Blue recycling bins contributing to trash problem in the city
By Lethbridge Herald on June 2, 2022.
Editor:
All of May there was a highway clean-up being undertaken in Alberta by volunteers concerned about their environment. And because the wind blows 80 per cent of the time in our area, this is an ongoing endeavor.
There are also concerned citizens within the City of Lethbridge out on various days throughout the spring and summer picking up trash in our coulees, along river banks and major city roadways and in city parks. I salute these concerned citizens as I too find myself picking up trash in the park near us in the West Highlands and along the streets and avenues.
The plastic bags hanging from trees is very unsightly. Why are we getting so much trash flying around, you may ask yourself? This didn’t seem to be as big a problem years ago and it wasn’t until the city introduced the recycling blue bins.
And the fact that we are not supposed to put our recyclables in a large plastic bag just exacerbates the situation.
In our area on a windy Friday morning or afternoon, you can drive down any street and see these blue bins laying on their sides and the contents blowing down the road. This trash in evidently ends up in our lakes, rivers, trees, coulees and ditches along major roadways.
This never-ending cycle must be addressed.
There may be a better solution than the large plastic bags but for now I feel it is the best one we have in the interim.
Kent Perry
Lethbridge
11-10
Aye, they missed behind Ashleys, trash central in the trees. Neighbor has plastic hanging from their trees. A disgusting mess of virtue signalling by the former mayor and some council members creating a trash dump of the entire city and surrounding area. How eco friendly!!!! Now they want to add a rotting soup bin to everyone’s yard to attract the wildlife. You know, we have disrupted their habitat by our very desires and presence so we must allow them to “feed” in our yards and pay the City for doing it. I hear big pharma has a rabies vac in the works (sarc)
The plastic bags in trees don’t come from blue bins – you don’t put them in blue bins.
The blue bins divert future resources from the dump. The city is working on bins that work better in a windy area.
Yes they do. If you put plastic bags into the depot bins you put them in the blue bins.
https://curbside.lethbridge.ca/tools/waste-wizard#row-input-0
The problem isn’t the blue bins. The problem is people don’t bother to follow usage guidelines. Smaller plastic bags, eg. shopping bags, should not be blue binned loose for 2 reasons: they tangle in the machines that process blue bin contents and they blow away and end up all over the city.
I reuse them whenever possible but if I accumulate more than about a dozen I knot them tightly in a ball eliminate dangling loops and loose ends that can easily get caught in rotating machinery. Then they get blue binned. Takes me 5 minutes once a month at most.
The blue bin program is a good program being subverted by the uniformed, the uncaring and people who buck the system just to buck the system.
The real issue is the big bins, soon to be three, are forced on us. No option to opt out. I can’t imagine where many homeowners will store them. I already see rows of new townhomes with black and blue bins lined up front, for blocks. Really makes Lethbridge look junky
How would you like a special landfill cell to drop your 7000 tonnes of Residential organics from 22,000 tonnes of garbage for 8 years cost $50.00 tonne not a $17million residential organic program? The waste Management declares in their annual report of 108,000 tonnes total waste to landfill 75% is business 31% of that is business organic to landfill cell #7 last eight years $50.00 tonne. Who needs a $17m residential program we just one the privilege if a landfill cell
I like your ‘find the sentence’ puzzles, snowman.
Most business organics is not as mixed with other waste – it is easier to separate. And last I read on the city website, it is being processed like the municipal organics will be.
Why don’t you try talking to someone at the city before you express your confusion? Why do you care so much about getting every drop of waste to be thrown into a hole with all the related harms to our air and water? Why don’t you ‘value’ ghg emission reductions in your analyses? If you aspire to be a ‘fiscal watchdog’ you have a responsibility to do an honest evaluation – we have enough information-pollution as it is.