Earlier this week I was the Canadian International Auto Show (CIAS) is Toronto. It was quite a large show, filling a stadium and two convention centers.

The theme for this year’s show was “The Turning Point” and my impression from that was the turning towards green solutions in transportation.

There were two strong “green” themes about the show. There were no trash cans and no (few) brochures being handed out.

The first, no garbage cans, was a tad annoying but I could see why they were doing it. It was called a “zero waste event”, which means there were only bins for metal, bottles and one for organics. There were no cans for garbage. Great, but what do I do with the wrapper from the granola bar? Take it home and create waste there instead? I did bring it home but the solution most people had was to throw everything they had into one bin and not care.

The no brochures was a nice touch. Years ago I remember coming home with a whole bag of high-gloss brochures only to toss them out in a short while. All of the manufacturers have websites with the brochures available there. This saves them money and saves some paper. There were few plastic bags being handed out, most of the bags being given out were reusable canvas bags.

The car was the usual showy and fun business. We got tons of pictures and I will be sharing them here over the next while.