Image Credit: Barbro Bergfeldt / Dreamstime

By Doug Collins

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: Fruit flies and bears are ready for 2023

Sep 9, 2022 | 5:05 AM

BY THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, we will have to park our vehicles in the street.

Why? Because there won’t be any room for them in our carports. We have to be ready for another bin to house more garbage. The curbside organic waste program will be well underway.

It will consist of two steps. One will be a one-cubic foot container which will reside in your kitchen somewhere. So, when you are preparing food, you just toss the scraps into this container. It has a lid which snaps shut, and according to the City’s web page, it will help keep fruit flies and bad odors away. Note the words “help keep”. Meaning “you’ll still get the smell and the flies”. Because nothing keeps a fruit fly from its target.

You know how eagles and hawks soar high in the sky until they spot their prey and swoop down like a bat out of hell to grab it? Fruit flies are like that. They can smell a bit of fruit a mile away and they will find your house without missing a beat. But I digress.

When your container is full of whatever, you take it outside where a substantially larger bin awaits. You throw the scraps into that bin, awaiting the next pickup. Now you need to hide that bin carefully. The fruit flies will find it, and Mr. and Mrs. Bear or Mr. and Mrs. Raccoon will find it too. They’ll be walking hand in hand down the street, and one will say “look at all those frigging fruit flies in that carport, dear. Let’s go check it out”. And so the fun begins.

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To be serious (finally, you say), this program needs to happen. To quote the City website “A curbside organic waste collection program is estimated to reduce the community’s carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 2,800 tonnes per year (equivalent to removing about 600 passenger vehicles) and save the City $1 million annually in costs related to landfill capacity.” So we’re talking a lot of savings, for the landfill and the environment.

The sacrifice needs to be made. For the small price of a dollar or so a month, you can play a role in protecting the environment. And there will be liners you can get for the bins which are themselves compostable and help keep the smell and the number of flies down. My son in Vancouver says the compost bags they use there help a lot.

So, seriously, let’s get behind this program and make it work. It will be well worth the effort.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.