The province of Ontario recently brought in a new glass recycling measure, the Ontario Deposit Return Program. Under the program a deposit is added to the price of almost all beverages sold at LCBO stores. These deposits can be reclaimed by taking the empties to any Beer Store outlet. There they are sorted and trucked off for recycling. It is projected that this new program will divert large amounts of waste glass from the province's landfill sites.
Well and good. Not every municipality has a blue box program. And not everyone who can recycle can be bothered to. Maybe the combined carrot and stick of a 20 cent bottle deposit will get them on-side. Of course, I put my bottles in the blue box so I've been recycling for years. Right?
Well, no, apparently not. Turns out the big company that runs the dump for the city of Ottawa has been collecting the glass in the blue boxes, hauling it off to the dump, and bulldozing it into the earth. Funny, the blue and black box pickup schedule the city sends around every year refers to the blue box program as recycling. Maybe there was some kind of error at the editing stage. But then, didn't I hear somewhere that the plastic I've been sorting into the blue box was being put on container ships by the big company that runs the dump and transported to China ... to be burned?
It seems the dump is nearly full, and the neighbours won't stand for an expansion. The city council is at wit's end. So the Ontario Deposit Return Program comes as a godsend. Here's a way to get the glass out of the blue boxes and keep it out of the dump. So wouldn't it make sense to make the Ontario Deposit Return Program mandatory? I guess the city lacks the legal power to actually ban bottles from the blue box because their lawyers are down at Queen's Park trying to get it.
Do I object to paying property taxes for a service I will no longer receive? Do I dislike the notion of dismantling an efficient citywide collection system and replacing it with do-it-yourself? Do I hate the suburban idea that you must drive to live? Yes, yes and yes.
Contrast the City of Toronto. Toronto is also making demands on the provincial government as a result of the Ontario Deposit Return Program. But that city isn't trying to wash its hands of glass recycling. Toronto is trying to gain compensation for the $5- to $8-million it stands to lose as a result of bottles being diverted from the blue box. Yes, Toronto makes money from recycling glass.
So why can't Ottawa? Is the city council getting played by the big company that runs the dump? My guess would be yup. Their line is that they can't recycle the glass because it gets to the dump "mixed and broken." But they're the ones who stopped sorting the recyclables on the truck a few years ago. Not cost effective, probably. I guess when you're as big as the big company that runs the dump, you don't need to do it right.
Douglas
Freedom of thought is really free. You navigate universe?
Posted by: Jordans Sneakers | 08 July 2010 at 10:11 PM