More multi-coloured bins would solve Lethbridge waste problems
By Lethbridge Herald on April 21, 2023.
Editor:
So our Town Fathers have decreed that we will now have a third bin to collect our throw-away stuff. We put our garbage into the black bin, our recyclable stuff into the blue bin, and our compostable stuff into the colourful green bin. And all this will save money at pickup time?
But wait, we will be charged for this “service”!
I have a few questions first. What colour bin are we going to have for the “glass” throw-away stuff? I suggest a red bin, because one can get cut on broken glass, and bleed a bit, so this may remind us to be careful when we dispose of glass.
Then there are the batteries we use in all our electronic devices. They can’t be recycled, and we are not allowed to put them into the garbage, so what happens to these orphans? Maybe a yellow bin?
But wait, I’m not through yet. I have used light bulbs: incandescent, fluorescent ones, and the newer bright white ones to get rid of! A white bin may be appropriate for them.
If there are any unused colours left, we could use an orange bin for the small electric appliances that clutter our homes!
Whew! I’m getting tired of solving our disposal problems for our city council. Maybe I should run for council; after all, I’ve got some pretty heavy solutions for handling our waste. And the beauty of my proposal is that we could generate a new income stream by charging each household a mere $1.50 per bin per month, thus getting $10.50 instead of the measly $5 that is presently being proposed.
Finally, I would place the bins in our alleys, thus making them a colourful place to go for a leisurely stroll on a Sunday afternoon.
E.E. Balay
Lethbridge
12-11
EE, why just he alleys ? The pastel of bins you propose coujld be used to enhance the medians along our pothole fulled roadways while proving a suitable repository for all the trash strewn about when the “windproof” Tarleck Tubs tip over. I can envison Lethbride being as “bright and shiny” with tubs as Holland is with tulips.
And…added benefit of course is tthe ability to yet again tax the residents of this City for an unwanted and unwarranted bit of feel good fluff.
You may be on to something EE !
EE for Mayor……
I guess the solution is to put all our waste into one can and into the land fill so as to pollute more land right? Then the garbage men will have more backbreaking work loading your garbage from what ever enclosure you have made so as to make your life easy and the cost to you that much higher which of course you to will complain about. Surely you would not use a locally positioned bin for separate disposal of said items because again it would be of an apparent inconvenience right so ya lets throw everything out into one can and be done with it , let others worry about it. I have no problem with three bins that I roll out on a given day and dispose of bottles for their deposit. Add it to your daily exercise and don’t complain for the sake of complaining.
agreed. without a magic wand to make everything go away, we have no other way than to separate our waste into bins. hopefully, we all become better at reducing the waste we each create/buy into.
while the bins may be a pain from time to time, and even unsightly to some extent, they are what they are until a better way is designed.
Jim O and Biff, in which bin did you lose your sense of humor ? EE’s submission was clearly a statment cloaked in sarcasm. I was having a bit of fun with it. You both might want to get off your Judgemental high horses and hitch your pants up..I think your ability to view things other than through a surly lens may be stuck in a crack somewhere.
The sarcasm was not lost, but the complaint of the bins is still there, hence the statement made.
sarcasm is not humour, not to be confused with satire. sarcasm is negative, and the letter not only is negative but comes with no alternative better than what we will get. we may agree that the costs attached, as has been the case with the city’s takeover of recycling, seem to be higher than they might need to be. when we had private recycling collection i recall we even had small reductions on our city bill thanks to the recycling.
All sarcasm aside, we do need orange colored bins on the West side of town, and they need to be big…..to put in all the BS from Shannon Phillips and the NDP…. but they only need to be temporary, they won’t be needed after the election!
Much the same as you and your failed attempts at running for anything in this city.
Have you attempted to run for anything? Why would you slam anyone’s sincere efforts to improve life? He can express his opinion as much as he likes. You can too, as long as you do not impinge on others’ rights or safety.
Sincere efforts? LMAO! I’m just calling it as it happened. You can pucker up to Harold’s butt all you want!
Your pen name indicates that you have banged your head. Run for something
Don’t you mean Danielle Smith and her band of Reformers. Praising criminals for creating the Trucker Convoy farce, costing taxpayers $65 million, trying to stop Trudeau for trying to take handguns and assault rifles away form criminals. Giving away another $20 billion of taxpayers money to her friends to clean up the Orpha Wells Mess that I was involved with for 8 years when Lougheed and Getty made the oil industry pay for it. Filling her pal Preston Manning and his friends pockets with another $2.2 million of taxpayers money. Where is the intelligence in you supporting it? The conservatives in my world aren’t.
I had a great talk with two retired police officer friends yesterday and you should have heard what they think of these damn Reformers supporting criminals .Ignoring the fact that they were stock piling rifles at Coutts to be used to kill police officers, but apparently HaroldP doesn’t care?
Where has our premier praised criminals? Why was the convoy and related activity a farce? Do you not think we’d still be wearing masks and under quarantines but for their actions? One of Trudeau’s record number of porch OIC’s took away all ability last October for about 2.3million vetted licensed noncriminal citizens to legally buy, sell, inherit or otherwise transfer handguns. Bill C21 if passed will “criminalize” most legally licensed hunters, target shooters and collectors who own legally acquired property that is used for procuring food, sport or personal enjoyment. Criminals will not be affected by these “laws” in any way. Canadians’ constitutional rights will. Re-read your comment – does it not appear to support marxist state-control ideology? With an icing of spite?
We could get a brown one to put in front of your house, use your imagination on what would go in there.
They don’t make bins that big!
Colorful enough to attract the rainbow crosswalk crowd.
Disgustingly homophobic and a non-sequitur for good measure.
we continue to gain some significant insights into the personality types that are most about power and control.
It was a joke, stupid! Get a life, get a sense of haha.
Now, Mr. Citi Zen, there is no need for name calling. I simply pointed out that your comment was homophobic, which it is. I didn’t accuse you of being homophobic.
Perhaps you could explain why you think your comment was humorous?
The word “stupid” is in the wrong place in the first sentence.
I’m trying to imagine the state of mind someone has to be in to still be angry about rainbow crosswalks half a decade after they were installed. You may want to talk to someone about that.
Isn’t it funny that the only people whining about it are seniors who have all the time in the world to do it properly? We have been doing it in the Edmonton area since about 2007 and don’t hear any complaints.
I think someone should do some research and find out where does all the waste actually go after it is picked up. As there are very limited products that are made from the waste. Where does it end up.
Compost is actually a big win here. Plastic recycling is pretty nebulous and based on things like the amount of empty container ship space between Canada and countries like China, and also relies on how much contamination they’re willing to accept. Compost on the other hand can be put to use anywhere that things are grown.
plastic that does reach the recycle stage either gets to third world locales – i know, lucky are they – or, likely, the most of it that gets aboard transport vessels ends up dumped in the oceans. the good news is we just keep on depending on and spewing forth plastics, because we believe big oil is a god. needed for heating and to manufacture and move things, the issue is that most of what we have come to “depend” on is created to suit our never ending, ever growing lists of desires and wants. one may see it as good news that all life forms are now a big part of the plastics “recycle” chain, as our waters, lands, and much of the planet’s life forms are plum full of the stuff, and ever sucking in more. (green burials, anyone? we may be too toxic to be disposed of in any manner).
mind you, some of the “better” plastics, like those from toxic electrical devices, do actually find their way back to us, via china – our god of creation for stuff – in the way of small appliances, like toasters, coffee makers, kettles, microwaves…helps the stuff we consume taste and smell more toasty-electrical. also, it is great to help us meet our daily intake of carcinogens.
while we also do not recycle metals very much here, the good news is the metals in the likes of computers and dumb-phones, that latter that humanity is now seemingly unable to live without, will find their way back to us from the likes of china, such as the cadmium in costume jewellery…very well absorbed via our largest organ, the skin.
that noted, recycling is necessary, only it needs to be done with earnest and good intent. presently, too much of it is for show, as is our “green” energy plan, which is most about redirecting massive volumes of money that routinely went to big oil to the same folk, but now in “green energy” costumes. still creating toxic and inefficient stuff, still killing wildlife, still creating “don’t know what to do with it waste”, and still stealing from the public purse.
that noted, we might do well to acknowledge that our biggest issue is our ever expanding lists of desires and wants: which form the basis of our desires-wants driven economy.
simple math: the larger our world population, the less wants and the more needs-based we had best be. to be sure, we can uncover the universe’s most absolutely pure and efficient system of energy, but it will not in the least save us from the fallout and folly of our ever expanding and never ending desires and wants.