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Clean sweep take 2 and other initiatives by SpiriaÉcolo!

May 18, 2018.
SpiriaÉcolo is a group of Montreal employees working to green Spiria and educate Spirians on environmental and consumption issues, and recycling best practices. Martine has an update on the group’s doings:

For the second year in a row, the SpiriaÉcolo team organized a clean-up of the streets around our Montreal office. Once again, we were surprised by the sheer volume of trash we picked up.

Another thing that surprised me personally this year was the quantity of bottles and other recyclables that we picked up. I would have thought that with the City’s new sealed bins, less items would be scattered by the wind. I was also surprised to find that there are no recycling bins in Jarry Park, meaning that water bottles, energy drink bottles and lunch packaging gets thrown out as if it were trash.

This second edition of our clean-up was a success on various levels. On top of actually cleaning the neighbourhood, we:

  • connected with colleagues we don’t usually have dealings with;
  • got outdoors, worked standing up, moved around, cleaned (anything but sitting in front of a screen!);
  • did something positive for the environment and the neighbourhood;
  • once again met neighbours who smiled at us and thanked us.

Spiria Écolo.

Many thanks to our team of cleaners for 2018: Jean Henocq, Francis Poulin, Julien Deslières, Christian Roy, Bernard Lefebvre, Alexis Leroux-Chartre, Isabelle Renaud, Martine Brouillard, Rose-Marie Bouthat, Jeremi Leclerc Côte and Daniel Sauve. And a big thank-you to Spiria for supporting this kind of activity and for supporting SpiriaÉcolo.

But we have also carried out other initiatives over the last three months!

Composting

Francis Poulin was responsible for bringing composting to Spiria. We obtained composting bins from the City and placed them in strategic locations: in the basement kitchen, next to the first floor coffee machine, and on the second floor. The more composting bins there are, the more Spirians think to compost. We are now at the awareness-raising stage, sending out gentle reminders to all staff to get them to make it a habit of composting instead of trashing. We are confident that over the next year, composting will become second nature for all.

Spiria Écolo.

Reusable bowls for lunchtime soup

Our Montreal office is right next door to Soupson, a corner store that also sells soup and sandwiches made fresh daily. It’s a very popular spot with Spirians. The problem is that the soups, which are quick and delicious, are served up in Styrofoam containers. So we bought reusable glass bowls and put up a sign by the door to remind employees to grab one. To our immense gratification, take-up has been high!

Spiria Écolo.

No more bottled water at Spiria!

Thanks to Edith, we’ve made another green stride by no longer purchasing bottled water. The bottled water was supposed to be for our clients, but we realized that many employees were using them too, even though we have two water filtration machines and attractive reusable bottles emblazoned with the Spiria logo. So, with a view to spur change, we bought more water glasses as well as glass bottles for client meetings and other meetings in our boardroom. We’ll use up our last batch of bottles, but won’t order any more. We’ve already received positive comments from our clients. They appreciate the thoughtfulness, as does our planet!

Spiria Écolo.

Future Projects

Our team (Edith Cardinal, Alexis Leroux-Chartre, Francis Poulin and myself) have yet more plans for this year. For example, we are working on a noon-time presentation on composting and recycling rules by a representative of the City of Montreal. And we’ll capitalize on the opportunity to showcase items of our daily lives that can be replaced with greener alternatives.

There is so much that can be done to become more environmentally friendly, and we thank Spiria for making the office greener, one step at a time!