BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is about changes coming next year to waste collection in Barrie.
Well, now. In the years that I have been submitting thoughts to the media and directly to those in power who guide and direct our lives, I would never have thought I’d be writing about garbage collection. Yet here we are.
Thoughts on the planned changes to Barrie’s waste disposal procedures:
Recently, I witnessed an employee of the waste collection contractor going about the required duties. This person was at an area of row houses where the tenants leave their waste in ‘properly identified’ bins awaiting pick-up. This person methodically opened the bins and hand-picked some of the contents to place into the appropriate receptacle on the truck. Then the operator proceeded to utilize the truck’s mechanical lift to dump the containers into the truck.
A couple of things immediately came to mind.
Firstly: My health and safety training taught that you don’t stick your hand into any receptacle if you are not aware of its contents (even if gloves are worn).
Secondly: Why was this employee doing the work that the tenants should have done in the first place?
Thirdly: Is this hinting at what’s to come once Barrie changes to a bin disposal system?
Many have expressed concerns about the size of the bins to be used — where to store them, how to fill and move them and so on — and I am in total agreement with these apprehensions. I am, and many of the good citizens in my neighbourhood are, on the over-65 side of life. There is just me and my spouse in our home. Others’ residences are single occupancy.
At this point, I can barely fill one garbage bag along my blue and grey bins in any two-week period. Most kitchen waste goes into the composter. What am I going to do with bins that will conceivably hold a month’s garbage or more? Put them out anyway? If I keep them in the carport for a month, won’t the smell and rot attract all kinds of vermin, animals and decay?
My carport comfortably holds our vehicle with just enough room to open the doors to get in and out. So, on garbage day, do I move my car to one side so I can get these oversized, partially filled bins to the curbside? Do those with single garage doors move the vehicle out to access the bins? Do I store the bins somewhere at the front of the house to facilitate moving them to the curb?
The obvious answer to these questions is an unequivocal no.
What about those who will just put everything into one bin for simplicity and convenience?
What about bins that will be left curbside or carelessly strewn about the property because there’s no other place for them?
What about bins falling off snowbanks onto sidewalks or the roads in winter?
I think many of us recall the fiasco when the garden waste stayed curbside for several weeks. Now the city is saying that it’ll be OK to leave garden waste for up to a week for scheduled pick-up.
So, what’s going to happen to the bags that are soaked and decomposing after a couple of days of rain before they are picked up? I have had garden waste stored in my shed decay and collapse over the course of a week — in somewhat protected surroundings. What about all those bags that will be subject to the elements, as well as, again, to the animals that may wish to investigate what’s in the bags? What about those out for a stroll who like to use garden waste bags for their disposable drink cups, etc., when they are finished?
What about the overflow of collapsed, busted and decomposing bags because one area wasn’t picked up Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday’s scheduled pick-up is now at curbside? Just seeing endless bags of waste around the city for days on end will be an eyesore.
I am fairly sure that what is being proposed is not the ‘best practice’ solution to the situation at hand. It may be the most expedient and cost effective.
However, it has far too many drawbacks to make it effective and pleasing to the eye.
Let’s all consider other ways of dealing with our garbage in ways that won’t make a potentially bad situation worse.
Alastair MacLeod
Barrie
