Last week marked an anniversary I’m going to lay odds none of you celebrated: it’s been one year since the Nova Scotia solid waste-resource management regional chairs committee presented a proposal for Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging and Printed Paper (EPR for PPP) to Environment Minister Gordon Wilson. If youRead More

If you survived Part I of this article, you now know that Nova Scotia marked an anniversary last week: it’s been one year since the Nova Scotia solid waste-resource management regional chairs committee presented a proposal for Extended Producer Responsibility  for Packaging and Printed Paper (EPR for PPP) to EnvironmentRead More

Cruise News Monday was World Oceans Day and if you put your ear to a seashell,  you could hear a chorus of voices across the globe calling on the cruise industry to clean up its act. Environmental activists living in “port communities” marked the occasion with a virtual “Rally toRead...

Donkin During the Proclamations & Resolutions portion of Tuesday’s virtual CBRM council meeting, District 8 Councilor Amanda McDougall presented a resolution outlining South Head residents’ environmental concerns about the Donkin coal mine, which is described as having ceased operations “permanently.” McDougall’s resolution asked council to make these concerns known toRead More

When I was young, there was a saying that was often used to describe someone who wanted to do two incompatible things simultaneously: “She wants to have her cake and eat it too!” The moral of the saying was that we often have to make difficult choices: we can’t preserveRead More

CBRM reopened the Spar Road dump in late April because somehow, although most retail stores were closed and our consumption — one would think — had been reduced, CBRM residents were still managing to “overwhelm” garbage collectors with the sheer volume of trash they were putting out. As municipal managerRead More

Editor’s Note: I had to stop watching CBRM’s Tuesday council meeting to tune into the provincial COVID-19 update (full disclosure: I tried to watch both simultaneously with predictable results) and so can only report on half of the council meeting but I promise to watch and report on the restRead...

The May 12 virtual CBRM council meeting lasted a fraction of a minute over 3 hours. Although all current councilors and a number of CBRM staffers were in attendance, the video (which you can watch on YouTube) consists almost entirely of footage of Mayor Cecil Clarke, sitting in his office,Read...

Tax deferment The tax deferment program discussed earlier this month by council has been fleshed out by CBRM staff and approved by council. The CBRM has adopted the framework developed by the Federation of Nova Scotia Municipalities (FNSM) and the Association of Municipal Administrators of Nova Scotia (AMANS), tailored ever-so-slightlyRead More

COVID as context I try not to write about COVID-19 in this space because it’s taking up so much other space but there are some stories that one cannot write in May 2020 without at least nodding in the direction of the virus. Or at least, I thought there were.Read...