Dear Editor:
Some of the easiest and cheapest materials to properly recycle (as in reuse) are paper products, and the advantage is that it reduces the number of trees needed to be cut down for new pulp. With this in mind, the Burnaby city food waste program for apartments and condos is demanding the destruction of thousands of trees per year as they request that all food waste be wrapped or bagged in a paper product, which then takes the paper out of the paper cycle and costs more trees. This demand is in fact also only for cosmetic reasons (it is said that it would also cut down on flies, but that is just a scapegoat as just closing the lid does that), as the woman in charge stated that people do not want to look at food waste when they open the containers to dump their food waste. The reality is that we are causing more trees to be harvested and we are subsidizing the composter while in turn creating more CO2 from the aerobic composting being done. An anaerobic digester would be the way to go as the methane produced could be used to generate electricity as the Cache Creek dump is doing. The City of Burnaby is obviously not interested in reducing or reusing but just mandating whatever is easiest and cheapest for them.
Wayne Fuller, by email
