EPIC is a green living consumer expo. This year it was held at the Vancouver Convention center in downtown, a beautiful venue easily capable of such an event.
I was fortunate enough to get a pass to the event to explore it and learn as much as I could, and I did just that.
First off, I learned that parts of Vancouver and Burnaby have a mulch pickup program, similar to garbage and recycling, that they are piloting in a few neighborhoods to see how well it is liked. This means that we can divert a lot of household waste from the city landfills to compost heaps that can then quickly be turned into extremely fertile soil. I learn’t this from the people at the Bag To Earth booth. They were creating bags that were 100% made from recycled material and 100% biodegradable.
I had a great talk with the folks at Whole Foods who gave me a pep talk on the importance for bees to be around in order for pollination to occur. They reminded me that this requires plants, and gave me a coupon to go get a free 4″ plant from Whole Foods.
I also had a talk a girl representing I Heart Van Art, a new local project aimed at creating a space for vendors and performers to show off their stuff.
The convention center was filled with very local things like homemade jellies, lotions, clothes, and many other neat green ideas that I hope some of these pictures can give some insight into.
I really enjoyed the fish they had up everywhere. They were pretty cool. Great job by the artist, whoever it was.
Also, I went on the night George Stroumboulopoulos was interviewed. I think a lot of people went at the same time as it was pretty packed.
Listening to George, who also hosts the Strombo Show, which you may also know as The Hour, made me realize how much I respect him, and appreciate the change and ideas that he brings to Canadians through his influence.
To read more about the event, head over to Chronicles of Times, where the do a full report on the show.
All photos courtesy of Ned Tobin, you can view the full set on Flickr.