Doing cartwheels over recycling of organics
Jeez Louise! First, people didn’t want the blue carts. Then, the blue carts came in and they got used to them. Next, they didn’t want the black carts. Then, the black carts came in and they got used to them. Now, they’re whining and complaining about the green carts. And oh, the variations on this theme of the imposition of the evil green carts! It’s too many carts, they say. Where’ll I keep them? How will I push them to the curb/back alley/side street/ whatever?
And if that isn’t enough, there’s the old fallback refrain which goes like this: Grumble, grumble, mutter, “taxpayers’ money,” grumble some more, mutter some more.
Blue carts, black carts, green carts. These are exactly what a modern, forward-thinking, environmentally minded city council is supposed to be providing to citizens. It’s just too bad we can’t have green carts citywide sooner than 2016. They should skip the pilot program and just bring it on.
It’s been interesting to hear the naysayers among the letter writers, online posts and casual conversation. The main objections centre on lack of space for
We here in Calgary are bringing up the rear while pretending we’re being asked to blaze the trail
the green cart (the same complaint about the blue and black carts, for which everyone magically found room in the final analysis), seniors’ inability to deal with the carts, and the prevalence of backyard composters, whose owners are among the chief grumblers about green carts.
It’s hard to take the space argument seriously. If you have a garage that’s big enough for your car to fit into, then you have space along one inside wall to line up three carts, one of which is half the volume of the other two. You can also line the carts up outside against one wall of your house or garage.
Next, how is it that pushing a cart on wheels to the curb or lane for pickup is way more onerous and cumbersome for a senior than hauling bulging, heavy black garbage bags out to the same spot, or carrying wheelless metal garbage cans out? If you live in a house, it’s a fact of life that the garbage has to go out every week. Something on wheels is far easier to take out than any other option, and with the garbage split among three carts, you’re manoeuvring lighter containers than a single, stuffed metal garbage can.
As for people who complain that the bins are unsightly, what could be more unsightly on garbage day than metal cans spill- ing over with smelly bags, or black garbage bags torn open by cats, dogs and coyotes, with greasy, rotting chicken bones strewn in your driveway?
Nor does backyard composting handle everything the green carts will take. You can’t put dairy products, meat and bones in your backyard composter. The green cart supplements backyard composting.
What’s puzzling is that those opposed to the green carts (and earlier to the blue and black carts) act as outraged as though they had just been ordered to suit up and climb into a spaceship to go be the first to colonize Mars. We’re not in the vanguard of organics collection — as with blue and black carts, and even with the smoking ban, we here in Calgary are bringing up the rear while pretending we’re being asked to blaze the trail.
Fourteen years ago, Nova Scotia issued a ban on organics in landfills, leading to a long-standing organics collection program in that province’s cities. Hamilton has green carts. So does Guelph. Sudbury has them, and is looking at ways to expand the service to apartments. Port Coquitlam extended its green cart program three years ago, to include all the stuff — food-soiled paper, etc. — that Calgary wants to start col- lecting. Somehow, the residents of those cities have found space to store their carts and ways and means to get them to the curb. Nobody’s been irreparably traumatized by it.
Blue bins have been in use in Edmonton since 1988, 16 years before Calgary finally got serious about a blue cart pilot program, and 20 years before the blue carts became a fact of life in this city. This year, Edmonton expects to keep 90 per cent of its waste out of landfills, while Calgary vaguely aims to have blue cart recycling available to condos and apartments three years from now.
According to the City of Calgary, 50 per cent of the stuff that goes to landfills is vegetative matter. And it can’t break down in there because when you bury something in a landfill, there’s no oxygen, so the aerobic bacteria needed to turn it into compost aren’t there. Instead, more greenhouse gases are generated.
It’s ridiculous for us to talk about Calgary being a world-class city while simultaneously complaining about implementing progressive programs like organics recycling, that other cities have had for years and take for granted. Balking at the city’s new green cart program isn’t a world-class attitude — it’s bush league. I just wish my neighbourhood had been chosen for the pilot project.