Letters: Feb 9

A history of garbage in South Frontenac Township, Doug Boulter

A history of garbage in South Frontenac Township

When I first moved into our township 35 years ago, I could see garbage bags, tires and other items adorning our ditches. Fellow residents realized that with a little effort, those items could be taken to the local dump for disposal, thus making our roadsides less unsightly. All manner of household garbage (and hazardous waste) could be placed into bags and thrown into the “pile” at the dump. In some areas, it would even be picked up at the door. Then we became environmentally conscious. We could separate our recyclables and place them into the proper containers at the landfill. When this became unmanageable, we moved to a system of household pick-up. Of course, we needed to tag our regular garbage with plastic tags, progressing to coloured stickers. We now have advanced (or regressed) to various coloured or clear bags depending on your district. Recycling has become somewhat simpler, as long as you can remember the correct week. Even hazardous waste now has its own process for disposal. I feel much more self-satisfied that I am sending considerably more items to recycling than to the dump, with the frequency of each greatly reduced due to careful shopping. Ah, at last, life has become simpler and we can maintain this ingrained procedure ad infinitem.

But wait, in comes the Ministry of the Environment to tell us that we’ve been doing it all wrong and that we are going to have to shut down our Portland waste site because a frog died. Possibilities include trucking our garbage to a far-off site and “waste management costs in South Frontenac will go out the window”, not to mention the impact of additional trucking on our environment. Check my opening sentence….fast forward 35years.

Doug Boulter