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“Hewitt upset with angry
meeting in Tiverton” reads the
heading in |
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last Wednesday’s Independent. “Kincardine councillor Ron Hewitt says
Kincardine is a long way from becoming one community.” You are right, Ron,
and it will stay that way just as long as council retains its present
attitude towards governing.
12/22/04 Full Story... |
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Last week was one of those
times when I despaired for the human |
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race. I read the following excerpts from a
variety of papers: “A child dies of starvation every seven second and each
night 800 million people go to bed hungry.” The church’s silence is
questioned, “over the number of dead Iraqi civilians (largely women and
children) through…indiscriminate bombing.” “1 billion children live in
poverty.” And, “MPs push for sharp tax cuts.”
12/15/04 Full Story... |
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The
Declaration of Human Rights was signed on December 10, 1948 |
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in response to the atrocities of World War II.
Human rights require every person is to be treated with dignity. Every
person deserves to be safe and secure. When one person has human rights,
other persons have human responsibilities. .”
12/8/04 Full Story... |
by Fred Kirby December 1,
2004
Congratulations to Glenn for wanting more
recycling options. But before we ask a company what it can do, we ought to
find out what we as a community can do to reduce waste. Hands up those on
council not living on a farm that have a compost box outside their back
door for household biodegradable waste. Hands up those on council who
compost their leaves and other outside waste. And, lastly, hands up those
who have checked Google for websites on recycling. When you do, you will
discover a lot of information to digest before asking others what they can
do.
There is another pool of information – Kincardine citizens. There is a
great body of knowledge and skills among our citizens that can be tapped.
They too can use search engines; they too will have thoughts on how to
reduce waste. It is an opportunity for council to creatively use
their
website to garner the public’s opinion and have a conversation with all
those concerned about our waste management. By the way, the website is one
of the worst I have seen. It needs to be made more user-friendly and
attractive while being modified for citizens and council to share
information on issues such as this.
(An interesting aside is to observe Glenn wanting  one company to
come up with ideas about reducing waste after negotiating with another
company, OPG, to bring in nuclear waste.)
Council could encourage composting waste by revisiting the use of
household compost bins to assure its maximum use. Compost that cannot be
used by households might be collected periodically and used by the town or
made available to others.
After familiarizing itself through Google, council might join others in
changing manufacturers’ and food processing companies’ methods of
packaging. Why not add our voice.
There is a small but keen environmental group in the area. Glenn should
enlist them in his desire to reduce to waste.
When council does its homework and engages the public as partners in
reducing waste then that will give commitment to any conversations council
may wish to have with outside agencies.
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