The regional district’s recycling contamination rate shouldn’t be very high considering the reams of education that staff pumps out.
Styrofoam does not belong in your garbage or your recycling container; it belongs in the recycling depot nearest you. Same goes for plastic grocery bags, glass and electronics.
People are still throwing a lot of contaminants in the garbage, such as batteries, fuel cylinders and needles. (You’d want to wear steel gloves reaching into these bags.)
More residents have to start taking recycling a little more seriously by educating themselves on what’s appropriate and what isn’t. However, the regional district has to realize how much of an inconvenience recycling has become on the homeowner.
The practice used to be fairly simple, but now we have to separate plastic bags, glass, Styrofoam and electronics and take them to the recycling depot (on our dime). No doubt this has prompted some people to throw all of this stuff out with their regular garbage, resulting in contamination (and potential fines for the regional district). Can you really blame them?
We are told that reinstating curbside glass collection is too expensive, and combining plastic bags back into our regular recycling is not going to work anymore. But there needs to be more incentive for homeowners to go out of their way to recycle these things separately. They have enough to worry about in their daily lives than clogging their minds with more recycling rules.
Now, if you were to offer them a break on their taxes, they might consider these burdens worthwhile.
No?
Then how about a Tim Horton’s gift card?
Not gonna happen?
Come on, there has to be some give and take.
Throw the book at her
We were appalled by the behaviour of a 15-year-old Penticton girl who disrespected authorities after assaulting a fellow student at Pen-Hi last summer.
The girl punched another girl three times in the head while in class. She was told to go to the principal’s office, but instead went home.
She was later arrested, and once at the Penticton RCMP detachment, she was belligerent to police after being asked to remove her belly button ring. She had to be taken down to the floor and placed in a cell to cool off.
The girl obviously hadn’t learned her lesson by then and proceeded to curse or glare at police for five hours. That earned her a night in jail.
The defence, of course, tried to minimize the assault.
After all was said and done, the judge gave the girl 15 months’ probation. That’s basically an extended time out in the corner at daycare.
She’s probably laughing with her friends right now. The sentence should have been some jail time on weekends. At least there’s some deterrence in that.
Lyonel Doherty, editor
