By David Dawson
It is always astonishing to see so much garbage at the end of driveways on garbage pick-up days. Not just one bag but often 3 or 4 bags as well as the blue box full of re-cycling stuff. Some people do positively try to reduce the amount of garbage but judging by what one sees, most people don’t seem to be concerned.
Some jurisdictions allow only one garbage bag per household. If anyone wants to put out more than one bag they have to pay by buying an orange sticker from the town hall. Most people have a number of these orange stickers ready for use just in case. If the garbage pick-up crew sees a second bag without a sticker, they just leave it behind. I think something like this in Steinbach may motivate people to at least think about waste.
A few years ago the 100 mile diet was put out as a challenge where participants committed for 100 days to only eat food that came from within a 100 miles of where they lived. This really focused attention on where our food comes from, and perhaps a similar challenge with respect to garbage might focus people’s minds on our throw-away habits and wasting the planet’s limited resources. One garbage bag per week for 3 months, for example.
Recently it was announced that the number of animals in the wild had decreased by about 50% over the last 40 years. Most of this decline was attributed to human activities. Humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats through things like deforestation, mining, urban sprawl and the excessive use of agricultural chemicals.
Currently, the global population is cutting down trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more climate-warming carbon dioxide than oceans and forests can absorb. And North America is the worst offender.
Every time you throw something away and replace it with the latest new fancy model, you are throwing away some valuable resource. The replacement gadget or gizmo involves resource extraction with all its associated effects and destruction of animal habitat. Re-cycling may ease your conscience but in reality most re-cycled items end up in low-grade products. A lot of paper is shipped to China in otherwise empty shipping containers and converted into cardboard to ship the next load of Chinese goods back to us. Re-cycled pop cans do not end up as more pop cans. Re-cycled plastic bottles do not get made into more plastic bottles, but into things like black plastic garbage bags where quality and hygiene are not issues.
Re-cycle, definitely yes, but better to try to reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ you put out every week for garbage collection.
This column is prepared by the South Eastman Transition Initiative. Go to www.setimanitoba.org