Red Deer Reality Rant #4 - The Lament of Joe McBeerfan, An Ode to Garbage
Happy Monday! We’re back for another edition of Red Deer Reality Rant where I discuss issues important to Red Deerians, that also have in common with other places on this planet. Red Deer is by no means unique in experiencing crazy weather conditions, but wow, Spring is taking it’s sweet time to get here. I am excited for camping season to begin, and there are many beautiful places to go that aren’t too far away, if only it wasn’t so cold at night.
Generally, I dislike spring time here, it’s mucky, and dirty and everything looks really brown. I know that this won’t last long and it will all get better soon but today I would like to point out some problems that fast need a solution here in Red Deer as well as the rest of the world. I’m talking about garbage. Red Deer itself has a stellar clean up program called Green Deer which runs until May 31 this year and encourages people to pick up litter and therefore beautify the city. Also, Red Deer has adequate recycling systems that help citizens do their part in reducing waste.
The average person is not the problem however, when it comes to the garbage problem. Environmental groups are always lamenting pollution and landfills, and promoting reduce, reuse, recycle when the real issue is corporations, not Joe McBeerfan who always turns in his empties and uses the blue and green bins like everyone else. Maybe I am not the perfect person to reduce waste and pollution, but it’s not me who is literally walking up to the ocean and throwing my pop cans and plastic straws and other garbage into it.
The question is, why is average Joe blamed for the ruin of the environment when obviously the problem is the people who are making the decisions to pollute? Who are these people anyway? I believe it is those who are in power, not necessarily the government or the city who are responsible for waste management, but rather the worst offenders in the pollution game. I don’t hold the barge operator who pulls the lever and dumps tons of garbage into the ocean personally responsible. The fault lies in the person who made the decision to do it in the first place.
Everyone it seems is just doing their job, and City of Red Deer is no exception. But our government, at ALL levels including municipal, provincial, and federal need to work on putting a stop to the ridiculous amount of waste generated by companies and corporations in our cities, provinces, country and the entire world. I know that there are some companies who ARE doing their part, but they are few and far between. Come on, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, everyone, let’s speak up, and clean up our world!
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