Every few years, everyone should drive out to their local dump and take a good look at all the garbage there. They should also drive around the dump to take in its size because they just keep growing.
Our dump is probably bigger than our downtown core. From the dump's summit, there is a great view of the city and surrounding area. The city should think about turning it into a tourist attraction and using its top as Northern Lights viewing platform.
I have a nightmare dream that someday I will climb the dump and the garbage will stretch from horizon to horizon. From sea to shining sea.
Currently, both the city and the GNWT are asking people for ideas on how to deal with all the garbage. This really does seem like deja vu because it happens every few years and has been going on for decades in the North and centuries in the more populated parts of the world.
You would think that by now we would have a better handle on this whole garbage thing.
The first real problem is that all too often the politicians, bureaucrats and governments will opt for short-term fixes, rather than long-term solutions. We just donSA国际影视传媒檛 seem to learn.
Here are a couple examples.
In Yellowknife we built a big garbage compactor. It may have reduced the volume of garbage, but it didnSA国际影视传媒檛 reduce its weight, in and of itself, by one microgram, an iota or a single plastic bag.
In Toronto they ran out of places to bury their garbage.
In the entire province of Ontario, they couldnSA国际影视传媒檛 find a place to bury it, so they started to ship it hundreds of kilometers to northern Michigan. Also, they are not the only city that ships its garbage hundreds or thousands of kilometers. That is not dealing with the problem but simply moving it to another spot. North America ships garbage to other countries, particularly things like used clothes, plastics and e-waste. It should come as no surprise that many of those countries are starting to say thanks but no thanks, we have enough of our own garbage to deal with.
So what can we do about garbage at a city or territorial level? Well about a third of the garbage that goes into the dump is cardboard and that is by weight not volume. Cardboard can be recycled. If that isnSA国际影视传媒檛 economically feasible in the North, then it can be shredded and composted. Or it can be burnt and with a little research there should be a way to turn it into fuel to help heat buildings in the winter or to produce steam and then electricity.
Another third of the garbage is made of biological materials like paper, food wastes and yard wastes. It can all be composted. So, the GNWT and the city could cut down on the garbage going to the dumps by two thirds simply by composting everything that is compostable.
You could shred it and put it in big piles to let nature do its work. Or you could put it in composters and collect the heat that composting generates and collect the methane gas as another fuel source.
Add it the sewage and northern communities should be able to use their wastes to produce some of their energy needs.
Globally we have a problem. One or more big companies will come out with a product. Sell it and make millions or billions of dollars in the process. But the product isnSA国际影视传媒檛 composable or easily recyclable. So, they go to the dump and the taxpayers of the country pay the price of dealing with it. There should be a law that if your product isnSA国际影视传媒檛 compostable or easily recyclable, then it is the companySA国际影视传媒檚 responsibility to collect it up and deal with it, in an ecological manner.
You can bet that if that law was in place, companies would start doing a whole lot more to make their product more eco-friendly, from the get go. Those stupid coffee makers that use pods have created mountains of garbage around the world. Those devils should have never been sold unless, they had compostable or easily recyclable pods.
The same goes for e-waste, for fast food containers, take out cups, plastic water bottles and a whole lot of food containers you get from the supermarket.
So, before we can see garbage from sea to sea, now would be a good to take the problem seriously.
