City of St. John’s, look in the mirror

In 2006, after the province started action to place a new dump approximately 100 kilometres outside St. John’s on the recommendation of two committees, one technical and one political, the city panicked and started a vigorous campaign to convince the province to leave the dump site at Robin Hood Bay.

This was entirely self-serving, as the city was looking at millions of dollars a years in fuel, equipment and manpower costs if the dump was moved.

The province was also looking at spending between $50 million and $150 million to develop the new site.

The province agreed and the dumpsite remained in St. John’s and under the control of the city. The city agreed to manage the dumpsite and institute new fees and a redevelopment of Robin Hood Bay. Over the past few years, the city has conveniently forgotten that control and management of the site also includes the responsibility for the control and management of the people who choose to use the site.

The mayor and councillors Sandy Hickman and Danny Breen have been complaining lately about the garbage on the Outer Ring Road and that the province should clean it up again. Just how many times does the province have to do this? The hundreds of trucks that drive over this and other roads every day with uncovered loads have one thing in common: they are all going to Robin Hood Bay. So, instead of the city complaining to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary to ticket these trucks on the highway, or whining to the province, why does the city not take its responsibility seriously and take care of this problem, as it is entirely their responsibility.

The problem has an easy solution. The city has to — after a suitable period of media warnings — place trained people at the dumpsite to inspect every truck that enters and issue a ticket to every vehicle with an unsecured load. These tickets should be for a minimum of $500 and up to as high as they want to go. This will not stop the mess already there, but after word gets out I can assure you that no trucks will be delivering unsecured loads to Robin Hood Bay.

This is the only language that these drivers will understand, and unless they are hit in the pocket, they will never change. To clean up the city we need St. John’s Clean and Beautiful to put cleanup programs in place. There are hundreds of ways to clean up this filthy city, but we need the right team to organize them.

The coffee shops need to charge at least $5 deposit on a paper cup and as long as the used cup is returned at the next visit, all a person will ever need is one $5 deposit. This will get rid of a large part of the garbage. It’s time the city stopped blaming the mess on everyone else and accepted their responsibility and took some concrete action, instead of blaming everyone else.

R.P. Franey St. Philip’s