About the initiative

Jasper Place is a 100 unit seniors' supportive housing facility which is owned by Thunder Bay District Housing. The Seniors in our community, ages ranging from 70 - 101, told the staff at Jasper Place that they did not want to see our facility using Styrofoam containers anymore when giving out saved meals to the tenants. So, beginning June 1, 2015, we initiated a 31-Day Dining Room Count Down to a Styrofoam Free Environment that would see the eventual phase out and complete ban of the use of Styrofoam in our dining room.

Motivation for the initiative

The tenants and staff that live and work at Jasper Place motivated us to make the change. It was a combination of less 'white pollution' in our landfill and encouraging fellow tenants to get active by picking up and dropping off their reusable containers if they are not attending the dining room for a meal. 
Have you encountered barriers to the success of this project/initiative?: Creating new habits can be difficult; however, the staff and tenants continue to work together to see this initiative succeed and make a positive change for Thunder Bay.

Goals

We hope that our change will empower the rest of Thunder Bay to make the same transition to a Styrofoam Free environment. We decided to drop disposable containers all together and just use re-usable ones. We understand that this may not be realistic for restaurant, but we hope that other facilities will follow suite and that businesses will at least stop using Styrofoam and choose a better material for their takeout containers.

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