4 ~ Friday, January 7, 1994 - North Shore News arbage rules are trash Trevor _ Lautens GARDEN GF : BIASES Life shrinks. My horizons were once as wide as the universe. Then they became global, After that, I settled for concentrating on Westem civilization — and saving it. It was only a matter of time before my focus progressively nar- rowed. National. Provincial. Municipal. - So today I don’t care much , about what happens beyond * Tiddlycove, — _{n fact. | wish | visited more w ith my next-door neighbors. i: won't surprise you, therefore, that what obsesses me right now is garbage. | Yes, iothing i in this universe ~ strikes me as quite as important as West Vancouver's new garbage tules. Be warned, The nouvean reginie for garbage, fellow Greater Tiddlycavers, starts Monday. And already Tam surly, having had a recent embittering experi- ence. But wait for it. First. the new rules. Effective Monday, British Columbia's richest municipality will pick up a maximum of three cans of garbage at single-family and duplex homes. Translated, one garbage bag equals one 77-litre pail — did you know that those pails contain 77 litres? Equals one can. And one toter cart (140 litres) equals two cans. The volume of your garbage and mine “shall not exceed 230 fitres per week.” And the maximum weight in any one receptacle “shall be 35 kilo- grams (78 pounds).” ‘Sounds tike West Vancouver has just invented the Hth Commandment. Now, Fam solidly ia favor of reducing, garbage. But there are exceptional tintes. Especially for our six-person, three- generation household, ranging in age from three to 83. For example, last week | bouxht a couple of new items for my office. The styrofoam alone could almost fill a bag. And how about your extra Christmas garbage, fellow resi- dents? Which brings me to # sore point. Hands up, readers if you missed the garbage collection in the week between Christmas and New Year's? I did. Because, for some inex- plicable reason — and if the munic- ipality advertised this, IL missed it — the rules changed. In other weeks when Monday is a public holiday, our regular - garbage day, Tuesday, shifts to © Wednesday. Not this time, The regular Tuesday pickup was maintitined. So we missed it. Which brings me to an even sorer point. We couldn't keep the garbage a further week. So | toted the stuff to the North Shore Transfer Station in what we fondly call “the truck” — our disgraceful old van. Now, pay attention. My wife carried two very light bags of uash. plus a bulky box of skates being returned for bigger ones, plus her voluminous handbag. down to the vitn. { carried one pretty hefty bag down our steepish driveway on one trip, and a Jess hefty one on anoth- er. Now, [have a realistic view of my own strength, and of weight. fn his last sad year or so, | hoisted my beloved old Labrador Sam — 100 pounds — up and down several Nights of stairs many limes. Now, switch to the North Shore ‘Transfer.Stiation, As of October, the station, to which all North Shore residents used to be able to tote heir garbage and dump it for free, began charg- ing $69, per metric tonne for this service. That's $6.90 per LOO kilo- grams, Minimum charge is $2. Annoying cnough. [thought we paid taxes for this sort of thing. But the real annoyance — indeed only slightly less important in my anind than the atrocities in Somalia —— was the discovery that the station's bill had to be nuts. Only when J exaniined the bill laier did f realize how wacky it was. The charge was $5.50, The weight of die girbage | drapped aff was, supposedly, 80 kilograms. That's 176 pounds! And if that garbage of mine weighed even a third as much as that, PH eat the entire contents of the North Shore Transfer Station. Remember, my wite ——~ a deli- cate litte thing, to be sure ~~ easily carried two of the four bags, mostly Maper. Now, Crafty Reader is saying. “Hf you're so smurt. fella, why didn’t you weigh this week's garbage for comparison?” Being almost as smut as you, Crafty Reader. I did. Erring on the side of generosily, it weighed 34 pounds. Including half a dozen jars of accumulated bacon fat. Ugh. Yet the transfer station claiined our previous week's garbage weighed 176 pounds. Nutso. Either the station scale is off-scale, or the computer is into heavy drugs or something. This is no trifling personal irrita- tinn, Has any reeder experienced something similar? Perhaps the same duy — Dee, 302 ! complained, in my usual quiet way, later that day. As of this writ- ing, early in the week, no response, but I'm expecting one. Hear that the new rules may trigger a parallel to the underground economy: people surreptitiously dropping off trash at work, or in deserted places. Not a nice prospect, is it? Garbage. Don’t leave home without it. Brand New 1993 Sealy Posturepedic € O L ONY HOME FURNISHINGS 1075 Roosevelt Crescent Nerth Vanceuver| (2 blocks behind the Avaton Hotel) CATES PTE For 60 HOURS ONLY, it’s the largest FACTORY DIRECT designer tur sale i in BC history at ° Pappas Furs. Names like Yves St. Laurent arid Louis Feraud...Savings UP TO 85% OFF list! FACTORY DIRECT PRICES - 60 HOURS ONLY! TOP DESIGNER FUR FASHIONS BY WORLD RENOWNED DESIGNERS: Yves St. Laurent, Royal Crown Sable, Oscar De La Renta, Karl Lagerfeld, Nina Ricci, Zuki, Blackglarna, Courreges, Louis Feraud, Gianfranco Ferre, Grosvenor. 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