"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

Monday 19 January 2015

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

In the seventies as a Regional Councillor, I went to a solid waste management conference in Atlanta .

Focus was on the most effective way of handling garbage from a  cost and environmental protection
perspective.

Every method known to man had already been tried elsewhere and land fill determined to be best.

Decades rolled  by.  York Region shipped garbage at great expense and no social conscience to the States. No political fortitude  existed either at the Provincial or Regional level.

In the nineties, during the short-lived NDP government, a site for land fill was identified
in East Gwillimbury. Sufficiently remote and of sufficient size to create no problem to human habitat.

No progress was made.

Ultimately an incinerator was built. After years of opposition and environmental studies and at a cost which may never be known.

The operation is undoubtedly closely monitored and policed.

Two years later the clear garbage bag idea was floated.  Insinuated into what had previously been proclaimed to be a wildly successful program of garbage separation; combustible from recyclable and compostable and separately disposable.

I believe we have not being told all there is to know.

Something nobody thought of before they lit the flame under the York/Durham incinerator.

Something as simple as small household batteries.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If we were all environmentally responsible those small household batteries would never go in the garbage, they would be nicely bundled up in a reusable bag and driven to EG for disposable. But that is a lot of work for small batteries. Is there a pick up for those at the end of my driveway, maybe then we would be more responsible.

Anonymous said...

I listened to the presentation by the man from the company behind the clear bag initiative - never heard anyone speak so fast in my entire life . The problem was that people were so entranced with the speed-talk that they failed to listen to a word.
I think his basic conclusion when questioned by a councillor was that the clear bags might be better than doing nothing.

Anonymous said...

Staples/Business Depot is one of many retailers that will take batteries in for disposal.

As an industry, the Beer Store - not withstanding The Star's recent ranting - has become a model of recycling. Not only do they take in the used bottles of their product, but those of the LCBO and other wine distributers.

Why can't we come up with a deposit-based system with an adequate number of outlets to return them for the deposit?

Anonymous said...

This is all BS. Someone is making a lot of money on this garbage project. And we again are paying for it.

Anonymous said...

14:30
In some places in Europe there are machines that take recycling in exchanger for small change. If the upper level of residents do not want to do their share, others in their communities benefit.

Anonymous said...

There is no way council is backing down on the clear bags. They have already spent so much studying the thing & paying consultants. I look forward to seeing them try to bring my street into compliance - we still have people who just put out a few green bins & toss everything else into black bags.

Anonymous said...

19:49- when did spending a pile of money on nonsense stopped anything? It will go through because it's the "right thing to do", or something to that effect. The real reason is because of what 15:44 posted. Someone or group is is making a pile of money somewhere.