Packaging Real Issue In Garbage: MULVIHILL
Halt! Who throws there?
The City of Ottawa will be sending out newly hired trash cops to keep an eye on any illegal dumping going on when the new three-item garbage limit is introduced on Sept. 30.
Four new positions under Ottawa Bylaw Services and Solid Waste Services will be created to keep an eye on residents to ensure the new three-bin limit is followed. Surely the city should know by now that some lawless residents already do drop their bags of garbage in park bins so illegal dumping is in full force so unless these new trash detectives are monitoring parks in the wee hours of the morning, it’s not likely they’ll be very effective in issuing warnings or tickets.
However, to reassure those residents so inclined to have their binoculars trained on their neighbourhood park waste bins, Parks and Recreation staff will monitor the city’s 1,004 parks for illegal dumping, paying careful attention to an increase in overflowing bins. Solid waste inspectors will escalate and follow up with residents. “If illegal dumping is found, Parks collection staff in Solid Waste Services will escalate the call to a Solid Waste Inspector, who would go on-site, search for identifying information, document findings and begin the escalation process,” staff say. Really.
So … does that mean that bags of garbage will be sorted through to find identifying and incriminating information which, in turn, would render a visit to the offending household? Hopefully, the city will provide these poor souls with gloves and masks not to mention coveralls.
Excess garbage will most likely find its way to forested areas, deserted roads and commercial bins (locked or not) … It’s not to say that reducing garbage isn’t a good idea but the start should really have been reducing packaging. Let’s see if this city council has what it takes to tackle this problem … don’t hold your breath.
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The real solution is incineration…garbage to energy!
Just stop this nonsense Ken. April Fools’ day was more than two months ago.
Merrill,
April Fools Day is every day at Ottawa City Hall!
The answer
INCINERATION
OR
HAVE MANUFACTURERS PRODUCE LESS PACKAGING IN THE FIRST PLACE.
The ‘solution’ to the handling of physical waste is multi-faceted. Less packaging is part of it, but demanding that manufacturers solve the problem it is just a deflection. And deflections are what society is good at. “I’m doing my part, but everybody else needs to pick up their pace.” and “It’s not me, its you.” is what we hear on so very many fronts. As if ‘one size fits all’ is an actual solution. Never was, never will be. But that approach is pretty much the backbone of every government policy these days.
The reality of the matter is that people, since the beginning of time, before there was something called manufacturing, or something called packaging, have created physical waste. With urbanization came the dilemma of how to move that waste from where people live/work to where they don’t. That reality has not changed, nor will it change, ever. And that reality is the responsibility of the city. Staff and council need to accept that. To deal with it. In whatever combination or permutation of methods as are required.
Instead, the city lectures its residents on how we have to change. Why? So that the city can continue to avoid the inevitable. So that the city can continue to not meet its responsibilities to the residents.
The constant posturing of City Council is tiresome. Their inability to demonstrate that they understand that with authority comes responsibility. Their never ending virtue signals about matters outside their authority. Their willingness to accept unsatisfactory (I thought about saying substandard, but the reality of the matter is that municipal standard while unsatisfactory is standard) performance from staff. Their lack of understanding that in order to measure performance on any front, they need to ensure that there are measurable and meaningful metrics. Their lack of willingness to acknowledge that they are failing at their role of oversight.
It is all so very, very tiresome.