Janet has strong facilitation and workshop skills that enable her to engage with different stakeholder groups in an open and non-confrontational manner to elicit input, discussion and support for waste diversion ideas and strategies.  Over the years she has worked with a number of municipalities and organizations to develop and facilitate waste diversion workshops.

In addition, she has worked on promotion and education (P&E) which stresses community engagement. Over the years, Janet has prepared handbooks to foster waste diversion through the use of policies, cost effective technologies and P&E. She has orchestrated community engagement activities to promote waste diversion.

Projects include:

Multi-Residential Waste Reduction Workshop. City of Toronto
Retained to help develop and facilitate two half-day workshops for the Solid Waste Department of the City of Toronto. The workshops provided help to superintendents, building owners and property managers of multi-residential buildings to learn how to improve waste diversion in their buildings. The workshops combined lectures with individual and group exercises and discussions.

University of Alberta Organics Waste Diversion Strategy, University of Alberta and Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence
Member of a team retained to develop an organic waste diversion strategy for the University of Alberta.  Undertook two site visits and conducted interviews with staff, students, residents, conducting focus groups with custodial staff and interest groups and management, conducting food vendor site analysis and interviews, performing visual waste audits, monitoring bin use and traffic activities. Managed the preparation of the evaluation report focusing on promotion and eduction strategies, including outreach and engagement.  Janet presented on ‘Overcoming User Challenges’ in designing waste diversion programs in public spaces as part of a half day organics diversion workshop hosted by the Edmonton Waste Management Centre for Excellence.

Waste Transformation Handbook and Workshops. Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation (OFNTSC)
Retained by OFNTSC to develop a waste diversion handbook for Ontario First Nation communities and to use the handbook during two workshops to help attendees begin to prepare a tailor made waste diversion strategy for their own communities.    The Waste Transformation Handbook was developed to guide the user in taking the necessary steps in evaluating, preparing, implementing, communicating and monitoring a waste diversion program and featured low cost strategies and case studies from other First Nation communities. The workshop combined training with individual and group exercises on topics such as understanding the needs and characteristics of the community, learning how to conduct surveys and residential waste audits, learning about low cost waste diversion operations and policies and learning how to develop promotion and education and outreach strategies.

Sudbury Area First Nation Recycling Program Implementation Evaluation, Continuous Improvement Fund
Retained to help 21 First Nations (FN) communities situated in the Sudbury area improve their recycling programs. One component of the project involved conducting two separate one-day interactive workshops to engage participating First Nation communities in the evaluation process and to deliver the recommendations to each community. An overview of promotion and education strategies and benefits was presented during the workshop with exercises to augment the presentations. This work resulted in her being hired to develop the Waste Transformation Handbook and one-day supporting workshop.

Solid Waste as a Resource Workshops, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Member of a team that delivered five one-day Waste as A Resource workshops across the country (BC, AB, MB, ON and NF) to familiarize municipal staff and councillors about the FCM Guide and Workbook that was primarily researched and written by Ms. Robins. The workshops explored how to develop integrated waste management systems as part of a move to develop sustainable communities. Attendees were introduced to concepts of P&E, setting realistic goals and understanding community needs, decision making process, user pay, etc.  The workshop featured individual and group exercises and encouraged discussions.

Waste Transformation Plan- Phase 2, Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nations Retained by the Pikwakanagan First Nations community, located near Pembroke, to help deliver a comprehensive P&E strategy and outreach program to improve participation in waste diversion activities and reduce contamination of the recycling stream and to pursue other waste diversion programs. Tasks involved designing waste diversion promotional material, hand delivering each package to households and engaging in discussions with each householder about the benefits of recycling and contamination challenges and answer any questions.