From page 1 "It's really just in keeping with how we do things at our house," said Mr. Williamson, who's lived on Downey Drive with his family for 12 years and runs his own consulting practice, helping companies reduce their waste. "We basically only put a bag of garbage to the curb every two or three years so it wouldn't make much sense to then send two tonnes of asphalt to landfill." Through his research, Mr. Williamson learned that about 1.25 million tonnes of asphalt-based roofing materials are discarded every year in Canada with most of it ending up in landfill. He immediately started searching for a company that would recycle his shingles and after some digging, he found a paving company in Markham that could do the job. "They will grind those shingles up, remove the nails and any metal items from it and the asphalt part of the shingles will be used for paving a parking lot," he said. Next, Mr. Williamson wanted to find a material to replace the roof that was not only better for the environment, but would last longer to avoid running into the same situation again. When he looked at the big picture, he decided on a steel roof. "Asphalt is the most cost-effective to just simply replace the roof but what most people don't factor in is an average 20-year asphalt roof probably only lasts about 12 or 15 years so they're going to be replacing this roof three or four times," he said. "A steel roof has a lifetime guarantee for 50 years so if you do it over a 50-year time frame, you're well ahead and it's virtually maintenance-free." Mr. Williamson said his family's shift toward environmentally friendly living happened by accident about six years ago. In May 2008, while clearing out the garage, he realized it had been a while since he'd last placed a bag of garbage at the curb. "I just spoke to my wife and said, "Do you realize we've only put one bag of garbage out in the past five months? Let's dig into this and see how much further we can reduce it.'" The family started taking steps to reduce their waste in various ways, including buying food in bulk to cut down on packaging and choosing recyclable materials. "I think the first year, we put out about two-and-a-half bags of garbage; the second year we put out a bag-and-a-half and now the current bag that we're on is probably going to take us about three years to fill," said Mr. Williamson. "We're actually at 99.6-per cent waste diversion. That's pretty darn close to zero waste so yes, it is possible ... we just give it a little bit of thought and put a lot of design into it." durhamregion.com The Citizen June 20, 2014 7