Well, it's almost the end of summer and the Labor Day weekend approaches -- I've been a bit remiss in posting here with all the long weekends visiting friends and relatives at their cottages and so on. This year I decided to take a week's holiday and rather than use it all at once, spread the days over a few three and four-day weekends. But, like the rest of you, when September comes and the kids are back in school, my mind gets focused on business matters again, and there's a lot going on.

Our magazine is involved in a number of trade shows and conferences this fall, including the upcoming Canada Composting Council event in Hamilton in mid-September, and also the special landfill conference (with MOLO training sessions) being presented by SWANA and OWMA. The CCC is also delivering a new "news" service about organics recovery on our website that will initiate presently. (Watch for the announcement in our August/September edtion, which is being mailed now. That edition also contains the official show guide for the CCC's September event.)

There are some exciting developments underway on other fronts. We're set to expand the IC&I Waste supplement of our magazine. Two-thirds of all waste comes from the industrial, commercial and institutional sector, so we feel this is a market we must serve, and serve well. Since so much of our main magazine focuses on municipal waste and waste diversion strategies, we think it makes sense to concentrate the IC&I material in a special section. Over time we plan to make this section more robust, with its own cover and so on. Watch for more coverage of industrial wastes (sludges, still bottoms, liquid wastes, hazardous materials, etc.) and also commercial organics diversion and recycling issues that will be of special interest to companies and property managers who must comply with waste diversion targets.

My publisher Brad O'Brien and I are in discussions now with our group manager Carol Bell-Lanoury to plan and roll out new supplements and special magazine and website services this fall and winter, so stay tuned!

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's been a while since I made a blog entry, and I think readers deserve and explanation!

It's simple, really -- I've been running flat out in my non-work time with family, kids and all the summer rituals (soccer, camping, visits to friends' cottages, etc.) and, by weekday, assembling the August/September edition of the magazine, which is off to press.

And what a terrific edition it is! The cover story by Maria Kelleher looks at ways the waste management and recycling/composting industry can help cope with climate change issues. (You'll like Charles Jaffe's amusing cover cartoon of a sweating planet earth!) We have a very decent-size composting supplement with another amusing cover of its own.

Look in that edition when it arrives at the end of this month for an announcement about a new information service we're launching on our website -- an organics recovery news service, with information supplied by The Composting Council of Canada. This will offer timely updates about composting across Canada, activities of The Council, and useful documents for you to download.

Keep enjoying the summer everyone (what's left of it!) and watch for more posts in this space now that our recent magazine edtion is off to press!

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)