Erin Charter,
Communications Manager
Erin is an eater, baker, and DIYer. She makes her own jam, and her own deodorant. Since she's been at Environmental Defence, she has become quite invested in the toxics problem and has effectively detoxed everything from her toilet cleaner to her lip gloss. You can find Erin riding around the city on her bicycle, or talking to anyone who will listen about non-toxic cosmetics (including innocent shoppers in the shampoo aisle!).
Erin has been a writer since the age of eight, when her poem about ghosts won a prize at a community pumpkin festival. She kept up with her writing to complete a BA in English, Rhetoric and Professional Writing from the University of Waterloo, and an MA in Communication and Culture from Ryerson and York Universities. For her MA research, she looked at Canadian communities' food resources and considered the role of policy and the community in ensuring access to healthy, local, and culturally appropriate food. This work led her to work on increasing capacity for Greenbelt farmers' markets, a blog about local food, and other environmental projects at the Greenbelt Foundation. From there, it was a short road to Environmental Defence, where she works on everything from Greenbelt to toxics to energy.