Dear Editor:
Fellow citizens, are you aware that Burnaby is implementing a prohibition on the disposal of food into our garbage bins, and that we will begin incurring fines if our garbage is "contaminated" with food, or includes even anything soiled by food?
A so-called consultation report issued by Greater Vancouver, titled Organic Disposal Ban, outlines the utopian plan that our municipality intends to adopt. Environmental scientists apparently wish to, first, "educate" us, but it states that we will all eventually be expected to maintain composts, including people living in apartments, and be surcharged unless we deliver our organic waste to community gardens.
One business owner quoted in the report begrudgingly anticipates that bigger companies will find "possible exemption," while there will be "mandatory composting programs" for less influential companies.
It appears as though modern environmentalism has been "contaminated" by control freaks.
This is beyond the reasonable limits of state action, an imposition that is clearly undemocratic and, in my view, unconstitutional.
I have had just about enough, anyhow, with the ban of mundane and ordinary things, such as the real fireplace in my home, the raw milk I drink, self-defence, watering the lawn, bottled water, some herbs and supplements, firecrackers, public consumption of alcohol, riding bikes without a helmet, multitasking while driving (even while stationary,
and despite the fact that the police have open laptops beside them all the time), and so on.
And what were recently added to the list are my few favourite spots at Deer Lake, which now have dictatorial signs from the parks, recreation and cultural services department telling me not to enter despite the fact that old trails are already beaten into the soil.
I, for one, am discontinuing the composting of my food scraps in civil disobedience, because I know the difference between being sustainable and being a chump.
What crackpot tax-exempt foundation came up with this one?
Elias Ishak, Burnaby
