Editor, The News:
Something in Maple Ridge stinks. It could be the garbage I see tossed in the ditches on our lonely rural roads, but actually it’s even more rank and deviant, and it’s the recent motivation for much of it.
J. Allner wrote: “ ... the cost of waste dumping has gone up in recent weeks by 50 per cent.”
Thank goodness I put most of my stuff in the recycling.
Who approves price hikes of 50 per cent, by the way? That’s a great point J. Allner.
But the fact is, it’s way more than a 50-per-cent price hike because most of us, most of the time, are already paying a gross amount over the rate of $130 per tonne.
I noticed a few short years ago we were suddenly slapped with a $10 minimum charge on weekends. That was claimed to counter the numbers of citizens who only have time to go to the dump on weekends. You know the ones – the taxpaying, working citizens.
Then, at some point in time, with no reason given (how do you justify gouging anyway) it became all week long that we were paying this arbitrary and usurious sum of $10 (nobody seemed to complain).
But that’s when I started seeing bags of garbage and mattresses being tossed in the ditches and woods.
There is another arbitrary sum of an additional $5 being foisted upon us because, well, who is going to stop it?
If I come to the dump to empty a small can of garbage every few weeks because that’s all I have, and it must go, for obvious reasons, I am gouged just for showing up to inconvenience the company that has a monopoly on this trash.
Not long ago, but for as long as I can remember, we all paid an equal rate for the trash we threw out. Now, if we are conscientious and recycle, we pay through the nose to turf our trash.
If the new rate is $130 per tonne, then I’m paying about 13 cents per kilogram if I’m dropping off more than 116 kg. That’s 255 pounds of garbage, old-timers.
However, I don’t normally go to the dump with a tonne of garbage. I usually go with between 10 to 25 kg, or 22 to 55 pounds.
I’m paying about 60 cents per pound, or $1.33 per kg. That’s 10 times the price per tonne.
I bet the pensioners are the ones who are being gouged the most as they typically throw out less garbage than a young working family.
The greed and cruelty of this garbage monopoly has run amok. Do we have no one in government who is paying attention to this abuse?
Who is looking out for the citizenry?
Grant Baker
Maple Ridge