As a relative newcomer to Cochrane, just one year, formerly of Canmore and a short stint in B.C.
I read this week, with some alarm/concern your plan regarding organic waste and green bins for the Organic Waste Diversion Strategy
Why ?
Well BC has this model and it does not work.
We have two bins (recycle and regular garbage). Each week they are both full and are collected on Thursdays – works just great.
Your plan whilst great on paper will present the following challenges, concerns, issues and problems.
If people lack space in their street to put out two bins for collection, what makes you think they have space on their property to accommodate three bins ?
Or are you planning on making it look like parts of the UK where houses with little or no front yard leave them on the street? Either way it’s a problem.
Are you planning on offering different size green bins? One person versus a family of four five or six will generate much more waste.
Aside from t-bags, fruit peel and egg shells, my organic wastw will be absolutely minimal.
In the meantime my regular garbage will exceed the size of the bin, so on collection day (every two weeks) then what ?
The vehicle lifts/empties bins, but what about bin bags to deal with surplus garbage ? How is that to be dealt with?
Left out of the bin the crows will be into the bags in no time – waste all over and already my bin space will be half full before the next collection day if I have to store it.
What is the proposed plan for that?
Ideas.
You collect food waste on a completely different day to general garbage collection. If bin sizes are to be considered then this needs to be factored in. Separate vehicle separate bin and you offer different size bins to reflect size of family unit. You create bins for the neighborhood, as in Canmore where people deposit all their own garbage.
They also take their own recycling to a central site, open every day all day with labelled containers where they deposit the recyclables -papers, magazines, flat cardboard, milk cartons, bottles
You could even have different coloured (compostable bags) so people can allocate their waste accordingly, so they could deposit their own waste into one very large bear bin container or have separate bins – colour coded and therefore household collection is reduced or eliminated.
One of the potential problems is that of fly tipping – yes it happens. People choose to dump their waste anywhere, no thought or concern for anything. It’s dreadful. Let’s not allow that to happen.
If companies stopped all this crazy over-packaging it would help. However, the reality is too much waste and nowhere to put it.
Hopefully Cochrane can manage it so it benefits all of us and that includes the countryside and the wildlife, not just the people. Garbage is depressing, but real, so I sincerely hope we manage it in a constructive and considered way.
Janet Ward
