“The world is full of Ziploc bags that don’t zip anymore”’
Paul Davis
Paul Davis, Whitehorse-based writer, film maker, cyclist and environmentalist, said these words to me, sadly, in passing, on Air North’s first spring flight to Ottawa. He was visiting his Mom.
Those words stayed with me, as I worked with a very small number of the countless Ziploc bags that so much of our food arrives in nowadays as part of my artmaking for Raven ReCentre’s Plastic Free July.
I thought of how Paul has been so committed to re-use and recycling for so long, way before it was fashionable or mainstream. How when I wash my Ziploc bags and hang them on my rubber plant to dry, it’s partly inspired by his commitment. So I thought I’d interview him for this next instalment of Material ReCulturing.
I reached Paul on his 1980s Northern Telecom landline phone, which he got from a Yukon Conservation Society (YCS) garage sale in the late ’90s. A wire connects this phone to the wall.
When we have communications outages, he posts a sign to let his neighbours know that he can still reach emergency services for them with this phone, should they need them.
He confirmed that yes, indeed, he is still washing out and reusing Ziploc bags. He observed that the Yukon’s dusty outdoor environment makes it hard for the closures to keep working, but that the bags themselves are often made of exceptionally durable plastic.
He finds Ziploc bags useful in many ways–as a travel sink in dodgy hotels, to carry library books, and so on. Even when the Ziploc closure is unreliable, he uses them rolled at the top and closed with a skookum rubber band cut from a punctured fat bike inner tube.
He told me fondly of his writing kit, big enough to carry a paperback book, some postcards, stamps, and his special pen that can write at -40, all contained in the Ziplock ration bag from dehydrated food from a long completed trip to Kluane Park with friends. He used it for at least a decade, long past the failure of the closure.
Davis worked the recycling crew for many iterations of Frostbite, the Yukon International Storytelling Festival, events of Association Franco-Yukonnaise and Winter Games over the years. As a volunteer, he could enjoy the music and storytelling, and use “arts and culture to raise awareness of solid waste issues.”
He recalls the laminate signage to guide sorting that was stored in a Yukon Government grader station for reuse. Every time they picked it up again he feared someone might have just thrown it out.
He remembers when he worked on waste management with the Canada Winter Games they were able to acquire “a ton of recycling wheelie bins–some of them green.” Separating organics at the Games helped lead to the movement to have the city collect compost regularly.
His own housing complex still has some of the Canada Winter Games embossed bins that they use for their own compost.
He notes that a certain theatricality can offer an important teaching moment with sorting. In coveralls and gloves, he would reach into the bin, pull out something in the wrong category, hold it up to the sky, look at it in a perplexed way, and put it into the correct bin.
In his characteristically practical way, he notes that dishwashing gloves were easier to deal with than latex, because you could take them on and off more easily to wash your hands. Also, that bins with no names, or even a cardboard box open to the sky, would quickly attract unsorted waste.
“There is a system. Please use the system.” Finding ways to say that without words is often more effective, and as it becomes more normalized, part of everyday culture, we can do better.
He reflects that arts and sports activities often underestimate their impact on the way we manage waste after a festival. When he worked for the Winter Games he could only visit one building a day. So he met with the team captains, and asked for their help.
“These people went back to their communities all over the Arctic,” and some of them started sending recycling back in the cargo aircraft returning southwards empty.
Davis has noticed that nowadays when community groups have a big barbecue they often have a person to manage waste sorting.
He observes that there are many more compostable options now that keep it simpler, citing beer cups made of corn starch plastic as an example. He understands that keeping it simple is important within the complexities of event planning.
One of the challenges of his initiatives–and, to my mind, part of his heroism–comes from the fact that we have social stigmas about people who handle garbage. He found that sometimes people called the environmental volunteers “not very nice names”.
Davis remembers a tour of the Whitehorse Waste Management Facility – better known as “the dump” – which he attended in the ’90s. He thinks perhaps it was organized by YCS. He describes it as “consciousness-raising.”
He was appalled to see plastic bags in trees for a kilometre around the dump. He describes the dump as a “Stonehenge monstrosity, with its electric fence, and cattle grills to keep bears out of it. The dump is a very powerful place for me,” he reflects.
Paul got into volunteering on the environmental team out of his love for storytelling and music. “Once you took off your rubber gloves you could participate in that kind of stuff.” His own career in writing and film-making made volunteering instead of paying for tickets seem like a good deal.
At my request, Paul shared some of his tips for growing sprouts on his bike handlebars or in a canoe using a clean and empty clear plastic peanut butter container.
While he’s not doing as many remote multi-night trips these days, he was generous in explaining the technique. It takes about three days for bean sprouts, he says. If you keep fine nylon mesh over the mouth of the container, you can rinse your sprouts easily when you stop to take a drink of water yourself.
It’s important to wash or sanitize your hands while working with the sprouts, but if you’re travelling in weather that’s over 15 degrees Celsius, it’s a way to have something fresh to add to your rations.
Our current recycling transitions worry Paul. He notes that he’s grateful his housing development crew has a crew to take their recycling up to the sorting area at the dump, because even on an electric bike, it would be a tricky road, especially with all the trucks.
While Paul has never shied away from the need to repeat messages about waste sorting–with the Yukon’s highly transient population it’s inescapable–he worries we will lose the habits of it.
“I’m afraid as we go through this transition we may go through a period where the sorting may stop or, worse, people sort stuff and then have to landfill it.”
He has written to the Whitehorse mayor and council about his concerns. He told me they are “people of good will” and he hopes it will all work out.
When I thank him for all he’s done over the years, he demurs. “I wasn’t running it. I was just there.” Thanks, Paul, for the way you’ve shown up to this for so many years.
Send more ideas for Material ReCulturing stories to materialreculturing@whatsupyukon.com
