Clean St. John’s has a new city council representative on its board of directors.
Coun. Deanne Stapleton officially stepped into the role after a unanimous show of support from council in a vote at Monday’s meeting.
Coun. Dave Lane resigned from the role after serving as council representative for about six years.
After the meeting, Stapleton told The Telegram she’s looking forward to the new role and hopes to address problems with litter around the city.
“My big beef is litter and we’ve got to do something to keep our city clean."
— Coun. Deanne Stapleton
Stapleton said she has a few initiatives she’s hoping to implement, but was mum on details because they are still in the early stages.
Stapleton also said she welcomes suggestions from residents that she can bring to the organization.
Golden Broom Awards
One of Lane’s last tasks with the non-profit organization was handing out the Golden Broom Awards Monday evening.
These awards are given to people, organizations, businesses and schools in the city who champion environmentally friendly initiatives.
Four awards were given at the meeting, beginning with the citizen award, which went to Phil Coates. Coates runs a weekly compost pickup service with Island Compost. He picks up compost from homes in the metro area and uses it on his family farm in Goulds.
The school award went to Waterford Valley High, which practices a “soil to table and back to soil” initiative.
Students use funds raised through the recycling program to grow vegetables, which they use in the soups they prepare and donate to Street Reach shelters for homeless people in the city. The scraps from the vegetables are composted and used in their garden.
The corporate Golden Broom award went to Nalcor and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro for their Go Green Team, which has monthly “green” challenges. So far, they’ve diverted more than 2,000 pounds of organic waste from the landfill through an employee-led compost program, and developed an onsite vegetable garden, among other initiatives.
The community award went to Guide to the Good, a social enterprise that aims to make it easy and practical for people to make environmentally friendly shopping and lifestyle choices.
Twitter: @juanitamercer_
