenvaders, which was I couldn't stop thinking that pretty much every item on those needed to be this way and decided, at the screening of The Clean screened by Halton Green Screens last month. shelves was going to end up in a land ll," Govender told the Bin Project, she would announce she would take on a wasteArmed with only a single bin -- measuring at 27 centimetres Oakville Beaver. free challenge and encourage others in Halton by joining her in tall, 16 cm in diameter at the bottom and 24 cm in diameter at "Every piece of furniture, every item of clothing, every toy committing to do "one small thing to reduce their own waste." the top -- for her waste for the year, Govender began her feat. that we buy shares that same destination. I tried to extrapolate "We got commitments from a fair number of Halton resiThe rules of her challenge included eliminating land ll waste that image to include all of the stuff in all of the big box stores dents, but also took the challenge into a number of local schools and keeping any waste she produced. in all of Oakville, all of Halton, all of Canada, North America, through our Halton Green Screens schools program and got see Not on p.39 Big Movies, Small Prices! 171 Speers Road (at Kerr) Oakville General: $8.50 children (3-13): $6.50 seniors (65+): $6.50 tuesdays: $5.00 905-338-6397 www.film.ca facebook.com/filmca @Filmcacinemas trolls (G) November 4th Doctor straNGe (PG) November 4th FaNtastic beasts aND Where to FiND them (stc) November 18th allieD (stc) November 23rD moaNa (stc) November 25th