ecoCaledon gears up for Circular Economy Month

September 11, 2025 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

October is Circular Economy Month, and ecoCaledon is gearing up for an “action-packed” month.

Circular economy, according to the Government of Canada, is about “more value and less waste.”

“In a circular economy, nothing is waste. The circular economy retains and recovers as much value as possible from resources by reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, repurposing, or recycling products and materials,” says the Federal government. “It’s about using valuable resources wisely, thinking about waste as a resource instead of a cost, and finding innovative ways to better the environment and the economy.”

In the last year of Climate Action Fund Grants through the Town of Caledon, ecoCaledon put in a grant application for their “Caledon Waste Reduction Initiative.”

For the past year, they have been focusing on waste reduction throughout various initiatives.

One of these is their “Repair Cafes”, where residents can bring their items and repair them themselves under the guidance of volunteers.

They have also done “Plalking” throughout the year, which is the act of picking up garbage as you walk.

“We’re really leading into this circular economy month and waste reduction week with some big events,” shared Lucrezia Chiappetta, Co-Chair of ecoCaledon.

Three community cleanups will take place on Saturday, October 18, to kick off Waste Reduction Week.

They will be held in three different hamlets within Caledon.

Those will run simultaneously, led by ecoCaledon volunteers, and will be open to the community to get them out and kick off Waste Reduction Week with a community cleanup.

They will follow up on this event with their ninth Repair Cafe the following Saturday.

“We’re hoping that not only will we be able to offer residents an opportunity to bring in both broken items to be fixed but also an opportunity to drop off both textile and electronic waste for recycling,” explained Chiappetta.

They will be working with the local group Dunk Disposal to help collect these textiles and electronic waste that can’t be donated or fixed.

They will also be relocating their location for this particular Repair Cafe to Caledon East.

“What we like to do differently than a traditional repair cafe is we like it to be more of a community event,” said Chiappetta. “You don’t only have to come if you have an item that needs to be repaired, but there’ll be different community groups there talking about their various environmental initiatives or if they’re an environmentally themed business.”

The Library will also invite attendees into its Maker Space to showcase the various tools that can assist with repairs.

Chiappetta shared that they’re trying to tie in all the different waste reduction week themes into one Repair Cafe.

She said ecoCaledon is hoping to educate residents on the concept of the circular economy versus the traditional “throwaway” economy.

“We really want to educate residents on buying items that have a bit of a longer life or can be repaired or can be donated, trying to keep those items in the system as long as possible and then when they really are not usable anymore they’re at least being disposed of properly through proper recycling. It’s really just about continuing to build awareness of that circular versus linear system,” said Chiappetta

To read more about the upcoming initiatives visit ecocaledon.org.