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LETTER: What has recycling become?

Recycling and the weekly pickup have become part of our lives in various forms. However, as with many great ideas, the original intent can be negated by bureaucracy and inefficiency.
12994422_web1_170426-PQN-M-PQN-Letters

Recycling and the weekly pickup have become part of our lives in various forms. However, as with many great ideas, the original intent can be negated by bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Having lived in Parksville for slightly over a year, I have some observations on the program provided by the RDN.

First of all, the number of items that are not accepted is becoming larger than the accepted items. The major difference from mainland programs is the exclusion of glass jars and bottles — one of the founding reasons for recycling. I’m not sure of the rationale; maybe the collectors hands are too sensitive or the union has made a case for safety.

No matter what the reason, it forces residents to load them into their vehicles and deliver to the Encorp depot. Given this requirement and based on laziness or seniors’ inability to make these deliveries, I’m sure many jars and bottles end up in the landfill.

The second issue is the practice of leaving the full contents in the blue box at the curb on collection day even though there may be only one ‘prohibited’ item in the box — such as styrofoam trays from purchasing meats at the grocery store or a broken Pyrex dish which is apparently glass.

The most recent issue is the cleanliness of the items that are placed in the blue box — it seems like the most recent TV commercial requires us to run all items through the dishwasher before placing in the blue box.

I am not against recycling, but I see more and more practices that eat away at the good work done by recycling programs by making them very restrictive and inconvenient.

Wayne Mercer

Parksville