I'm a little blue. City council has been talking trash lately, and I'm afraid it may impact my relationship with my beloved blue bin.
Although I live in Battleford, I fear if the City decides to withdraw from its current relationship with the Loraas Environmental Services Ltd. single stream recycling program, my blue bin might be repossessed. I would be heartbroken. I love that blue bin.
When recycling was first introduced several years ago with the introduction of self serve bins where we could go to deposit our "sorted" recyclables, I was all for it. I made frequent trips to the bins carefully depositing newspaper in the newsprint bins, tin cans in the can bins … you get the picture. Early on the abuse of the bins rankled me. Staff reporter Jayne Foster would make frequent forays into the recycling area with her camera documenting what "not" to deposit there. Alas, our education campaign was to no avail and my enthusiasm for recycling began to wane.
I still recycled newspaper and cardboard, bringing it to the bins at our plant because I knew it was actually being recycled and not hauled to the dump because of contamination. The cans still went to the recycle depot, as did the milk jugs. These two bins seemed to suffer the least abuse. Everything else - box board, general paper, plastics -went into my garbage buddy.
When a blue bin service was offered for a mere $100 a year, I jumped right on the bandwagon. That created some controversy as it was argued in my household that I could use the single stream recycling bins at no charge, but hey, I know my history. I knew where that was headed. Sure enough, even without the need to sort their recyclables community bin users still found a way to abuse the system.
So, for over two years my blue bin and I have resided in perfect harmony. The naysayer in the household has even come to appreciate its convenience, which costs 27 cents a day, although there's still some grumbling each year when renewal time comes around.
Into the bin goes a whack of paper, newsprint, cardboard, plastic and tin cans. Much of which was making its way to the landfill via my garbage buddy prior to its acquisition.
Continued abuse of the community bins and the reluctance of others to pay the price for blue bin convenience have the city taking another look at garbage collection and recycling. One part of that proposal is to do away with the blue bins and replace that system with bag pickup. And because what's available to residents of the town tends to hinge on decisions across the river, I'm looking down the barrel of making another recycling adjustment.
I'm not inflexible, but I do love that blue bin. I think anyone who has one would agree. Let's hope city council takes our ardent affection into consideration when making their decisions during their "trash talks."
