The Early Days of Recycling

(Before there was a Crane Mountain Landfill... before the recycling bins we have now... there was a movement in the River Valley to get on the recycling bandwagon. This column from the summer of 92 describes those first green attempts.)


On most clotheslines around here at this time of year you'll find clothing hanging out to dry. Not on ours. Oh sure there'll be the odd shirt or pair of socks drip drying out there in the fresh Grand Bay air. But the clothes are never alone on our line. Most days they share space with about a zillion plastic bags, clothes pegged and flapping in the breeze. We take all the plastic bags from milk and bread and everything else that comes wrapped in them, wash the bags, hang them on the line to dry and then re-use or recycle them.

We do the same with glass jars, aluminium cans, cardboard and old newspapers, except we don't hang them on the clothesline. We recycle in this house and that's good according to all the experts. The Fundy Solid Waste Action Team urges us all to follow the three R's of waste reduction, Reduce, Re-use and Recycle.

Being environmentally responsible isn't the easiest thing to do in the River Valley. We can take plastic bags to the Co-op or Sobeys for recycling but cans, glass and news print have to go into the city. We drop the stuff off regularly at Saint John Recycling on Rothesay Avenue. Storing it all in the house until there's enough for a drop off and then making the trek into town is sometimes inconvenient. But that's about to change.

Recycling is coming to us. Brand new recycling containers are standing near Pauls Restaurant. They're called bells. One is for aluminum cans and the other for white glass. There's also a specially designed container just for newspaper. We have the Kiwanis Club of Western Kings to thank for this. Vaughan Morris is the chairperson of the Kiwanis Recycling Committee. He came to the conclusion this would be a good project for the Kiwanis after noticing his wife loading the car with glass and paper for a trip to the city. The business community and the Chamber of Commerce soon became involved with a pledge of financial support for the project. They're going to try it for a year but Vaughan is confident it will continue.

"We've watched these environmental problems happen and we've let them happen." Vaughan says. Eventually he'd also like to go into the schools with programs to educate younger people about recycling. "We have to do things to help our community that will have a bearing 25 years from now." says Vaughan.

The official opening of our local recycling depot is on Saturday, May 23/92. It's being held in conjunction with "Green Up Day". That's appropriate because both contribute to making the River Valley a cleaner and greener place to live. Now that recycling is easier to do let's hope more of us around here start doing it. And who knows, one day there may be more plastic bags hanging on clothes lines than socks.