Like an eclipse of the sun and the moon happening in sync, pollen season and ant season have arrived simultaneously in our part of the woods. To be fair, they are both still emerging, just flexing their muscles for mayhem that is sure to come. Nothing to see here (they pretend): just a few errant small ants, hanging about on the window sills or milling about near the outside doors; just a smattering of larger ants, setting out on an expedition to who-knows-where across the rug, or seeing what’s hip and happening on the kitchen counter, or just hanging out in the bathroom, anticipating a spa day in the sink.
The pollen, although a tad early in my book, is much like the ants, not yet up to its full nuisance potential. And in its own defense, it will prevent me from having to paint some Cape Cod blue touch-up rehab on the Muskoka chairs until the foreseeable pollen-free future.
But that is not the primary topic for this report. I would like to discuss the situation with the clear garbage bags. In case you do not live in the District Municipality of Muskoka or some other misguided place, you may not know about the phenomenon of the clear garbage bags, as opposed to the classic green ones. Do not despair, I am here as your personal educator and guide.
Don’t get me wrong. I am, under most circumstances, a person who follows rules meant to sustain a harmonious living environment for all involved. Except when said rules do not do what they purport to encourage. Take, for example, the “community standards” in place in the suburban area I had the misfortune to inhabit for seven long years. These “standards” prohibited clotheslines, cats roaming off their owner’s properties, stuff (like boat seats) minding its own business in your backyard, and things considered “unsightly” in your own, personal driveway. I admit the cats did roam, the backyard grass was not always mowed to golf course precision, and there was that unfortunate Lift-Rite incident. But I digress.
About those clear plastic garbage bags. This change was not made because a clear bag and its contents decompose more quickly. Rather, the municipality says: “By using clear garbage bags to dispose of your waste, you’re reducing the amount of garbage headed to our landfill.” Near as I can tell, the clear bags are intended to reveal if material that could go in a green bin has been relegated to the garbage. I’m guessing the garbage collectors are going to police this somehow for those who are lucky enough to have their garbage collected. That would not be me.
My tax dollars grant me the right to take my garbage and recycling to the transfer station. This involves loading the disposables on the boat, taking them off the boat, loading them into the car, driving to the transfer station, and driving up to the person in the garbage hut. This person asks how many bags and whether they are clear plastic. Then you drive about 50 meters to the industrial compacting bin to dispose of the disposables. Not once in this process does anyone peruse the contents of the garbage bag to determine if they contain contraband.
The clear bags are also much flimsier than the green ones. This means I must resort to double bagging in order not to have the refuse go rogue in the back of the car and that I am also doubling the amount of plastic going to the landfill.
Anyhow, I admit this falls squarely in the realm of a first world problem. But it’s not the first time a bureaucratic decision has backfired. And alas, not the last.