To the Editor:
I applaud Coun. Charlene Lafreniere's objection to the decision by Thompson city council to allow a second waste cart for those homes that are willing to pay for it. If I understand this correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you can create extra waste for our nearly full disposal site if you have the money to pay for it. However, if you can't afford it, you'll have to settle for recycling. What a deal - and for only $20 per month!
On the City of Thompson website, one of the four reasons given for moving ahead with this initiative is to "reduce the amount of waste that needs to be removed by the city overall." Really? Unless, of course, you're willing to pay for it - then by all means, waste away and we'll haul away. How does this decision encourage and promote recycling? The short answer is, it doesn't - not at all. In fact, it flies in the face of it. In my family, my son looks after all the recycling duties. I hope that he doesn't find out about this second bin initiative because he might want to buy one himself.
Did council not discuss this possibility when they debated the whole initiative in the first place? They obviously decided at the time that one bin would be enough. Are they now changing their minds because the eight people in Thompson that don't recycle want an extra bin? These people must be really special to wield that much influence over a city with truly impressive recycling statistics.
Has anyone on council seriously discussed the ramifications of the new bin style recycling initiative with the recycling centre? I'm thinking no, and let me tell you why. The various recycled products that are currently now being sorted at the curb will soon be mass dumped into a large truck and be heaped on the doorstep of the recycling centre to be sorted there. The organizations down south that ultimately accept these products will not stand for any level of contamination, for example, soiled cardboard, glass shards mixed with plastic, etc., and may reject the load if there is evidence of this. When sorting is done at the curb, cross contamination is kept in check. With the new system of mass collection, one bin of soiled product from a single home can contaminate a whole truckload of recycling. This is serious business especially when proper sorting facilities do not currently exist to properly handle the new form of mass collection. The way I see it, this form of contamination, thus increasing the pressure on our landfill site instead of reducing it.
By the way, I've seen the demonstration video and am wondering how well this new system will work when there's 18 feet of snow on the ground and windrows the size of infrastructure development deficits on every street.
Greg SzocsThompson
