Our planet earth has been diagnosed as being in bad shape for quite some time. She suffers particularly from excess plastic and obesity due to thoughtless overconsumption. And Saskatchewan doesn’t look much better.
There is a saying that hell is paved with good intentions. This is what happened a few years ago when the state government warned several municipalities that their landfills were about to reach their useful life. And in 2022, several of them were closed.
The town of Gravelbourg found itself on the property of the affected sites and therefore had to close its landfill. We still put some things there, but these are really the last moments of life in this room.
Our non-recyclable waste now goes to Moose Jaw. The upside is the closure of the landfill: less local waste, fewer bugs.
But there is also the downside: very high cost of decontaminating the site, the carbon footprint of the truck that comes every two weeks from Moose Jaw to pick up our trash, or about 140 miles round trip.
Wanting to recycle is part of the obstacle course. The same company that collects our rubbish also collects our recycling: to try to find your way between the two, you have to consult their list.
At our Sarcan location you can drop off containers, batteries, paint and electronic products. Pens are collected from Staples in Moose Jaw. Plastic bags, in turn, can go to the Superstore, still in Moose Jaw. Finally, fluorescent lamps are occasionally recovered.
It’s okay to try to recycle, repair, reclaim, reuse, but that goes beyond individual initiative. There is a lack of a global environmental and especially recycling policy at the level of our governments, from the federal to the provincial to the municipal level.
We must find a global solution: to have products that can be repaired, that can be recycled, that can be dismantled and sent back to the point of origin without ending up in nature, reduce consumption, have a circular economy, improve ourselves selective collection, have ecocentres, improve composting, keep educating the population.
Acting together for the environment would mean showing love for our planet. We will have to put even more pressure on our leaders to act.
Certainly the situation is worrying, but there are many ways to improve our lives and preserve our planet. These are all career prospects for our job-seeking young people.
Every gesture, no matter how small, can become a gesture of love for our planet.
Provincial Government: French language services available
Fransaskois learns self-compassion
8th