Wednesday 3 July 2013

Isn't it Garbage?

The awkward moment where you are confronted with your many plastic and aluminum sins.

On a recent field trip to the Waterloo Region Landfill off of Ira Needles, I learned many things, some of which are embarrassing;
I could not stand the smell to save my life.
As rude as that sounds and as much as I hated having to walk out of the recycling plant, I honestly could not handle it - says the girl relocating to Botswana.
I give my utmost respect to the workers at these facilities, absolute respect.
They are doing our dirty work. 
So this is the trip that expanded my idea of waste management...
Our well constructed and organized assembly-line-style recycling plant, followed by the engineered landfill sites...
Waste management is a big deal, and as a community we should really respect the hard work that goes into it - we are lucky to live somewhere that provides these services!

Let us not forget the countries that are missing these luxuries... I remember a startling trip to the Dominican Republic at age 15 where I saw sacks of garbage piled on the street for the first time.

We should also recognize the importance of supporting waste management initiatives in developing countries.

 [http://www.icwmpisa.com/conference.html] -> check it out, it's an international conference on waste management.

Moving on, the trip to the landfill really opened my eyes to the proximity of cities to their landfills - the close relationship between society and our abandoned consumerism on the side of streets...
Even in Canada -the close location of the landfill to a busy shopping centre was astounding - Don't we have zoning?

Well, we do have zoning, but it comes with a price... And so did that land that was
                 "Just sitting there..."
 "That could be a LOVELY suburb"    ...  Minus a few of those wafting smells.
Last point:
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.
In a previous blog I mentioned that my workplace does not participate in the recycling of plastics. Well, on this trip to the landfill site I learned the dark truth - Every business pays for their recycling, and many choose not to recycle.
CHOOSE NOT TO RECYCLE?
Living with the generation of brainwashed environmentalist spawns of David Suzuki? IN CANADA?
Surprise, an astounding amount of us do not recycle most things. Let alone compost.

I guess I can't be too harsh, approximately 80% of the Waterloo Region recycles ... But for the other 20 % ... What is there to loose?
  • The same volume will be leaving the house on a weekly basis, just in a different box. A rather important box, actually.
  • It would even create a feeling of satisfaction: 'Doing your good deed of the day' - I don't mean to be condescending, but these people ARE NOT RECYCLING! 
Shouldn't they feel silly.
And if we could increase the green bin users from 19% to a respectable number, perhaps on the same level as other regions at 30 - 35%? That would be a dream come true.

Please, if there is any opinion or logical reason behind choosing not to recycle as an individual (or a business but lets not get into that) I would appreciate a confrontation about/on this blog.

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3 comments:

  1. This field trip certainly opened my eyes to how lucky we are to have waste management in Canada! And I agree with everything you said in this post. Recycling is not negotiable, and the proximity to the residences was astounding! What also stunned me was that there was no serious plans for when the landfill we visited reaches capacity in 15 years or so. What do you think about that issue?!

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    1. I was also surprised as well with their long-term plans, although, 15 years isn't too far away. I would expect the municipality to look for alternative location(s) ASAP since the cities are growing at a very fast pace. From what it seems like, they will be completely changing cities and exporting our waste from Kitchener/Waterloo to Cambridge. I don't like this option because of its additional cost to the environment by transporting it.

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  2. The thing that surprised me most about the trip was how close the buildings were and that they were only getting closer. I had a similar experience to what you mention in your previous blog post since I also worked at a place that didn't recycle. We took everything from the recycling bin and put it in the garbage afterward, which opened my eyes to how cheap some of these companies can be. For me, seeing the landfill reminded me of that.
    I think you bring up a good point too with the growing suburbs - people would rather live beside a garbage dump than live in higher density housing. It's astounding to me that we aren't planning farther in the future for our waste management.

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