Whitehorse hotel grows veggies in parking lot

A hotel in Whitehorse says it's happy with the results of a summerexperiment.

Instead of planting flowers, theDays Inn planted vegetables. The potatoes, carrots, beets, Swiss chard and kale were shared with Whitehorse'sfood bank.

ManagerFrancis Van Kesseldoesn't know how many kilogramswere harvested, instead measuringthe harvest in milk-crate-size boxes.

"When we did our potatoes and carrots we got about eight containers of potatoes and aboutsevenof carrots," she said.

Greens, like beet tops, were brought to the food bank once a week during the summer.

"I did this, pretty much, because we as people need to changeour society andthe change comes from within. There's hungry people in the city of Whitehorse and we need to start fixing that," she said.

Council recognizes community,environmentalwork

The Days Inn was one of the threebusinessesin Whitehorsementioned by city council this week, as councilor Mike Gladish listed what he called positive examples in the community.

One of those, the Riverside Grocery in Whitehorse, is doing away with plastic bags.

Levi Commons works at the grocery and says the change is being madeon principle.

'We're trying to make the first step to eliminating plastic bags. I know a lot of places around the world are doing it."

Gladish also mentioned Yukon College, which has stopped sellingbottled water on its Whitehorse campus. Instead, the school has installed water fountains designed to refill re-useable bottles.