Moncton — Effective Oct. 17, the City of Moncton and surrounding areas are now obligated to sort garbage into 3 separate bags: green for compost, blue for recyclables and clear for garbage. The decision was made by Southeast eco360, formerly the Westmorland Albert Solid Waste Commission, in an effort to reduce the current unsustainable amounts of waste added to local landfills.
“It’s time to move forward and get the ball rolling on recycling now that the technology and know-how is available,” says project manager Shelly Knight of eco360. “It’s pretty disgusting that 40 percent of recyclable goods are still added to our landfills on a daily basis when all that each person needs to do is take an extra second to sort their own garbage.”
Despite each member of the community being supplied free garbage bags as well as a detailed how-to guide for sorting, the decision hasn’t exactly been met with open arms by the majority of Monctonians, who seemingly have every excuse in the book not to oblige.
A Manatee reporter took to the streets of Moncton to find out what citizens had to say about the new system.
“Three bags?! You gotta be f$%^ing kidding me!” yelled Cheryl Powers of Hillsborough. “What the hell am I paying my hard-earned tax dollars for if the brains up in Ottawa are just gonna turn around and force me to think about where my garbage should and should not go? That’s MY garbage and it’s none of their goddamned business!”
Riverview native Stacey Branch stated she simply doesn’t have room for another garbage can in her house, and wishes they’d go back to the days of one big, black bag, and frankly, “doesn’t give a rat’s ass about recycling” except for bottles and cans, “’cause you get money for those ones.”
Bryan Steeves of Salisbury, however, was unfazed by the change in policy. “Nah, I don’t see what the big deal is, ’cause that don’t affect me anyway. See all I been doin’ for the past 10 years is loadin’ up my trash in the back of the pickup at around 3 a.m. every week or two — whenever she piles up — driving ’er a few clicks down the road, makin’ sure there’s no pigs around, and dumping ’er along the riverside. Nature’ll take care of it.”
When asked if this process might actually be more lengthy, strenuous, expensive and environmentally damaging than the relatively simple new system, Steeves incoherently told our reporter, “Don’t care. I know my way and I like what I know. Like my ol‘ man used to say, ‘Knowledge is a dirty bitch; give her an inch and she’ll take all your shit.’”
Since breaking the news to Moncton that they now must follow a set of standards that will slow down their regular, already tedious routine by approximately 8 seconds per day, eco360 has received more than 4,000 death threats while the Times & Transcript has been flooded with the highest volume of Letters to the Editor since bilingualism was implemented nearly 50 years ago. Many of the letters are more than 3 pages long, which according to experts would have taken 25 times longer to write than it would to read the new 3-bag sorting guide.