BOMA Calgary

What has really been accomplished?

There are many supporters of the new system of residential waste removal in Calgary. But a good discussion question relates to what has really been accomplished?

Waste reduction and recycling are easy concepts to embrace. If you accept the premise that the recycling decision, if not the actual process, commences at the time and the point of purchase, then you should accept the role of the individual in that process. Why do I need this in the first place?

The late George Carlin, one of my favourite comedic philosophers, had a good routine on “Stuff”. Do a search on YouTube and you can view it.

I made the observation the other day when seeing a City of Calgary waste services vehicle picking up the bins in the lane behind my house. I couldn’t help but notice that these highly mechanized and automated vehicles could pick up a bin on the curb-side of the truck. That means the truck has to make two trips down the same lane to collect the waste from that very same lane. By comparison when people not machines picked up the garbage, only one trip was necessary.

Extrapolate this to the blue bins and the black bins and you realize that 4 trips along the same lane are now required where under the previous regime just one trip was required. Gets you to thinking what we have actually accomplished under the banner of “sustainability”?
There are advocates for green bins to handle organic waste. Hold it just a minute! People actually want me to have three bins? That will mean 6 trips! Six times the trips, six times the amount of time, six times the amount of fuel consumption and we are not really sure if the environment will be better off. So what has really been accomplished?

Carlin was right: We have too much stuff.