The Hobenshield family may have taken first place in Port Coquitlam's Waste-Loss Challenge but the whole city will win if residents take up the methods of waste diversion that propelled the family to victory, said the mayor.
The contest, which pitted four families against one another to see who could reduce the amount of waste coming from their homes the most, ended with more than 1,100 lb. of garbage being diverted from the landfill.
And if the rest of the community followed the contestants' leads in achieving an overall diversion rate of 84%, it could save taxpayers a lot of money, said Mayor Greg Moore.
"The more we can divert, the more we can keep our costs down," he said before awarding the Hobenshield family with an iPad for their win. "We have the cheapest garbage system in Metro Vancouver because of our diversion."
The Hobenshield family was able to reduce its waste by 20.2% over the contest period, followed closely by the Saggu family - both are families of four - which reduced its waste production by 19.5%.
"When I look back at the experience now, it was really the first couple of weeks of changing how we shopped and our sorting which took effort," said Ryan Hobenshield. "After that, it was smooth sailing."
He added that families that are looking to reduce waste need to start by looking at which products they buy and avoid items with unnecessary packaging.
In third place, the Hanans family, which consisted of a mother and daughter, was able to reduce its waste output by 8% while the Hubbards, who were already active recyclers, reduced their waste further by 6.9%.
Brian Hubbard told The Tri-City News that once bins are organized for sorting, separating waste is easy. He even breaks apart items that have some components that are recyclable combined with parts that are not.
"Even something as simple as a ballpoint pen can be taken apart," he said. "It is metal and plastic."
Throughout the contest, participants posted videos, pictures and blog posts about their experiences and what they were learning.
The information can be found at www.portcoquitlam.ca/wasteloss.
