"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Sunday 25 May 2014

More Clarity about Clear Bags

Tim the Enchanter has left a new comment on your post "Clear bags versus opaque...how obscure is the plan...":

A portion From the Ajax News May 8/2014

Ajax will be using the new incinerator as well so their council is doing the Clear Bag Boogie too.

The "reasoning" is the same used in Aurora - burning batteries and other recyclables will cause air quality issues.

However.

"Mirka Januszkiewicz, Durham Region’s director of waste management services, says a “comprehensive” staff report on the issue is coming to regional council. She also noted that clear bags are not a magical solution to preventing hazardous items from reaching the incinerator -- or for increasing Durham’s waste-diversion rate. She says “education is the best safeguard” and that even in a clear garbage bag, a waste disposal driver will not be able to distinguish a battery, for example."

Exactly.

How hard is it to hide a few household batteries?
And why weren't those batteries disposed of correctly?
Because we all know how to do that - right?

I'm not sure who's been mixing up this "clear bags will save the environment" Kool-Aid but councils near and far have been drinking it.

Of course there are the privacy issues but there seems to be a workaround there.
So you stop buying green bags and buy clear bags.
What's the big deal?

Nothing.
Much.
Other than I don't appreciate the fact that my own town council has apparently given up on recycling education and decided that good old-fashioned public shaming is just the ticket, as if picking up our garbage was a favour and not actually financed by the piles of cash that we leave on the Town Hall doorstep every year.
And I'm a tad miffed, though not the least bit surprised that they've found a handy consultant, who for only $45000 will inform us all of the subtle, yet distinct difference between green (bad) and clear(good) bags.

That's almost a year's worth of Hillary House financing isn't it?

Publish
Dele

Posted by Tim the Enchanter to Our Town and Its Business at 24 May 2014 19:56

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please do not refer to what we give to Hillary, Tim. Rather a fraction of the money spent on studying clear bags might have gotten Petch finished off so it could serve a useful purpose. Petch should not be suffering from a rotting foundation, cracked window frames and leaking roof for a very long time.

Anonymous said...

Scruff the clear bags. It was a bad idea, initiative, & I do not care whose it was, in the first place. Let it go.

Anonymous said...

Page 5 of the Agenda is now back up. The spelling of the medicinal plant is still incorrect. There is no ' h' in that word. Communications gaffe again.