Thursday, March 11, 2010

Sanity in recycling

Some twitter discussions today raised some intersting questions about parties and policies, and what if all parties had similar policies.  Certainly an excellent question to debate.  I am making this post from the seat of my pants, and I would have to "dig" to get the referencing links, so this example is more to show that just because you have a good policy, the way you use it may not be the smartest.

About a week ago or so, the Edmonton Journal had an article about changes the Alberta Government was looking it, with respect to "left overs" from the construction industry, and how they wanted to make a new section that would deal with charging developers a fee of some sort, and then giving them back a portion of that fee depending on what made it into the land fills etc.  Again, do note that I am going from memory here and this may not be "exact" in nature...

While the concept of the idea, of reducing landfill is certainly in the right direction, I can see this as being nothing more than a waste of money, and here is why I say that.  It will cost a huge amount of money to set this up and maintain it, and there will be fights over the fees, and additional costs not only to the developers who build, but also to the folks buying new development (housing, office space etc).

Would it not be better... if the larger "leftovers" were donated to one of the building recycle locations, so that others can buy them at reduced prices... and for the smaller ones, why not hold a "come get free pieces to finish your construction projects" event, so that folks who only need a couple of chunks of 'this or that', can swing by at a monthly event (example only) and grab a few missing pieces?

I am sure that places like Habitat for Humanity would love this...  Course, what do I know.. maybe I'm way out in left/center/right field...

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