Recycling is a hot topic in the city.
The city has already taken one step in the right direction for a curbside recycling program in 2013 in principle. Now the discussion has arisen regarding where the former Civic Centre recycling bins should be placed for a long period of time.
But what council should focus on is how to better manage the recycling bins. It only takes one person — and this quite regularly occurs — to place plastic in glass bins, which results in moving the entire contents of the bin to the landfill.
During Monday’s executive committee meeting, many members of executive were clear that there is a bigger issue and better management is needed. What is needed is a solution.
But those are long-term decisions, as right they should be when it comes on how to spend taxpayer’s money. There is no doubt a recycling program and more effective waste management is needed in the future, but that will be up to the next council that will form after the elections.
To make way for the demolition of the Civic Centre, the bins were moved to the southwest corner of the Sobey’s parking lot. After council heard complaints from residents of a nearby condo unit and an adjacent land property developer, council decided to have administration prepare a report detailing possible locations to place the bins.
During Monday’s meeting, executive committee voted to table a decision on where to place the bins after asking administration to prepare a list of contaminated sites as a possible location. So for now, the bins are not going anywhere.
It is good to see a discussion happening in city council about where the bins are going to go that will offend the least number of people. A contaminated site, where development is impossible, would be ideal since development will not take place. Yet no solution will be easy or simple.
But no matter where the bins are placed, there are likely going to be some complaints. It’s impossible to please everyone. Council is just going to have to choose a site and stick with it for as long as possible and implement a strategy to have better waste management.
All editorials are written by the editorial staff.
