Monday, January 11, 2010

New waste rules in South Bruce Peninsula

South Bruce Peninsula
by Kevin Bernard    

A new Waste management bylaw is now in effect in South Bruce Peninsula.

Councillor Dan Kerr says the changes went into effect January 1st.

Up until now, you were allowed 2 free bags at the curb before having to pay with a bag-tag.

Kerr says now,.... residents get one free bag ... before paying for trash at the curb.

South Bruce peninsula also put a maximum of 3 bags for each home and no bag can contain more than 10 percent of recyclable material.

Councillor Dan Kerr says there is too much recyclable material going out in the regular garbage and these changes are designed to encourage residents to recycle more.

Kerr says expanding the current landfill will cost the town about 5 million dollars, so cutting back on items going to the dump will help extend the life of the current landfill.

Owen Sound , 97.9 The Beach, Port Elgin

My lord this is tedious. Can Councillor Kerr then tell us

• which items are and which items are not included as 'recycle' material? For example, if I use newspaper to protect the floor while scraping out a pumpkin, is the soiled newsprint recycle material? Why are cake covers rejected but roast chicken covers not? The 1-800 number to field the endless list would likely cost more than the new rules save!
• Why, pray do tell, are many materials popularly recycled in just about every other industrial nation rejected by our curbside collections? Plastic bags, instant noodle cups (#6), the list is considerable and disappointing. Is it really Ecologically Valid to burn fossil fuel driving out to the dump to dispose of a single Pizza Box?
• How can we be so limited in our recycle repertoire while neighbouring townships are not? Could it dare be because we simply cannot cooperate with those townships to share the waste-burden problem?
• I hear the bottom has dropped out of the recycle paper market, so I'm just curious, if we can't sell it, what then do we actually do with all that old paper? What products can I buy safe in believing that it contains some strong measure of SBP Recycled Material?

Councillors and staff of the Town of South Bruce Peninsula will hold public
information sessions on the proposed Waste Management By-Law, as follows:

August 24, 2009 at 7:00 pm Wiarton Arena
526 Taylor Street, Wiarton

August 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm Amabel Sauble Community School
555 Sauble Falls Parkway, Sauble Beach

Please plan to attend one of the public information sessions to learn about and discuss the impending changes to waste management within the Town. Residents are invited to provide input through this public consultation process. The proposed By-Law is available on the Town's website or by contacting Town Hall.

Why do I have the impression that I don't need to download the 'new' law? That it won't be substantially different from any of the other 'new' trash laws we've been condemning over the past year, or two, or five? Have I just grown too inflexibly cynical in my old age to think Progressively? Or is it Something Else?

I see there's some nice (inexpensive) properties out near Tara, and some real precious opportunities up Manitoulin way. I'm just sayin'

Prof. Andrew Sancton, an 'expert' on municipal affairs at the University of Western Ontario ...

Ok, I am no expert, but it does seem to me that when human beings do something that works, they do it again, and when it no longer works, they do it again, harder. This is the strategy Doctor Sancton recommends. It is like speaking more loudly when faced with a foreigner who does not understand your language: asking the voters to spin the wheel again is not going to change the underlying dynamic.

Here is what will: we need to abandon our antiquated control-systems metaphor for government and move into the 21st century. It was outlined here before, in great detail, under keywords of Heterarchy and Ortegrity and other scary scary words boys and girls, but it was here where it was said that the tri-partisan division of interests in the South Bruce Peninsula is an opportunity. An opportunity for change, for discovery, for growing up and treating Council more like grad students and less like kindergarten, for treating municipal government more like enlightened corporate governance and less like the East India Trading Company. We are no longer Lords vs Serfs, folks, not one of us is more 'enlightened' or 'informed', what we have are perspectives and partials and it is in the composite where the future lay. in the tacit acceptance that win-win is the only game worth playing.  And it's not just here, it's Provincial, it's Federal -- the siding with the party-line thinking mathematically must by needs of logic anneal to the stand-off situation that we see EVERYWHERE.  Look: It is ubiquitous.  Clearly, any fool can see, we need a different strategy of decision making in human societal affairs.  You won't fix it by carving the voters differently, you won't solve it renaming your party-lines.

So how's this, dear Council: Let's say we all take a deep breath and say, "OKAY, we ACCEPT that we are all DIFFERENT." There, done. Accept that as a fact, as factual as the length of the beach or the grams of gravel in a 40' stretch of roadworks. We are DIFFERENT, and the difference is GOOD.  Vive la difference!  There. Done. Next, just sit there, contemplating this: What do we do now?

Sound foolish? Is it any more foolish than making the papers month after month year after year, administration after administration for schoolyard bickering?

Then there was the item of the "bus." Many of you may not know that the Town now owns a bus! When did we get into the transportation business? Talk about having the cart before the horse, what I heard on Tuesday evening was the cart was so far ahead of the horse it would take weeks for them to get together.

Council questioned our CAO about the use, cost, etc. of this bus and it was obvious that he was unprepared to answer in detail. In fairness, the bus was acquired through a grant, but there was obviously no concise plan prior to this acquisition as to who was responsible for driving, insurance, maintenance etc.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on "who holds title to the bus," "who is responsible for insurance," "who will be driving," "what is the purpose of this purchase?"

A bus?! This could be great! We could paint it up, roll it out, hire Ken Kesey to drive it ... man, this could be it for the ultimate tourist trip!

"Certainly these sorts of carvings can be quite attractive in their own way, but they should not be on residential streets," said Eleanor Silk, who this week had her daughter present a case against the carvings to councillors.

"We're not happy about it because there's going to be a lot of people standing and gawking and we won't have the kind of privacy we want. Beyond that, our main concern is safety. We have a stop sign on our corner and people may not be paying attention to their driving because they're looking at the carvings or they'll be stopping in front our house all of the time wanting to take pictures."

The tops of the three maples were lopped off last fall by Hydro crews because they were interfering with power lines along the street. Earlier this month, South Bruce Peninsula town crews chopped the trees down, leaving three stumps roughly 2.5 metres high in preparation for chainsaw artist Bobbi Switzer to transform them.

Switzer, who was asked by the town last spring if she would be willing to create the 10 carvings, said yesterday she is surprised by the negative attention her work is getting, saying she has never encountered opposition to her art before.

True, the Town might have asked but it would only be as a favour, as an added gift. I don't recall Toronto Transit asking before deploying the marvelous artwork outside the Spadina-line stations, and I'm nearly certain the placement of the (ahem) graphically endowed gift steed in the centre of their Queen's Park wasn't approved by any resident, that's just the nature of governmental lands. Heck, half the town names in this county were chosen inspite of citizen consensus to the contrary! The choices of humble historic vignettes for Wiarton is brilliant and unobtrusive, a magical new life breathed into these unfortunate trees.

"Stopping in front of our house all the time' -- give me a break! With friendly attitudes like this, Wiarton should be so lucky as to have people willing to stop in it at all. What's next? Banning patio gardens on the fear that it may cause photographers to invade their secret lives? Banning flat rooftops for fear Google might publish an improper map image?

C'mon. I think O'Gawdabout owes Bobbi an apology, as do all the others that pushed this story into to the eager talons of the always inflammatory Sun-Times, and maybe instead of an instinct to diss on a gift like this, they should thank Gwen and the council for their foresight and utopian thinking. Oh, and then maybe put forth a few suggestions for the vignette they'd prefer to ghost their curbside.

And to Bobbi and Council, since the tomcats are already out of the bag on this one, here's a suggestion: instead of giants, could it work to make these portraits life sized? One of my most memorable moments in all of my travels through Europe was my discovery of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, simply sitting there, seated on the sea-side rocks, gazing out, awaiting her love, no pedestal, no marker, no plaque of credits. Just there, just so, nothing special.