Sean Brillant began his ACAP journey in 1993 as the project coordinator for the Community Environmental Quality Assessment, a precursor for the Community Environmental Management Plan.

In 1994, Sean started his MSc. at UNBSJ supported by ACAP studying the contaminant loading and distribution in the tissues of intertidal animals across the SJ Harbour and in 1997, he began his role as Executive Director until 2003. During this time, he worked on several renowned ACAP projects and engaged with many members of the community and the board of directors.

Household Hazardous Waste Reduction Project

When we asked Sean to chat about one of his most memorable projects he worked on during his time with ACAP, he immediately mentioned the Household Hazardous Waste Project, which ran from 1994-1995. This project reached over 25 schools and was presented to approximately 3,000 children!

Take a look at what Sean had to say!

The ACAPSJ Household Hazardous Waste Program is a project that I still use as an example of effective education-based action project. The goal of this program was to reduce the amount of (environmentally) hazardous materials from entering our mostly untreated sewerage system, as well as our local waterways.

This was done by providing presentations to school classrooms, grades 4 to 6, about the types of environmentally hazardous materials that may be in their homes. Students were provided with a checklist of these materials, a sheet of big bright blue stickers, and a list of simple but effective non-hazardous alternatives for each of the materials. As a follow-up activity for their home, students were asked to work with a parent or adult to go throughout their homes together to find these hazardous materials and to mark them with the bright blue stickers.

The result was that not only that the students became aware of what materials in their homes may be hazardous, but so did the parent and the big stickers made sure this awareness was reinforced whenever the material was used.

Additionally, the non-hazardous alternatives for these materials allowed homeowners to know how to replace these materials. Although a large proportion of checklists were returned to ACAP Saint John, indicating the program was widely used, the extent of hazardous materials that were diverted could not be measured. Nonetheless, this multi-pronged approach to education and personal action for reducing the effect of human activities on the natural world.

Sean now works for the Canadian Wildlife Federation as the senior conservation biologist for Marine Programs.