To the Editor,
We received our green bin and all of its accompanying paraphernalia from the City of Nanaimo.
The day I was dreading had arrived. Don’t get me wrong, I think recycling is a great idea and I am happy to do my part in making our environment safer and cleaner.
However, in my effort to keep our world clean and safe I am not willing to check my brains at the door.
We labour in our homes to collect and sort our waste. We provide the compostable material to the city (our kitchen garbage). We pay them to come and pick it up.
We provide them with the yard and garden waste they mix with it. We bring that to them and pay them to take that as well.
They take the raw materials and make a product (soil or fertilizer for our gardens) and we again pay them to take that product home and sprinkle it on our gardens.
Does it bother anyone besides me that we pay money at both ends of the whole process?
When you think about it, we are all employees of the city and we are paying them to make a product they will in turn sell to us.
Did anyone besides me notice the increase in our garbage collection costs this year? How many ends are we paying at now?
I can do my own recycling at home and create my own compost if I want and then benefit from my own labour.
But I still have to pay the city for a service I didn’t ask for and may not need, and the cost of that is just going to increase rather than go away.
In our need to reduce our carbon footprint, garbage is a big concern. But it is also big business. A business that I am a part of whether I like it or not and a business where I am forced to contribute.
Why are the consumers responsible for the recycling? Where is the manufacturers’ role in the whole picture?
Wendy Lueder
Nanaimo