Laurel Jay's Blog

This week our family got a letter in the mail from the mayor detailing a new and very exciting change!! Starting in May, garbage collection will decrease to every other week, and yard trimmings (food scraps) collection will increase to weekly collection. The purpose of this change is to prepare for the landfill ban on all food scraps and yard trimmings in 2015, in addition to promoting food scrap recycling instead of garbage disposal.

Like we talked about in class, it is difficult to motivate people – especially a large  mass of people such as all Vancouver residents – to change consumption patterns when there is no tangible incentive to do so. Of course, everyone is aware that garbage disposal is “bad” and composting is “good”, but if it takes more effort and the effects are not drastic and tangible, then many people find changing their habits a challenge. To fight this mentality and promote food scrap recycling, I applaud the City of Vancouver and the mayor for forcing its residents to watch their waste disposal.

Now that garbage collection will be more infrequent, and yard trimmings and food scrap collection will double, Vancouver residents will definitely have to watch their waste. If they don’t, they will have to pay to dispose more garbage. Additionally, to make this change even easier to adapt, every household will be provided with a counter-top container that you can use to collect food scraps in the kitchen. My family already has one of these that we use daily, but it is an eye-sore so I am very excited for this new container! By changing the waste collection pattern, and providing counter-top containers for each household, Vancouver residents are forced to change the way they dispose, and the change shouldn’t be as difficult as people fear.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2013 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.