Citywomanearnsplaceamongtopyoungenvironmentalists

Mireta Strandberg-Salmon is a force to be reckoned with.

She was only 15 when she challenged the status quo with a school-wide campaign to demand a ban on sales of single-use plastic water bottles from vending machines at her high school

By the time Strandberg-Salmon graduated in 2017, she helped persuade Moscrop Secondary School in Burnaby to stop selling bottled water from all five of the vending machines in the school

This was just the beginning for the Burnaby-raised student

She took her passion to Simon Fraser University, where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, and led a “Ban the Bottle” campaign, which resulted in the university banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles across the three campuses

Adding to the success of those campaigns, the university also eliminated the sale of all other plastic bottle beverages water, juice and soft drinks sold in plastic bottles

Even franchisees like Starbucks,Tim Hortons, Subway, Blenz Coffee and INS Market convenience store on the campus have eliminated the use of bottled beverages a huge feat for the 23-year-old Strandberg-Salmon.

Starfish Canada, a group that supports young people in their environmental careers, featured the young leader in their Top 25 environmentalists under 25 list to celebrate and reward those re- sponsible for contributing to a positive change in the community (In the year 2020, now-Burnaby Coun Alison Gu was also named on the list for her Cyclists in Solidarity project)

As a change-maker, it’s important to celebrate the small wins, Strandberg-Salmon advised She added that the road to effecting change in the community is not without its ups and downs.

She said the environmental problems facing the world are so big that it’s easy for young people to feel like they’re not contributing enough, but stressed it is important to celebrate the small wins and take the support of adults in your life she certainly did.

“Even if it doesn’t look like you’re having a big impact now, you’re going to grow as a leader and have an exponential impact in the future,” she said “You really have to entrench behavioural change … and promote the idea of wealth for us water as a human right, and get that embedded into policy to ensure long-term change ”

When she was in Grade 8, she joined the Unity in Green environmental club in her school As years passed, she initiated the change for banning sale of single-use plastic water bottles at the school as part of her social justice class with then-teacher and now-councillor Daniel Tetrault

“We wanted to start with the sales of single-use bottled water in the vending machines because of the environmental impacts of extracting water and manufacturing plastic and disposing that plastic,” she said

“Also because of the social impacts that not a lot of people always consider the facilities that make plastic and pollute the air are often located near vulnerable and underserved communities ” Her journey continued on to SFU with the similar bottle-ban initiative, which led to eliminating the sale of more than 260,000 single-use plastic water bot- tles annually, according to SFU’s report

“It’s about more than just plastic bottles at one or two schools,” she said. “Hopefully this will have a ripple effect and the behavior change will carry on well beyond the scope of SFU campuses ”

“We have also accelerated conversations about both student engagement, and zero waste and circular economy at SFU. And hopefully inspiring other students to also make changes in their own schools. So I’m excited to be supporting a new generation of Burnaby students who are trying to make a change ”

Strandberg-Salmon is now a policy analyst for Environment and Climate Change Canada’s circular economy team, where she hopes to effect change on a national scale