Judiciously making little piles of garbage everywhere……..
The recent implementation of Chestermere Utilities green & blue garbage recycling is actually making me red with frustration.
A yogurt container – plastic with a paper label and a paper/foil seal lid. As I enjoy my healthy treat, I ponder the question that is consuming a substantial amount of my time lately…. 3 separate piles, two or one……
The recent Anchor article stated that there has been a 97% positive response to this initiative; however, in my own private poll of friends and neighbors, I would be hard pressed to find 3% that are overly excited about the way this program has been rolled out and the restrictions on what can or can’t be recycled and the crazy expectations to separate, manipulate and further pack for transport the items for recycling, compost and garbage.
One of my favorite comments from the May 14th article and literature supplied on the web pages is the minimizing of the programs inability to recycle glass at this time and the suggestion to share your left over jam jars with friends and neighbors for crafts????? I’m sorry, but that is just plain ridiculous.
Overall, we are trying to be compliant with and understand what goes where, but in the process, we are establishing little piles of garbage all over our house. A pile for straight plastics, a pile for plastic bags which will need to be further packaged into another single plastic bag for transport in the blue bin, piles of tin cans drying, paper towels (hmmm is that recycling or compost). Do I have a method to gauge if the paper towel is grease soaked and needs to go into the garbage? Oh no, God forbid if the garbage collector sees a paper towel in my allotted one-and-only garbage bag (clear of course to follow the mandate) and does not have the same method for gauging is composability, or does he err on the side of caution and just leave the whole bag with a polite note stating it contains the forbidden paper product.
With the prospect of the upcoming warm summer days, I am sure I will feel ecologically responsible as I relish in my decision (ooops not) to participate in the program while I endure the smell of rotting table scraps rising (thinking of that nice rotisserie chicken carcass) up from all of the green compost bins.
All I can say is Too Fast, Too Restrictive and Way Way Too Complicated…….. If you believe the statistics from Chestermere Utilities, I must be in the 3% that is not thrilled with the new program (or is the truth actually closer to 97% of people not very happy??)
Hmmm Yogurt – I think I will just stop buying it, as it is too stressful to decide how to dispose of the wrapping. I also wonder if I can get a rebate on my taxes for the square footage of the bins for the lack of use of my property to store them on??? Hmmm
Brian Brand
