Saturday, February 5, 2011

Day Thirteen - Back To Garbage Day

Thanks to Professor Gladu.
She made some comments on my first week journals and suggested doing some researches on my observations before releasing any assumption.

By my guess, it is people's laziness to use those light polyethylene bags instead of bins on garbage day.
However, the result returns out to be wrong, or at least not sufficient. There are better reasons to do so.

First of all, it's cleanliness. A lot of people never got the hang of loading their bins in a manner that would keep paper and lighter objects from flying all around the streets on recycling day.

Secondly, it's related to the bins. They are too small for the purpose and a lousy design of a winter city such as Montreal. Cleaners have to beat-up bins which are often full of snow or dripping wet.

Thirdly, bags will be so much easier to use that more people will recycle and that increase will be more than the make up for the extra garbage the new bags are creating.

And it's also my first time to know that biodegradable bags are a non-starter. Because  in order to biodegrade, they need light and oxygen which they don't get at the dump, plus they produce a powerful greenhouse gas. And if they are mixed with regular plastic at recycling facilities, they corrupt and weaken the resulting plastic.

Interesting! Besides the better reasons, if I hadn't read this article, I would not know so many downsides about biodegradable products. This has changed all my positive opinions towards them. It also warns us that reducing waste/pollution is not such an easy thing. We should think carefully before doing any harm to our environment.

P.S. I struggled so hard to get up again this morning. As it's weekend, I psychologically resisted waking up. I lay in another 5 mins and made up my mind to get out of my bed at 8:05. I managed to do it one more time but no one knows how hard it was!

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