Grumpy Old Man - Recycle This!

Tossing and Turning

I recycle what I can. Before I do that I reduce and reuse. Meaning I look for the product with least waste and packaging and I look for products that are made of recycled materials or made with recyclable materials.

I am not one for buying bulk beans and pasta produced within 100 miles from home and taking them home in my hemp woven bag made by local craftsmen from hemp they harvested and carried home and to market on foot. But, when I have emptied my can of soup into a microwave safe Pyrex bowl and started heating it, I will immediately rinse the can clean and place it in the recycling container I keep under the sink for that purpose. I also put my recyclable plastics in there. My paper products go elsewhere and when the containers are full I take them for a walk to the elevator down to the parking level and to the large wheeled totes the city has for apartment building recycling and... stand their wondering what to do because some idiot in the building has filled it with inappropriate junk!

A person might understand if a person makes a mistake and puts an armload of newspapers in the wrong tote when they are empty with the lids up so you can't tell which is which. They are after all identical other than the label on the lids. But filling them up to the brim with the detritus obviously from someone having cleared out some tenant's abandoned belongings is totally different. True the material is possibly recyclable, but books and encyclopedia do not belong in the glass, plastic, and metal recycling bin. Neither do VHS tapes and broken stereos and appliances even if they are mostly metal and plastic.

In the Newspaper and Other Paper bins there is a mix of all sorts of paper as well as plastic, glass and metal objects... I do get it - maybe... someone has got it into their head the idea that someone spread that all the recyclable material just gets dumped into the same bin anyhow and either is sorted mechanically or is actually just sent to the landfill with all the rest of the stuff and the whole recycling thing is just a nuisance.

Yes, I do see that all three bins are dumped into the same truck, but I also know that the truck is designed with 3 compartments in back and the materials go into the appropriate compartment and are kept separate to go their own separate way at the collection station.

I know that other places do things differently. Our neighbour 4 miles East just has two bins for every household. One for yard waste and the other for paper, metal and plastic. They don't take glass, it contaminates the paper. Of course that means that people without cars has to take their trash on the bus to the recycling station to cope with recycling glass.

Most places do have a system of separating the recycling into bins - each place also makes sure that residences get copies of the regulations each year... except maybe people living in apartment buildings... Not that I consider this an excuse for what I find at my building.

Actually I find that someone in the building consistently contaminates the bins with garbage. I think they are of the mind that recycling is a waste of time and money since they heard that the process doesn't pay for itself. So I think it is their form of protest. While it is true that it is important to recycle in the most cost effective way possible, the point of the exercise is environmental protection and resource preservation. We want to keep from over stuffing our current landfills or appropriating new land for new ones and we want to keep an eye on our resources to ensure that we will always have them.

If someone wants to protest, don't mess up my chance to recycle! Go to City Hall and tell them! Don't pee in my cornflakes if you are mad at the milkman!

Or perhaps someone in the building is frustrated with the building management or owners about something - someone who either was moving out or in charge of cleaning suites- and figured that peeing in the cornflakes was a good way to protest?

Well the recycling bins have been stuffed to overflowing for over three weeks now with red tags from the city saying they will not be picked up until the materials in them are sorted. Perhaps it is a failing of mine, but I really do not feel like sorting through hundreds of pounds of garbage when I do not have a place to do it or containers to sort it into. I also am still coping with that health issue mentioned earlier. The building managers aren't doing anything... I guess they eat oatmeal, and all the city has done is stopped picking up the recycling until the situation is rectified.

...of course perhaps the person who made the mess is also the person who will be paid to clean it up... a bit of conflict of interests - at least I think so. But I wouldn't be able to prove it.

I have two bags of cans and bottles as well as my recycling bin filled and waiting to go. I don't want to toss them into the dumpster. Actually it is against the law... Maybe I have to figure where to complain? I do pay for garbage pickup which includes recycling with my rent. But I also do not want to be branded a trouble maker. Often there is that tightrope.

And still my cornflakes get soggy... and yellow.

Later!
~ Darrell

52

Metro-Vancouver Transportation

West Coast Express Train Ridership Up*

This year ridership on the commuter rail West Coast Express Train has been increasing rapidly. The commuter rail service that runs from Mission all the way in to Vancouver on week days is quite comfortable and relaxing. Compared with a daily driving commute – fighting traffic with the increased costs involved with record priced gasoline prices; the additional insurance; and the wear and tear on both vehicle and nerves – it is a pleasant alternative. It does cost more than the normal public transit system, but people find the trip which eventually ends up in down town Vancouver preferable.

The West Coast Express is run by Translink, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority and there are eight stops including the Vancouver Waterfront station. Five trains run into Vancouver from Mission in the morning and five trains run back from Vancouver to Mission. There is an additional run with a bus through the West Coast Express stations after the fifth train has left. There are stations in Vancouver, Port Moody, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows, Port Haney, and Mission City. Parking is available near or at the stations. Travel from Mission to Vancouver takes around 1 hour 10 minutes and from Port Moody to Vancouver in around 25 minutes which is very favourable if compared with rush hour traffic.

Later!
~ Darrell

__________
* I wrote this article a year ago for a paper and they decided not to use my work. I spent all day in the hospital with kidney stone problem and the night a day or o before under the weather because of it and so decided to post from my stock of articles. I hope to feel up to writing something fresh on the 'morrow.

50.

Volunteering

Step Back to Volunteer

Organizations of all sorts today probably have one major hurdle in common - finding enough volunteers to function. It is probably harder to find volunteers than to find funding for the various activities and operations they administer.

I am not sure that charitable organizations have it much easier than non-profit organizations or not-for-profit ones. I volunteer and am on the board of directors for a small privately operated community museum. (The Port Moody Station Museum) A lot of people assume the city owns and runs us, but we are a non-profit society running and operating it.

We can get grants and funding and that truly is not a simple thing and is always a struggle, but greater is the struggle to maintain membership levels and active volunteers to maintain the museum and to put on the events that the public appreciate, expect, and in fact are a part of the mandate of a vibrant, vital, entertaining, educational institute.

It isn't just groups such as our small museum that are having problems, I hear that charitable groups which take care of the disabled and poor have problems finding enough volunteers to function. I can only imagine how much more difficult it makes their jobs. Sometimes I feel guilty if we might be drawing from the seemingly ever smaller pool over volunteers for our museum that also are the source for groups that feed the hungry or clothe the poor.

Of course education is important and we are not just entertainment, and I must remind myself of that even though the events we put on do have to have that entertainment aspect to bring in interested participants. Sometimes I think we have to try just a bit harder to bring people in to the museum because people do not realize just what can be offered in the way of education for their children and for the community in keeping an active and vital community museum.

Through the time offered by volunteers we can offer the school tours to students of the community to learn more about our community's heritage and how we fit into the provincial and national identity. Many students do not realize that we were the western terminus of the first transcontinental railroad across Canada or what that even means. They get an idea of that when they come to the museum and why it was so important at the time.

They can learn much of what we can show them from textbooks in school and from their teachers, but at the museum they can see some of the actual bits and pieces and listen to people who have a different direction of interest perhaps than their teachers who have a broader necessary scope of education. Sometimes, it is also good to hear things from different voices from the one you hear throughout the year.

The thing is that a small museum, or even larger ones, require volunteers to function otherwise they are too expensive to run. We are lucky to have a full time curator, but when a class of 30 or more come in, it requires more than just one person to properly guide them through the displays and activities and keep it interesting. We'd like to have at least three people involved in a tour of 30. It makes for an enjoyable, educational experience.

On special weekends like Mothers' Day we also like to hold teas which bring in more of the community into the museum. They are a part of keeping the museum a part of the community and remind people that the museum is there. It encourages folks to take a tour as well and to see what is new. ("What is New at the Museum" has often been an interesting catch phrase since most people think of museums being places for old things.) We have a nice passenger rail car set up for teas and dining which is very suitable for such things. It is a 1920 vintiage rail car and a pleasant setting.

Our teas happen Mother's Day and Sundays in the Christmas Season as well as a few other occasions. We might have more of them, but we need volunteers to do the teas and we do not want to "burn out" the volunteers we have.

I know some places nearly have "Job Applications" for volunteer positions and turn people away. But a lot don't and are happy for the people they can get. A lot of volunteer work includes some things that might be dirty or call for a bit of sweat. Often there are things to clean or carry - but there are also opportunities to help put on teas or hide Easter Eggs for kids as well. True, there are some things that do require skilled volunteers with credentials. But, some things just require someone who is willing to commit to be there.

At our museum, just saying, "Hey, I'll buy a membership and help out with a few things." is very useful. There really aren't many privileges to memberships other than supporting the museum, but it is so very important to the museum and we figure the community. I figure if I can say this about our museum, others would be able to say that about other organizations. That includes especially those charitable organizations, that includes schools and hospitals too. (There is no need to wait for a disaster to become community minded.

Do you consider doing volunteer work? Would you volunteer for a local non-profit organization? Do you think - I'd rather donate time to a charitable organization? Do you?

Later!
~ Darrell