Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a Country Music Television on-air personality and host of CMT Central, CMT30 and Chevy Karaoke Star 2008.

 

My hands are green because I am a recycling and composting fanatic.

What made you decide to do your bit for the environment?

I bought a house last year and was amazed — and a little disgusted — at the amount of waste we were generating. When we combined the stuff that we needed to get the house up and running, the "toys" that we wanted, plus all of the housewarming gifts we were fortunate enough to receive, the packaging alone was overwhelming. And that wasn't even including the ongoing waste generated by clothes shopping, grocery shopping, packaged food and the daily newspaper. So our household recycles. Everything. And composts. Everything. In fact, if you come over, don't sit in one place without moving for too long — you might end up in one of our colour-coded bins.

What is your environmental pet peeve? What do other people do (or not do) that drives you crazy?

Smokers tossing cigarette butts wherever they want to. I guess they figure that the butts are so small that throwing them on the ground when an ashtray isn't within reach is acceptable. But if millions of smokers toss millions of cigarette butts on the ground the result is damaging and disgusting. These things can take as long as 10 years to degrade. Around two billion pounds of cigarette filters are discarded worldwide annually. Research shows that chemicals from cigarette filters can leach into the water table and are deadly to micro-organisms that are vital to the aquatic food chain.

You know that guy that's driving in front of you on the highway and he just chucks his cigarette out of the window because he doesn't want that gross thing stinking up his fancy truck and dirtying his ashtray because it will affect the resale value? I hate that guy.

Oh — and I know these might not exist everywhere... but those billboard-trucks that just drive around busy areas of the city advertising cologne, or a new crappy album, or something-or-another — they just drive around, burning fuel, clogging up streets! There should be a law against it.

I sound like an angry old codger

What could the whole world live without in order to help our environment?

Bottled water. Hey, I love a bottle of bubbly Perrier the morning after too many bottles of another popular French liquid, but in developed nations, other than a few exceptions, tap water is just fine.

What's in your Blue Box?

Absolutely everything that can be recycled.

Is there an environmental initiative you're involved in that you'd like to highlight or promote?

At the Green Living Show in Toronto I found out about this super-cool new tertiary septic system (yes, I just called a tertiary septic system "super-cool"). It drastically reduces the impact that wastewater has on environments that rely on septic. Apparently the wastewater that is the end result of these new tertiary systems is clear, safe, and nearly drinkable. These systems are a little pricier up front, but apparently they can save cottage country areas from water table contamination. That's super-cool in my books.