Upcoming Events

WEBINAR: Water pollution comes from tiny fibres in your clothes.

Discover research & solutions to change that.

Join this FREE one hour webinar on microfiber pollution. Registration is limited.

Location: Online webinar.
REGISTER by clicking on thislink: Click here for Thursday Jun 4th at 2 pm .

What is this about?

The clothing we wear is made from a variety of different materials- many of which are made of plastic polymers such as polyester, spandex, and nylon. Every single time we put our clothes in the washing machine, thousands of tiny plastic pieces wash away in the form of small fibres (microfibers). Although municipal wastewater treatments plants can capture up to 98% of microfibers and microplastics, WWTP release millions of microfibers into our freshwater ecosystems every day.

Join Brooke Harrison, Lisa Erdle, and Dorsa Nouri Parto as we discuss microfibres and the research underway in Parry Sound and University of Toronto.

About the presenters:

Brooke Harrison is the Project Coordinator at Georgian Bay Forever. She has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Earth Sciences from Trent University, previously working at the Bruce Peninsula Biosphere Association before starting at GBF in 2019. She manages the Phragmites Eradication Program and Divert & Capture: The Fight to keep Microplastics out of our Water.

Lisa Erdle researches the effects of microplastics on animals that are part of a Great Lakes food web. In her work, Lisa collaborates with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to better understand how microfibers – one of the most common types of microplastics – impact fish and invertebrates through physical and chemical processes.

Dorsa Nouri Parto is an undergraduate student double majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Genetics. Last summer, she worked as an intern for the Centre for Global Change Science to study the effects of microfibers on chironomids. This year, she will be working on quantifying microfiber emissions in wastewater treatment plants.

WEBINAR: WATER LEVELS. What is going on?

SORRY. REGISTRATIONS FULL.

Location: Online webinar.
*Note - Tues. Apr. 21 at 2 pm., Apr.23 at 7pm., and May 20 th at 1 pm FULL, and May 26th at 7 pm. Not accepting any more resgistrations

What is this about?

The Great Lakes are home to 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water. But only about one percent of that water is replenished each year. The other ninety-nine percent is there because the glaciers melted and filled the deep scars on the earth’s surface.

Water levels are the result of a variety of processes -- rainfall, evaporation, historic dredging, erosion, ice cover, diversions, managed regulation, power generation and other factors. All interact in a complex and chaotic dance. And climate change is altering that dance – instead of a regal Viennese waltz the Great Lakes are now moshing in the pit at a rock concert.

The coming decades hold a promise: “nothing in their water levels past is a predictor of what will happen in the future.”

Join one of these 1 hour webinars above to learn about the forces driving extreme variability in water levels. If you have trouble with a link, copy it and put it in your browser. If you are still having trouble, email heather.sargeant@gbf.org and I'll register you.

About the presenter David Sweetnam:

David is the executive director of Georgian Bay Forever, a scientist and a Climate Reality leader trained by Vice President Al Gore. He has spent his career in environment and high tech industries and holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Waterloo. He has always been interested in protecting the environment through sound business practices to yield sustainable outcomes. His business ventures have included the first G.R.E.E.N. chemical drum recycling program, state of the art atmospheric instrumentation development to monitor UV levels and the ozone hole, as well as aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem health.

If you and your family are concerned about climate change and pollution, but don’t really know where to start, Georgian Bay Forever (GBF) has a program for you. It’s called Families For Change (F4C).

How does it work?

It’s entirely up to your family. GBF’s new F4C program can take as much or as little time as you and your family have to devote to it. Your family can choose from a list of 15 tasks, and there is even an option to enter a contest where your family could win a Patagonia prize pack.
To get started: Click Here

Sign Up for Free Washing Machine Filter at Parry Sound RBC Branch. Find out how you qualify below.

GBF, thanks to RBC Foundation support, is looking for 100 more permanent resident volunteers in the Parry Sound area to volunteer for a FREE filter and participate in the sample collection for the study, Divert and Capture: The fight to keep microplastics out of our water. If you qualify, you will be helping to divert microfibre plastics that come off your clothes during the laundering proces from polluting the water, and impacting the health of the aquatic ecosystem.

More information on qualifying: Click here.

If you believe you qualify, please either:
1. Visit Brooke during Jan 6 to 10 at RBC Branch, 1 Pine Drive, Parry Sound from 9.30 am to 5pm and sign up
OR
2. Please email brooke.harrison@gbf.org with your contact information and she will get back to you as soon as possible.

To learn more about cleanups and Divert and Capture, visit this link
https://georgianbayforever.org/microplastics-impacts/

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FALL (DATE TBD).
Energy - Rights and Wrongs. Can we do more right? Yes.
Join us to learn more, and take an Electric Vehicle Test Drive

Location: Toronto, at the The Electric Vehicle Discovery Centre

What is it? Each event session features:
PART 1: Get the big picture on Ontario's Energy Grid. A presentation by GBF's dynamic speaker and ED, David Sweetnam.
PART 2: Test drive an electric vehicle and get all your questions answered by Plug 'N Drive staff.

INFO: TICKETS ARE $20 and include light fare and refreshments.
REGISTER FOR YOUR CHOICE SESSION (either morning or afternoon):
Click here for the morning event.
Click here for the afternoon event.