LABRADOR WEST, N.L. — Okay, so help most of us folks in an attempt to figure out, not what we are seeing, but why we are seeing it, as soon as we have the visibility of our land with the departure of the snow.
Labrador West is a clean community for a number of obvious reasons. Most of us folks who live here have a sense of community pride that resonates through many actions that we participate in on any number of issues. We are quick to take actions that represent how we care about the appearance and well being of this place that we call home.
There are somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 people in our shared community, depending on what month you do the count. It is obvious that we produce a lot of garbage, it’s a given.
Now, let’s have a look at the mechanisms and the logistical supports that we as individuals and we as a community have implemented to ensure that all of our garbage is handled effectively.
As individuals we as householders all have two mechanisms at our fingertips. We all have our green boxes for our household garbage. These boxes conveniently designed with a set of wheels for easy rolling from the door to our curb. We can always expect a fine big truck with a skilled operator to empty our container once a week like clockwork. We only have to wheel it back the few feet to the house and begin the new week with our empty box once again, 52 weeks a year.
We also have the benefit of clean up week, a great annual opportunity for us to get the pile of bigger items that we seem to accumulate with the passage of time. Our municipality provides the equipment and the grunt work to get rid of this stuff for us, all we have to do is get it to the curb.
We have a reasonably new landfill site for us all to use. Commercial users and private folks, all of us have access with a user friendly system that is operated on a daily basis that would be the pride of many communities outside of Labrador West.
We also have our Recycling Centre in the Wabush Industrial Park. A clean and well run facility that provides an opportunity for us all to play a role in the bigger picture of doing our part to keep this old world on the right track. We are even provided a financial reward for our efforts.
All of these mechanisms are in place for us to keep our community pride intact as well as do our part in doing what is obviously the right thing at both our local level and forward thinking into the much bigger picture.
All of this being said, look at the pictures. Is there anyone out there among us who could possibly make any sense out of what some people do. There can be no reason for the flagrant disregard and disrespect to our land that could make anyone load garbage in the back of their truck and drive down the road and throw it in the ditch. It makes no sense at so many levels.
The land is disrespected, it’s a smack to the many among us who do care as we signal this by our constant actions of doing the right thing. This garbage along the road is not okay.
If anyone has the vehicle and the energy to drive this down the road and dump it, they surely have the energy to take it to the land fill where it belongs.
I’m not sure that more patrols and threats of bigger fines are going to fix the problem. Only putting it into action will answer this question. Perhaps more public education and somehow get a message to their conscience that we the people, 99 per cent of the folks among us are right on this, and we want them to join us in our vision of simply doing the right thing, it is after all 2018.
