This letter to the editor appeared in the December 10 edition of the Guelph Mercury followed by Councillor Vicki Beard’s response:
Dear Editor – Re: “Environmental activists vow to convert others to cause” (Guelph Mercury, Dec. 10).When Mike Nagy says “understanding the impact each of us has on the environment is the first step to taking action,” I get that. When Mike says “people need to educate themselves on the products they buy and the transportation they use,” I get that. When he says “we are taking something away from the Earth and it should be the responsibility of everyone to give something back,” I get that, too. Those are statements I can put into action.
But when I heard Ward 2 Councillor Vicki Beard “preaching” at the same weekend event, called Cool the Planet, telling the residents of Guelph to “make a mess this Christmas” by disrupting stores and our provincial or federally elected representatives by leaving or sending them packaging of our Christmas gifts — those are ridiculous statements that I will not put into action.
Most retail locations do not separate their garbage at all. The garbage gets thrown into the dumpster and is hauled away to who knows where. The residents of Guelph — for the most part — still separate their garbage. So you’re telling me that it’s better for the packaging to get hauled away unsorted? I don’t get that Vicki.
Then she suggested we mail our packaging to Queen’s Park and Ottawa. To mail the packaging I don’t want Vicki, I have to put it in another package, effectively doubling my waste. Driving to the post office to drop off this “package in a package” will put more emissions in the air. This “package in a package” will then be transported by land, or possibly air, spewing out even more emissions. Upon arrival they’ll have to read my letter (yep Vicki, another tree killed because of the letter) explaining why they are the recipients of this “package in a package.” I don’t get that Vicki.
She ended her sermon with, “when they (our MPs and MPPs) come back from the Christmas holidays, I have this wonderful thought of all these packages piled up outside their doors. They may get the message with that.” Well Vicki, I don’t get that either.
I have an idea for all the residents of Guelph. Taking Vicki’s suggestion, let’s all mail our green-bagged garbage, tax increases, leftover dandelions and composting odour complaints to her doorstep. Maybe she’ll get that message. CG
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Thank you CG for bringing your concerns to the forefront as it gives me the opportunity to address them. It’s great to know that you are concerned about this holiday season and the waste we produce at this time.
My comment about leaving excess packaging at stores and mailing it to our MP & MPP was not for the purposes of waste management. It was suggested as one way of advocating for stronger policies to deal with source reduction of packaging.
Ontario’s Waste Diversion Act requires all companies that introduce packaging and printed material into Ontario’s market place to share in paying 50% of the funding for the our municipal blue box waste diversion program. In additions, our provincial government has mandated a 60% waste diversion rate effective in 2009. If you check out the website of Stewardship Ontario you can read about the proactive stance that’s being taken on this issue. You’ll see the list of large retailers and manufacturers who are registered stewards.
I’m very happy say that all of the large retail stores in Guelph that I polled on the issue of waste are already sorting their garbage on site. This makes sense as they can sell the recovered materials. The grocery stores I talked to also sort all green garbage. I asked one store what percentage of their garbage didn’t get sorted and their estimate was about 25%–in fact it was the only store that had an unsorted garbage component. Of course one thing that makes our downtown so special is that all of the downtown retailers also sort their garbage.
So presently we have some very pro-active measures to reduce packaging. Despite these measures I still see over packaging using harmful plastics on many products. Strong source reduction measures could go a long way to reducing this. Although we as a province and individually are working hard at the three “Rs” we can do much more. That is what I was advocating.
Councillor Beard