Comment 60242

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted February 25, 2011 at 13:39:06

I'm kinda divided on this. On one hand, I often go three weeks before putting out a single bag of garbage, and it wouldn't be a problem for me. On the other, I can't see this going over well with my neighbours.

It really speaks to the way people receive these kinds of policies. No matter how enlightened or well-intentioned, it's still 'handed down from on high', and people have learned to be very sceptical of that. It doesn't help when these policies are also impositions, or felt to be. This leads to many problems, from governments 'sugar-coating' policies at the expense of effectiveness to grassroots groups being written off as Big Brotherish (the environmental movement feels this a lot). Not to say we shouldn't ever try to change policy, but always something to take into account.

Will the city's strategies reach 65%? Probably. But to go much beyond that, we need a strategy which reaches out to people and allows them to be part of it. There's a large chunk of "garbage" which really shouldn't be thrown out at all, or scrapped through the blue-box program ("downcycling"). Sadly, the only item we really see handled effectively is beer bottles. Community-based recycling initiatives - whether for appliances and furniture, useful raw materials, containers or other goods, could not only divert waste but represent a serious stream of useful products very locally.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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