Dear editor,
Thank you Bob Wells, but since we are among the best in the province at recycling and low contamination, why did we spend a huge amount of money, and create a litany of new problems, to change the system?
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
I have not talked to a single neighbour who is in favour of the new system, and don’t remember any interaction with the public to gauge the measure of sentiment. What did this system cost, including the bureaucracy you have developed to manage it?
Beyond that, you have missed several points; the new containers are huge and likely unnecessary to the general use requirements of most households. My wife and myself represent a large segment of the population as seniors who live in a house and generate very little garbage or recycling and yard waste. We could not fill a five-gallon pail with garbage most weeks. We fill one or two blue boxes with cardboard or other recycling items, and we still have to go to the Puntledge Road recycling to deposit glass and Styrofoam and other materials.
This system does us no favours there. Many in the neighbourhood have landscapers who take their cuttings with them, but many also use the cuttings bags available for our purchase. For those with large yards their many cuttings bags per pick-up would never fit into the bins, but that is not a justification for the size of the bins – it is a problem for the city and a few of the residents.
The city has given us huge bins which are heavy, unwieldly, ugly, and need a small garage to store them in. If I am away, my wife, with her physical challenges could never get one to the street, so if I am away, nothing gets there for pick-up, especially in the snow. Similarly, she can not physically bring the empty bins back to the house.
How do you expect us to deal with rotting materials stuck to the insides, or cleaning them from contamination? They will be an attraction rats and mice and ants and mould. Will you address the infestations? I have phoned the city twice, and spoken with the department reception, and we are told “give it a year.” I have asked to speak with someone in the department representing the city, but have received no call back. This is also the experience of my neighbours. You have created more problems than you have fixed, and of course, we will get the bill. Thanks for nothing.
Lorne Chernochan,
Courtenay