To the editor,
Re: City councillors won’t decide yet on NRE request, March 15.
The NRE has asked the city for $6 million to help with construction of a new facility. This seems like a large amount of money, but is it really considering how much money the NRE has saved Nanaimo taxpayers over the course of its nearly 30 years of service to the community?
If the NRE hadn’t been recycling the hard-to-recycle items like: styrofoam, Saran Wrap, bubble wrap, ziploc bags, plastic overwrap and others, how much closer would the Cedar landfill be to capacity? How much ‘garbage’ would have been left in the woods over the course of 30 years without the NRE? How much ‘junk’ wouldn’t have found a second home thanks to the NRE’s community market? How much gas would people have spent driving around Nanaimo to drop off a myriad of materials without the convenience of a central, one-stop location? Needless to say, I think the cost to Nanaimo taxpayers in tax money and personal funds would be far in excess of $6 million.
The NRE has been saving Nanaimo taxpayers money for nearly three decades, not to mention helping our beleaguered planet.
The NRE has helped us for years, it’s time for us to help it.
David Wang, Nanaimo
To the editor,
Re: NRE missing business sense, Letters, March 20.
The letter writer should be very happy the Nanaimo Recycling Exchange has closed, the one-stop drop-off unique place has now gone, and us the public that used it lose it after almost 30 years.
I just wonder where us the public are going to put their glass, styrofoam, plastic bags, shrink wrap, Ziploc bags, light bulbs, batteries, non-conforming metal aand also household items all in one place at the at the same time, therefore perhaps reducing our carbon footprint. That was the beauty of it, one place, and it was a not-for-profit, so would take the time and energy to find new markets to recycle the hard items (perhaps manufacturers should not produce things and packaging that cannot be fully recycled) and do education in the schools, etc.
Big business is purely for profit and therefore does not do the same as the NRE; I suspect that now the competition has gone, prices will go up for us.
It is sad to think that we are again going backwards in our thinking and it makes me angry at the short-sightedness of the council members.
I wonder, if the city decides to do a program like the NRE did, but it will cost the taxpayers far more owing to the face that the city will be paying union wages.
Libba Innes, Nanaimo
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