Editor: I recently played a softball tournament at Riverway Sports Complex. After a weekend of seeing 500-plus softball players, I was rather saddened, angry and disturbed to see that there was absolutely no recycling or composting at the park.
All the bottles, cans, garbage, plastics, paper and food went in garbage cans to be dumped, like it was 1988.
As a Burnaby taxpayer, this disgusts me. To find out we are years behind other Lower Mainland jurisdictions when it comes to our parks. Places where thousands visit daily. Then to find out the parks department and engineering are not even at the roll-out stages. Recycling has been in Burnaby for more than 15 years. Composting, more than three. We have been fighting Kinder Morgan for three years, in regards to environmental standards.
Yet the City of Burnaby is a decade behind in their own backyard. I find that hypocritical. Especially considering my taxes have increased every year, for 18 years, and the actual dollar amount has gone up, because of speculated, rather than actual, property assessments, which has given Burnaby a $4-billion contingency. Not to mention the fact that we have lost thousands of trees that have not been replaced because of development.
The bottom line is, Burnaby has no business complaining about a company’s track record when they are just as bad.
Jeff Wittworth, Burnaby
