Re: “Recycling contamination has Duncan facing fines”, (Citizen, July 20)
It was predictable that once the profit driven multinationals took over our local recycling program they would restrict our recyclable content.
Many of us warned that our grassroots three-R (reduce, reuse, recycle — remember those?) programs designed to reduce our garbage output and help the planet would just become a revenue source for a company that is driven to make a profit. Remember the good old days when we all bought into the recycling program because it was good for the environment, was easy to use (they took almost everything!) and benefited our local recyclers?
Well, it has happened. The convenient recycling program we designed is now a restrictive, profit-driven apparatus which does not take many of our previously accepted recycling items. There is no monetary return in processing plastic film — not accepted. It is not profitable to process glass and metal — not accepted. Now our tax dollars will be used to fund city staff to police us, enforce the MMBC directives and further make our recycling efforts yet more difficult and personally more expensive.
I will go on record and unhappily state that the more people are tagged (shamed) with stickers, have items taken out of their bins and left in front of their house, or are fined, the more we will see items going straight into the garbage bin. This whole program sounds self-defeating.
Mike Welsby
Duncan