Editor:
I am a highrise condo/apartment resident in downtown New Westminster area.
I can certainly appreciate your editorial opinion "Too much hyperbole in the recycling depot debate" and the prudent fiscal decision to have a "joint" recycling depot with our Tri-City civic partners.
Your comments address the vehicular traffic and travel times to access the new site. In the coverage your newspaper has provided to date, two issues come to my mind as a resident of New Westminster.
First, my building’s recycling wheeled bins are verboten to have glass containers and styrofoam from clamshell containers to protective padding for major appliances as TVs and digital equipment et al. I, following city direction to abide by their weekly recycling protocols as to approved items to be recycled, am now at a loss here as to future direction.
Second, I am without a personal motor vehicle at my beck and call at this time in my life.
My best practices that I followed for the past few years was that I would collect glass containers and styrofoam from my own personal usage, store it outside on my apartment balcony and when there was a sufficient quantity, I would bag it up into hand-carried bags and utilize transit to go to the Canada Games Pool area depot and deposit.
Now, the practicality and civic commitment to "going green" flame of enthusiasm is burning at a lower wattage. I am one individual who is doing their best to "go green," but it seems in the future that will be problematic.
Perhaps the city can have a dedicated city employee with suitable cargo vehicle to be on a daytime dispatch to go to residences in the city where people such as myself wish to reduce their landfill footprint by collecting the "uncollectibles." Glass and styrofoam may not be an election issue, but neglecting by inconvenience in their handling is cause for future concern by people younger than I am.
This is a complex puzzle to be defined and solved at many levels of government. But the average citizen has to "buy into" concepts with "green" solutions with our civic fathers - not perceived roadblocks to success.
David Morier, New Westminster
