Tales From a “GREEN” Minivan

This evening as we were clearing the table after dinner it was so nice to see that the kids get it. Finn our 2.5 year old was trying to race his big brothers to the small green compost bin we keep for table scraps and other compostables to toss the few things left on his plate.  It’s funny if he has something to throw away he always asks first where it should go.  If it’s that easy for a 2 year old I don’t understand why more people can’t do it as well?

Recently I read a local discussion where a woman was using her big outdoor compost cart to put recyclables in.  She asked the city’s waste management if she could get another one as it’s too full with all of these cardboard boxes and newspapers!  When told that the compost carts are only for food scraps and other compostables she got upset and demanded to know where she was going to put her recyclable now?

Our city does not have curbside pick-up and this woman is definitely not an isolated case. In order to be a good “green citizen” in Saint John, NB you need to transport your recyclables to one of the Depots in the city that have giant sorting bins.  There things are separated by 5 different categories:

1. Newsprint, paper & box board

2. Plastic Bags

3. Hard Plastic (milk jugs, detergent containers etc.)

4. Aluminum Cans

5. Corrugated Cardboard

If you don’t have access to a car or are elderly and can’t get out often where do you think these things end up?  Well the answer to the woman’s plight above was, “If they won’t take these things curbside they’re going to end up my regular garbage!”

It’s time to wake up City of Saint John, people have been composting for over 8 years now, but are they really using their bins properly?  How much money would the city save in tipping fees at the landfill if people recycled curbside?  I’m sure the number would be hefty enough to sustain the extra trucks…wait a minute what about all of those Blue Trucks that pick up the contents of the bins at the Depots, could they not do the same thing but on a household route?

Excess garbage is a huge peeve of mine and it’s time that this city started charging those that waste in excess instead of having “green families” like ourselves pay the price.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Green Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.