4 - Wednesday, August 15, 1990 - North Shore News CANADIAN CLOSET = SHOPS 986-4263 Free home estirnates VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA rec A MATTER OF Lirt AND BREATH DON’T SMOKE WHEN WE refer to our Gross National Product as the measurement of our economic well-being few of us think about the fact that much of the sum total of the goods we produce are, indeed, gross. Canadians, by the federal gov- ernment’s own admission, are the most wasteful people on earth. We are also the heaviest energy users in the world. So don’t fret about national identity. We have one: we are the paramouni pigs of Planet Earth. On average, each Canadian generates 1.8 to 2 kg. of house- hold garbage every day, which amounts to between two-thirds and a tonne of waste per year, for a grand total between us of 16 to 20 million tonnes of gunk. And that’s just the individual who accounts for merely one-third to one-half of the total waste stream. To arrive at a more accurate sum, we have to add on top of that the junk produced in indus- trial and manufacturing processes, which brings the total amount of waste to between 35 and 40 mil- lion tonnes of solid garbage every year. For these figures I am indebted to a book called Green Future, How To Make A World Of Dif- ference, written by Lorraine Johnson and published by Penguin Books. Of all the books about en- vironmental matters this year, this is one of the very few printed on recycled, acid-free paper, which makes it worth buying in itself. Apart from that, it is one of the most comprehensive and practical works among the lot, neither ex- cessively academic nor excessively trivial. 1 recommend it highly as the sort of book which, once you've gone through it, you shculd pass along to your friends and tinuily. On the subject of waste, Green Future starts out by pointing out the basic, appalling fly in the ointment: although North Ameri- cans represent just eight per cent of the world’s population, we Bob Hunter ECOLOGIC produce 50 per cent of the world’s waste. Ours may took like a squeaky- clean society. In fact, we have merely succeeded in hiding our goop from public view, sweeping it under landfill sites, washing it down the drains. Behind the facade of a neat and tidy civilization lurks the ghastly reality of poisoned land, water and air, with almost all the long- term environmentai costs deferred to the next generation. Reading Green Future, I was reminded of a story a waste- management expert told me about being down in Costa Rica, overseeing a building project which had been stalled by the mysterious disappearance every night of the building materials. It took him a while to figure it ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER Barristers & Solicitors " Personal Injury AFTER HOURS [-FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION] — gay 645-8989 [ 986-4366 || 986-9286 #300-1401 LONSDALE _NORTH VANCOUVER, BC. So come again and again and again. out, but what was happening was that the local people were walking off with the materials. In their minds it wasn't theft because the project happened to be located in a village that was built adjacent to what we would call a dump site. It was not a dump site that North Americans would recognize, however, since nearly every single object in it had been stripped away. The locals had no concept of garbage. if something was lying around, they scavenged it, in- cluding somebody's building ma- terials. The 4Rs — reduce, reuse, recy- cle and recover — wasn’t some- thing they had to be taught. It was a way of life. Ergo, they had virtually no garbage. Garbage is just not a factor in Third World economies. Waste, as we know it, stems purely and simply from wastefulness. It is also, of course, a function of economics. We are programm- ed by advertising to cast aside everything that is old so we'll go out and waste another precious resource — money — buying something new. Repairing, men- ding and handing-down are nearly lost arts in the modern piggy Ca- nadian lifestyle. One side-effect of our ignorance is the hidden tax bill. Canadians have to spend $1.5 billion a year on waste management. Most of our garbage is sent to landfill sites and a small portion is incinerated. Both methods of ‘‘disposal’’ are not really disposal at all. They amount, rather, to vol- ume-reduction. Even when garbage is in- cinerated, a part of it is left over in the form of ash. The bulk of the garbage is reduced by 10 to 20 per cent, to be sure, but the bot- tom ash stays in the furnace and then has to be trucked to a land- fill site, or else becomes fly ash. As an airborne toxin, fly ash from municipal incineration ranks, according to the federal Expert Advisory Committee on Dioxins, as the main contributor of dioxins to our environment. As for the stuff that is dumped in landfill sites, it remains that « while newer sites are much more efficient at containing wastes, most older sites still in use allow the toxins and poisons to leach down into groundwater, or escape as surface runoff, all of which contributes to contamination of water supplies. But that’s the Canadian Way. Theyre all in concert at PNE’90! From rock's great poet-prince, Bob Dylan to Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton. Randy Travis. Cher. All in the > Pacific Coliseum. And “Escape From New York” with Deborah Harry, The Ramones, The tom Tom Club and Jerry Harrison, in a paid concert at the newly located Coca Cola Stage. What's more, your PNE admission lets you in on FREE entertainment at the Coca Cola gStage, including Wayne Newton, Fats Domino, { Paul Janz, Trini Lopez, Spirit of the West, ‘ladys Knight, Albert King, Irma Thomas, Jan & Dean, Kid Sensation & Sir Mix-a-Lot. And more. On the PNE Bandstand you'll enjoy the best of local, national and world contemporary country performers. You can’t catch all the stars we're serving in one visit. ..for excitement like never before at PNE’90! For details on show dates and times, call 253-2311.