I've heard of Transparency in Government, but this is a bit of too much to comprehend. Is this a joke? They are actually going to pick and choose at the curb (I don't have a curb, but you know what I mean) as to is this is or is this ain't the sort of garbage they want?

Residential trash in South Bruce Peninsula may have to go out in clear plastic bags starting in January.

That's to help municipal officials face both a looming shortage of dump space and the region's worst recycling record.

Residents diverted just 21 per cent of South Bruce Peninsula's trash from waste disposal through recycling in 2007.

[ SBP May Require Clear Trash Bags ]

Residents? Is that the eco-conscious sort of permanent resident who balks at any new shovel in the ground, or is that the sort that buys these massive quaint 3-car-garage cottage in the woods sort of resident, or is it the weekend dump your coals on the beach sort of resident, or even the sort who go fishing with a canoe full of dynamite. No wait, scratch that last one.

Btw, I have a pile of corrugated cardboard cluttering up my doorway; it's the spill-over from the corrugated cardboard that already fills what I used to call "my workshop" in the basement. I realize the downtown vendors probably have limos that chauffeur all this sort of stuff to Michigan (not) but what, do tell, are we lowly residents to do with all this? Wait until the tonnage makes it feasible to sell? And why is a bottle tossed and smashed in the truck on pickup acceptable but not a cracked wine glass? Or yogurt containers and Kirkland's broiler chicken covers but not the same-plastic birthday cake covers? Why is a pristine cola can 'in' but a dented or heaven forbid small-payload compressed can suddenly worthless landfill? More to the point, why, if the collectors know so much about what is and what ain't garbage, must I gain an undergraduate degree in the fine points of trash sorting?

Just wonderin'. Like I wonder why Owen Sound has recycle bins in the parks but we just have oil-cans lined with black plastic bags.

And then there's the whole sordid issue of whither or whether lucratively still useful compostables should likewise be 'in' or not, or rags, or electronics; you'd have to be subscribed to the journals to keep up with the latest in boost your yield recycle rules. Or in the business.

Where was it, Cinncinnati? Someplace not terribly big I know, but they found

1. the carbon footprint, fuel costs and maintenance/financing of using two distinct fleets of trucks exceeded the value of recycling and

2. since most folks, despite their earnest attempts to learn it, don't really know what is and is not 'acceptable' the municipality could best ensure the integrity, and the market cash value of their recycle-able trash by hiring young people to stand by the conveyor at the dumpsite and hand-pick the bits they wanted.

So they doubled their savings, and created a permanent full-time young-adult employment project, and salved their landfill problems, all at the same time.

Not that anyone wants to hear that, or any other creative and potentially profitable solutions when it is so much easier and cheaper to just swish a pen across some scrap of proclamation paper to bully the ratepayers into a non-solution.