Genesis of the Blue Box
- and Insights for Future Change
By Eric Hellman
Many people have asked over the years, “What made the ‘Blue Box’ so successful?” Why did it become the model for programs across Ontario, in hundreds of cites, provinces, states & countries around the world, and even a symbol of recycling? As someone who was there at its inception, I’d like to offer some thoughts and experiences on what may have contributed to its success…
In nature, the seed is essential to creating the plant. It contains the DNA that guides its growth and development. I’ve come to believe the same is also true in human-led development; that the core ideas, intentions and motivations behind our projects guide the eventual outcomes we see in the world.
With the Blue Box, its success was more than just the result of a well-designed curbside collection program, a catchy marketing slogan or a colourful container. For me, it was the outcome of some significant shifts in thinking – in what people really wanted and needed – that started it on the road to what it has become today.
In the Beginning
The two men who can truly be called the “fathers” of the Blue Box were Jack McGinnis and Nyle Ludolph. Jack, the founder of a non-profit group called the Is Five Foundation, was passionate about educating people about the environment. He was also committed to recycling – so much so that, using his own pick-up truck, he started a curbside collection of recyclable materials in the Beaches area of Toronto in 1974. Growing on his experience of ‘what actually worked,’ Jack and a new business partner, Derek Stephenson, formed Resource Integration Systems (or RIS) Limited to develop recycling on a more professional basis. They then created a multi-material curbside collection at CFB Borden to further test their ideas on what would make a successful program.
Nyle Ludolph, on the other hand, was the Manager of Collections for Superior Sanitation, the garbage company in Kitchener, Ontario. Superior had carried out occasional curbside newspaper collections and supported local non-profit recycling drives and depots during the ‘70s, but nothing on a sustained basis.
Nyle and I first met in 1976, when I was an environmental studies student at the University of Waterloo. As founder of a group called Garbage Probe (a local offshoot of Pollution Probe, which started at the University of Toronto in 1969), I first approached him about how to expand recycling in the region. I then invited Jack and Nyle to speak at an event called “Garbagefest 77”, organized for the Ontario Garbage Coalition, which brought together recyclers from across the Province. And a seed was planted that day, as Nyle heard Jack – and was impressed with what he had done in the Beaches.
‘Are You Serious?’
Fast forward several years to the early 1980s. I had become co-founder and Executive Director of the Recycling Council of Ontario, and was also now working with Jack and Derek at RIS Limited. One winter’s day, Nyle and I saw each other again over lunch at a solid waste management conference in Toronto. And somewhere between dinner rolls and dessert, he told me about a project his family had undertaken: separating recyclables from their garbage and storing them in their garage, so they could weigh the amount they generated. Astounded by how much they’d collected, he then uttered this simple statement: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this city-wide?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Here I was, now a recycling consultant, listening to a garbage collection manager tell me he’d like to start a recycling program! Trying hard to hold down my excitement, I turned to him and said, “If you’re serious, I’ll send you a proposal!” He was. So later that day I wrote the first draft on a $72,000 proposal for a demonstration program in Kitchener. Working with Jack and Derek, we proposed to Superior a six-month demonstration project that would test the effectiveness of multi-material curbside collection in a small area of the city. The program would include a major educational campaign, as well as several different collection options, both with & without use of a household collection container. RIS submitted it to Nyle, who then invited me to talk with Ron Murray, President of Superior Sanitation, to sell him on it.
In spite of Nyle’s enthusiasm, I was full of fear and trepidation that day – as I truly wondered whether a garbage company president (and former banker) would really want and pay for us to create a recycling program! However, Ron Murray threw me a curve. To paraphrase his words, Ron said, “We make a lot of money off of garbage. But I’ve never thought that made a lot of sense, for a city to be spending all this money on something that essentially has no value.” He believed that making money from recycling would make a whole lot more sense – and gave us the go ahead to proceed.
’We Don’t Believe People will Recycle’
It’s important to look back at the state of recycling in 1981. Across Ontario, there were a few dozen local recycling programs, mostly drop-off depots for glass, metal and newspapers, plus curbside newspaper collections in some communities. However, programs continually grew and then declined (or stopped) because of unstable markets for materials. And this was just one step in a ‘cycle of problems’ holding back recycling. Here was where we stood:
1) Manufacturers didn’t believe they could get a steady stream of quality recyclable materials from municipalities and the public. Therefore they didn’t invest in large scale recycling plants – and only paid for recyclables when they needed to supplement their supplies of virgin materials.
2) Without steady markets, cities and collection companies weren’t assured of good revenues for recyclable materials. Thus programs were started and stopped programs as market prices rose and fell; and recycling was done mostly by non-profit, community groups.
3) Governments didn’t believe most people would recycle. Why? In public opinion surveys, 80-90% of people said they wanted to – yet only about 5% were using local depots. Thus government officials interpreted this as ‘people aren’t serious or they’re not telling the truth.’
4) The public had concluded that government and industry ‘didn’t care,’ because of the on again/off again nature of recycling programs. So they didn’t participate regularly in local programs.
In ecological terms, this was known as a “negative feedback loop” – in which each step negatively reinforces the next. And in this situation, everyone was waiting for someone else to change.
Seeing Things Differently
At RIS, we interpreted the signs and surveys differently. As recyclers ourselves, we believed most people DID want to recycle – but weren’t doing so because local programs were not convenient or consistent. We further believed that we could break the ‘negative loop’ or cycle by:
1) demonstrating, to municipalities and industry, that people really would participate if given the right kind of program;
2) growing public participation by educating residents (on the value of recycling and importance of their actions), and providing a convenient and sustainable collection;
3) delivering a steady supply of good quality recyclable materials to industrial manufacturers; and thereby
4) gaining stable prices, which would make municipal recycling collections financially viable.
Up to this time, those of us at RIS and the Recycling Council of Ontario had favoured a non-profit approach to recycling. We had bought-in to the belief that ‘companies didn’t really care’ and often saw business as ‘the enemy’ or opposition. And the fact was, most companies did seem more interested in making a profit than keeping programs alive. They also tended to collect only the most profitable materials, rather than maximizing diversion of waste from landfill/incineration. However, with Superior, something in our thinking shifted. Part of this came from my past relationship with Nyle. More importantly, this company seemed willing to go beyond pure ‘self-interest’ – to create a program that would truly benefit the municipality, the public, the environment and themselves.
Getting the Green Light
With Ron Murray’s go-ahead, our next step was to get approval from Kitchener City Council. To proceed with our test program, Superior would need an extension on its garbage collection contract. Nyle was invited to make their case to a special meeting of City Council in the spring of 1981. And he asked me to present the recycling proposal, since I’d spearheaded it – and had worked with Council on another project several years earlier, when I lived there.
We all had our ‘hearts in our mouths’ that night, wondering whether this vision of recycling would interest Council enough to give Superior a multi-million dollar contract extension. During my presentation, some councillors asked ‘Why Superior? Couldn’t other garbage collection companies do it?’ I remember fumbling with the question, saying something like “because they believe in it” as part of my answer. And that actually was the key. Belief in and commitment to the project were essential to its success. I didn’t believe other companies had that, while Superior did. And after some deliberation, Council agreed. The extension and test project were approved. And we were ecstatic.
Creating the Program
In our agreement, RIS had responsibility for the project’s design, organization, communications and education, while Superior – which had recently become Laidlaw Waste Management Inc. – would do the collection and marketing of recyclable materials, in collaboration with Jack Rosen, a local pioneer in industrial waste recycling.
We began by writing up our vision of ‘re-shaping the future of municipal waste management’ – and sent it out to government, industry and the media. Working with Kitchener City Planning, I then researched and selected an area of approximately 1100 homes, one that was demographically representative of the whole – so, if successful, the program would have a high probability of success city-wide. Jack worked on finding a ‘collection box’ that would be suitable for those homes assigned to receive a special container. Others would simply use cardboard boxes or bags of their own choice. He selected a corrugated plastic container for its ease of distribution, cost and durability, and blue was the colour he chose. (The question is often asked “Why blue?” While no clear answer is known, ‘best guesses’ are that it was the most attractive colour available, and the best one to be seen by collectors during winter and summer months.)
The next step was a meeting with Nyle to discuss how to communicate the program to the public. Rather than simply select a ‘marketing slogan’ to sell people on recycling, we wanted to find something that spoke to people’s hearts. So we began by talking about what recycling meant to each of us. One mentioned that “recycling” (or separating materials at home) was a way for people to contribute to society. Another said there were lots of problems in the world – like the killing of whales or pollution in the Great Lakes – which people felt they could do little or nothing about. But this was one way that we could “make a difference.” This wasn’t a ‘slogan’ we’d heard before from others. However, it expressed for all of us what we truly believed, and felt that others would too. So this became our launch phrase, and the foundation of our message to residents and the City as a whole.
We also believed that education was essential to the program’s ultimate success. Rather than simply tell people they ‘should’ recycle, we wanted to involve them, to hear their ideas, and give them reasons to take part. Our goal was to create an ‘environment of support’ for the program as a whole. So in the weeks to come, we met with Council members, city staff, ratepayers groups and local media to begin promoting it. During the summer, two flyers were delivered door-to-door in the test area: one to announce what was coming, with quotes of support from the Mayor and the local alderman; the second giving information on how to prepare materials, and reasons ‘why’ to participate’ – such as saving resources/energy and creating jobs. Some residents also received face-to-face visits, to see if this would increase participation. A six-month education program was also planned, including monthly newsletters to help people understand more about recycling and give them feedback on how it was going.
The Blue Box was also part of this. In fact, it had two primary purposes. One was to make it easy for residents to collect their materials and carry them out to the street. The other was for raising awareness. We believed that if people saw others recycling, it would encourage them to do so as well. And the visibility of the Blue Box played an important role in this.
The Test Begins
With Labour Day behind us and people starting their fall routines, September 17th was selected as our launch day. That morning, Laidlaw (through its new subsidiary, Total Recycling) began the collection. Jack and I went to the home of the Ratepayer Association president, to get photos of him taking part and give the media interview opportunities as well. And then we all waited… to see how many households would participate.
The results blew us away. Across the test area, hundreds of residents had put out recyclables to the curb. Blue Boxes, with “We Recycle” stenciled on the side, began dotting the streets. By the end of three weeks of weekly pickups, close to 50% of households had already taken part – with over 11,000 kg. of newspapers, other paper products, cans and bottles being collected. We didn’t want to stop there, however. So in our first newsletter after start-up, we shared the great news – AND encouraged people who weren’t yet participating to take part, or those who’d set out only one material to try for all four.
In that newsletter, we also provided extensive information about home composting. This wasn’t something that would make Laidlaw any money – in fact, it would actually cut their revenues because less garbage would be collected for landfill. But it was part of our shared mission to reduce waste as a whole. Our belief was that the more benefits we created for the City, this would in some way benefit the garbage contractor (Laidlaw) in the longer term.
This same approach continued in the next few months of the program. Free backyard composting units were given out to householders who wanted them. An office paper collection and recycling program was launched at City Hall. Special events with the mayor, alderman and local media were held. And we continued educating and informing everyone about our progress.
As part of our test, we also wanted to educate ourselves about what was actually in the waste stream – because knowing this is an essential step to recycling and reducing it. So one cold winter morning, we collected samples of garbage from homes in our test area. We then sorted it all, piece by piece (thank heavens it was winter and things were largely frozen), to determine exactly what types and the weight of each material was being thrown away. Our goal was not just having a successful program in Kitchener; we wanted to find out what would work anywhere.
Month by month, awareness and participation continued to grow. The program wasn’t without glitches and problems, however. At one point, we were hit by waste ‘pirates’ – scavengers who came out in advance of our trucks to collect whatever valuable materials (such as newspapers) that had been put out to the street. At another time, markets prices fell and the revenues Laidlaw received for recyclable materials declined substantially. Most recycling programs would have been stopped until prices rose again. But our commitment to residents was that this program would continue through good times and bad. We believed that it needed to be reliable and dependable so people would gain confidence in it, and keep participating. And they did.
Through it all, the idea of the “Blue Box” itself was also catching on. Residents throughout the demonstration area were now asking for one. Local government, the media and people across the City were getting excited by the program and its new symbol. And the ‘consciousness’ of recycling was growing in Kitchener.
About five to six months into the pilot program, I unexpectedly had to leave RIS. It was a hard choice to make, leaving a dream project I’d just helped to create. However, while I was being called elsewhere (to take my environmental work to a deeper level), the Blue Box was just getting started.
Going City-Wide
After six months, with the test program a resounding success, Laidlaw decided to continue it. Participation was still growing. More people were requesting blue boxes. Research showed that residents using these boxes were putting out more materials than those without. And as media attention grew, letters came in from people across the city, asking for recycling in their areas.
The program became so popular that the following year, Laidlaw took it city-wide. To do this, the company invested over $500,000 for 35,000 “professional grade” blue boxes, plus new trucks and equipment. And they hit the ground running. Almost immediately, close to 85% of residents in homes across Kitchener were taking part. The program was clearly a hit. But the question was, would it continue?
The City’s garbage collection contract was up for renewal the following year and a call for tenders was sent out to the waste management industry. In a determined bid to take the contract away from Laidlaw, Browning Ferris Industries (BFI) underbid them by $400,000. Thus Kitchener was faced with a decision: Would they continue with Laidlaw and its wildly successful recycling program – or would they go with BFI, so as to save almost half a million dollars on their new garbage collection contract? It would all come down to a meeting of Kitchener City Council.
The Council Chambers that night were packed, with politicians, staff, the public, industry and media all present, wondering what the outcome would be. Here’s how it’s described by Dianne Humphries, in her excellent report We Recycle: The Creators of the Blue Box Program(1):
Attendance at the meeting was outstanding, including presenters such Colin Isaacs, Executive Director of Pollution Probe, Paul Taylor of the RCO [Recycling Council of Ontario], Nyle Ludolph, members of the Chamber of Commerce and a group of children from Trillium Elementary School, all of whom were promoting the need for recycling. Emotions ran high…
What ultimately swayed Council, however, was the performance of three grade-four students from Trillium, who read a poem to everyone present about the need for recycling. [Here is an excerpt:]
“The City of Kitchener has a really good thing going its way.
Let’s keep thinking of tomorrow instead of today.
In order that we can make our world a place to live in,
We need to keep recycling so vote for the Blue Bin…”
At the end of the meeting, the contract was awarded to Laidlaw. The following day, Jack McGinnis received a phone call from Ron Murray… stating “I now know what recycling is worth - $400,000!”
That’s the story, as it was reported – and one that hit a truly ‘emotional chord’ for those who were there.
But with some distance and reflection, one also needs to ask: “Was that really all of the story?” Could those three kids alone have made that much of a difference, enough to convince a City Council to spend $400,000 more on garbage collection? Or did it, perhaps, represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of what the program had become in the City as a whole?
The popularity of recycling in Kitchener had reached the point where 85% of (non-apartment) residents were taking part. In fact, they had asked for it. City Council was behind it. The media was lauding it. And attention was coming in from other cities, provinces and media for what the City had done.
In looking at Council’s decision, it’s important to remember all of the ‘small seeds’ that had been planted in the three+ years before that: Involving City Councillors and staff at each step along the way. The residential education and feedback program. The goal of making this a model community. Laidlaw’s commitment to reducing waste over and above recycling, so as save the City money. Keeping the program going during difficult times and when market prices had fallen. The city hall recycling program. The excellent relations with the media that had been established. And of course, the visibility and popularity of the Blue Box itself across the entire community.
Perhaps the poem, costumes and passion of those three young people that night were what swayed Council. Or maybe councillors were already looking for a way to say ‘yes,’ even though the dollars didn’t justify it – and this was just the ‘feather that tipped the scales’ and gave them permission to do so. No one will ever know for sure.
Looking Ahead at What was to Come
The story of the Blue Box would take many twists and turns over the coming years. Within a year, Laidlaw expanded the program to Mississauga, a city four times the size of Kitchener and one of the largest in Ontario. Aluminum cans and plastic bottles were approved for soft drink packaging across the province. In exchange for allowing these new packaging options, government prompted soft drink companies to create a consortium or coalition to fund Blue Box recycling program expansion to other municipalities. Seeing the program’s growing popularity, the Ontario government then decided to make the Blue Box its model for recycling across the Province. And substantial new industry-government funding was allocated to pay for containers and new programs.
Nyle Ludolph would be seconded (or borrowed) from Laidlaw to help communities across Ontario launch their own programs. Laidlaw Waste Management, Jack McGinnis, Derek Stephenson and RIS would take the Blue Box program to many new cities and countries. And “We can make a difference” became the slogan or ‘launch phrase’ for many of them.
[For a more comprehensive description of these many steps, and what led the Box to be adopted across Ontario, please see Dianne Humphries’ report, published by Pollution Probe. (1)]
More important than any of these steps, however, was their collective impact. The ‘negative feedback loop’ that previously existed for recycling in Ontario had been turned around. Government, industry, and the public were now heading in the same “positive” direction – and each step reinforced the next.
Garbage collection companies and municipalities created new recycling programs. Residents, many of whom received “blue boxes”, participated in larger numbers. Manufacturers were now able to get a reliable stream of good quality materials, and began to use more recyclable materials. As a result, the prices they paid for them increased and grew more stable, making municipal collection programs more sustainable. More programs and higher participation generated more materials. And new manufacturing facilities were then built to use them, in place of virgin materials. Product designers now looked for ways to include more recycled content in their products, and new industries were created to make those products. And the cycle continued.
As demand for materials increased, new collection programs were started for more materials. In some communities, along came the Grey Box (for paper fibres), coloured bag programs (and boxes of other colours), the Green Bin (for compostable materials), and larger household containers (for garbage and recyclables). Plastics collection also grew from simply the large soft drink bottles to most kinds of plastics in the waste stream. And these kinds of programs grew to more cities, provinces, states and countries. Each step took recycling in a new direction and to new levels. And without each step, the ‘state of recycling’ would not be where it is today.
When the Blue Box was launched, less than 1% of municipal waste across Ontario was being collected for recycling. Today, approximately 25% of all municipal waste is now being recycled (or composted). In some municipalities, the figure is over 60%. Back then, waste managers said that was impossible; it would never happen. Recycling was not even considered in the waste management “master plans” for major cities like Toronto. Today, waste managers plan for it, and municipalities and citizens look for ways to make it grow.
What’s more, there is now an ‘infrastructure of thinking’ that looks at waste in a whole new way. “Garbage” isn’t a given any more. Industries are now highly involved in reducing, reusing and recycling the wastes they create. Producer responsibility laws and Stewardship Councils are now in place in many areas, ensuring that companies work together to achieve waste management targets. Measures to encourage citizens/residents to cut back on wastes are also common place. Awareness of waste options has grown significantly (through programs such as fees for plastic shopping bags). And governments are developing ways (particularly through online information) to make it easier to reduce, reuse and recycle almost everything.
That doesn’t mean that everything is rosy (or blue), however. Not all developments have been ‘positive’ or most desirable. At times, recyclables still get ‘dumped’ because of lack of markets (though the public still thinks it happens way more than it actually does). Using refillable soft drink containers (which are often more energy and cost saving) has given way to recycling of containers in most areas. Recycling rates are still low for many materials. Most of our garbage is still getting landfilled or incinerated, and better, reliable options for reducing this are still very much needed. The public is still under-informed (and often confused) about what to recycle, and often resistant to new levies or fees for recycling certain materials (such as electronics waste). Municipalities often still ‘dictate’ changes to the public, instead of involving and working with them. And self-interest is still rampant, particularly in business, where companies think solely about what’s best for them than also what’s good for the whole.
However overall, the conscious recycling and reduction of waste has been one of the leading areas of “positive social change” during the past 30 years. I think most people would agree that it has taken us in the right direction. It has contributed to significant reductions in material going to landfill, energy and raw/virgin material usage (e.g. forests), and increases in job creation and economic development. It has also become a vanguard in the growing realization that we can “make a difference” and create change through our personal choices and actions.
Going Beyond That…
Here’s a summary of some of the larger accomplishments of the “blue box” over the past 30 years:
a) The blue box has become a symbol of recycling in many locations – even to the point of influencing the colour/shape of recycling containers sold by retailers, or used within companies to collect their recyclable materials.
b) The ‘blue box program’ was selected as the model for recycling in all municipalities in Ontario. Six years after its launch, the Ontario program received a United Nations Environment award for environmental leadership and cross-sectoral collaboration – among non-profit organizations, business and government.
c) It is now used (in some form) in hundreds of other cities, provinces, states and countries.
d) ‘You can make a difference,’ the core belief and launch phrase for the program, has grown even larger. It not only became the slogan for many recycling programs that followed. It is now used by thousands of other groups, events, and programs around the world.
For me, it is the last of these that is actually the most significant. Why? Because while recycling itself is valuable, far more important has been growing the consciousness of ‘making a difference’ in society. For this takes us back to our very starting point.
When we began, our belief was that people wanted to do something to make the world a better place. And that’s why we chose “making a difference” was our program slogan. Yet recycling was simply a starting point, one way of contributing.
This desire to contribute has now been expressed countless times among hundreds of millions of people – from individual citizens, to non-profits organizations active in health, social, community and environmental affairs, to businesses working on sustainability, to Presidents of the United States encouraging socially-beneficial initiatives. The language of “making a difference” has become a common link of intention and action.
We didn’t start that; we just helped catalyze its expression. By acting our own beliefs & values, and believing that other people shared these, this idea touched a nerve, a desire. And it has helped people to give voice to something deep inside of them – not just in recycling, but in all areas of life.
“Why did the Blue Box succeed, when other programs didn’t?”
In some environmental circles, the Blue Box is seen as a model of how change can actually happen. I’ve also heard that it was considered to be one of the top Canadian social innovations of the 1980s. Thus one reason I’ve told this story in such detail is with the hope that “our how-to’s” may be useful to others. But there’s another, larger purpose.
Since leaving the program in the early 1980s, my interest has been in understanding the roots of change. Why do some initiatives succeed and others don’t? And are there lessons we can learn about becoming more effective in creating change at a deeper level?
Prior to our pilot program, there were many other curbside collection programs across Ontario, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere. We were far from being the first. Other programs had even used coloured collection boxes or containers for in-home separation. So why did the “Blue Box” become the model or symbol for recycling in so many places?
Fate, accident, coincidence, perhaps all of these had some role to play. But I believe – and I must admit to being biased on this one – that the seeds for its success lay in its origins: in the vision, values and shifts in thinking that helped create that first demonstration program.
Here are the ones that I think were important to the eventual success of the Blue Box:
1) Our goal wasn’t to just start one recycling program. We wanted to create a model for sustainable recycling anywhere, and ‘break the loop’ of inaction that was holding it back.
2) We didn’t break that loop by regulating, forcing or pushing people to change. It was done through finding people with shared values and developing a common vision. Then engaging people by speaking to what’s important to them, providing good information and education, and creating a program that was convenient and easy in which to participate.
3) Those of us at the centre of the program had to shift some of our own core beliefs (and behaviour) in order to make it work. The examples of this are many: Nyle Ludolph became willing to test recycling at home; Ron Murray saw that making money from garbage ‘didn’t ultimately make sense’ (and wasn’t in the best interests of the municipality); Kitchener City Council voting to save the recycling program, rather than the $400,000; and we at RIS moving beyond our beliefs that recycling should be done by non-profit groups, or that waste reduction and refillables must come before recycling. For each of us, our values and ideals needed to be integrated with what was also practical and in the interests of the larger whole.
4) We initiated ‘the change we wanted to see in the world,’ rather than wait for others to do it.
5) We needed to collaborate with non-traditional partners, across society, who we might previously have seen each other as “opponents.’ This included garbage collection companies, environmental groups, ratepayer groups, industrial manufacturers, consultants, municipal and provincial governments, and the public.
6) We ‘thought and listened’ into the needs of each ‘partner.’ And we spoke to the highest in them, rather than appeal to the lowest common denominator or pure self-interest. We also, as alluded to above, had to move beyond our own personal ideology and self-interest to a “larger self” interest – which incorporated our needs, those of others, and the larger whole.
7) “We can make a difference” wasn’t just a marketing slogan designed to push people’s buttons, or get them to do what we wanted. It was a statement of belief and purpose, which came out of what truly mattered to us -AND- what we thought others wanted and valued too.
8) We encouraged people to see the power of their own choices and actions, and believe in their ability to improve society – by doing something they cared about.
9) Our goal was to create a win-win-win, environmentally, economically, socially and politically. That is, to reduce waste & landfill, conserve resources, save energy, and create jobs, while growing a financially viable program, and one that would be politically popular, because people wanted it.
10) Our intention was to make the process repeatable by anyone, and to share our information and experiences so that others could also do it.
In nature, the seed is essential to creating the plant. It contains the DNA that guides its formation and development. Is there a parallel in human-led development? Do the core intentions and motivations behind our projects guide the eventual outcomes we see in the world?
I’ve come to believe they do. And for me, the success of the Blue Box program as a whole had its roots in these original beliefs, values and approaches.
Eric Hellman is a change consultant and communications coach, living in Vancouver, B.C. He can be reached at erichellman@rogers.com.
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References:
1. Humphries, Dianne N., We Recycle: The Creators of the Blue Box Program, Toronto: Pollution Probe, 1997.