Hoist on our own trash

Image: CBC: Philippines: Canada Take Back Your Trash


Hoist on our own Trash!

First the Philippines, now Malaysia re-gifting Canada's unthinkables.

CBC: 'We are going to send this back': Malaysia returning unwanted Canadian plastic

• Malaysia is denouncing Canada's "irresponsible" export of plastic waste, becoming the second Asian nation to make plans to ship Canadian trash back across the ocean.
• Authorities did not identify which company exported the plastic from Canada. But they said it will be returned to that exporter after it was deemed to be too contaminated and of insufficient value for legitimate recyclers in Malaysia to take it in.

Which "authorities" are responsible for protecting the identity of the perps, I wonder?  Canadian ones, most likely.

There's a Sobey's bag in one of the photos of that mess and, since I've never shopped there, it's news to me that it's Canadian. But wait -- maybe I've actually shopped there, since Sobey's is such a diversified and massive ... there needs to be a bigger word for "conglomerate".

How about behemoth? Artha definition: "abnormally large and powerful".  Yeah, abnormal -- having developmental anomalies.  Not pretty at all.

We shoppers have no clue who some of our local businesses actually represent, or how they got to be so ubiquitous and "popular".

If we really want to know history, we need to read "Business History" the motto of which is:

• "Profitability is the key to economic value".

Not so, actually, apparently. Business History postulates up front what we've always been given to understand, but that's been negated by the story of the downfall of Enron:

Mbrcslcc: Why Cash, Not Profit is King

• There’s an adage that goes, “Revenues are vanity, Profits are sanity, but Cash is reality”.
• “…one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.”  

In other words, you can drop a stack of paper onto a table and you might hear a thud, but never a "ca-ching". Enron failed, reportedly, because it was essentially ca-ching-less.

The age of this so-called adage can't be readily deduced, but I did find it repeated here:

AIC: Paying the Rent

• You might not think that liquidity would be a problem in a sector such as commercial property where rental yields supply a stream of income. But the value or price of any asset is ultimately determined by what someone is prepared to pay for it. Or, as city cynics sometimes say, revenues are vanity, profits are sanity but cash is reality.

I've never been at all interested in the stock market, nor paper gold, but I'm not ignorant of the monstrosities and hidden crimes of big business to which even heads of governments turn a blind eye and an out-stretched hand.

I have also been keenly aware of the overgrown packaging industries and the continued production of supermarket plastic bags despite the massive evidence against them.  It's hard to believe that people are still carrying home their purchases in plastic to the point where cast-offs are now choking the oceans and their denizens -- when not being dumped on what the West considers to be under-developed countries!

They don't actually say "under-developed" in these politically correct times; they say "developing". But the snoot gets across all the same. Investopedia

It's difficult to fathom that some "developed" people actually buy perfumed plastic bags at dollar stores that fit neatly into designer kitchen garbage cans wherein one daintily tosses one's kitchen refuse.

Do these folks not eat bread? Do they not realize what perfect garbage catchers bread bags are when they're hung on hooks on the inside of the door under the kitchen sink?  It's such a no-brainer that I can't help wondering if the concerted efforts by media and other anointed bamboozlers the public have already, irrevocably, worked their charm.

We're supposed to be much more concerned about the insidious effects of "carbon". But Where's the Carbon?

Plastic bread bags are flexible and don't tear easily. You can twist-tie the opening and nothing will spill out -- unlike the loosely tied handles of flimsy plastic grocery bags that have probably already been punctured by the stuff carried home in them.

This doesn't entirely eradicate the problems of plastic pollution, but it's at least a nod in the right direction.

There are all sorts of other reusable bags as well -- the ones that rolls of toilet paper and boxes of tissues are packed in, for example.  Some people might toss those thinking they will probably be recycled, but it looks as if they may well be wrong.

As for carrying home your purchases, are Canadians so stressed or dumbed-down that they aren't aware there are perfectly nice, roomy cloth bags available?  Yes, they cost money -- if you don't want to make them yourself out of your wardrobe castoffs, for instance -- but you're also paying for each and every plastic bag the store packs for you, and, in the words of Father Guido Sarducci, "It-a adda up".

None of the above is a perfect solution, for sure, but at least your garbage would more likely be incinerated in your own city, or at least country, and not shipped across the ocean, out of sight, out of mind.

Wake up, peeps! Who do we think we are?  Or are we thinking at all?

The Malaysian incident may have explained the mystery of why there was, for the very first time ever in my long-time apartment building recycling experience, a large bin that the removers had refused to touch, and they had placed a terse note on it saying so. I peeked inside the bin and saw -- and smelled -- the same sort of putrid mess with which the Malaysians are now re-gifting us!

There were torn store bags, loosely tied with stinky stuff spilling out of them, and other goopy containers that people had not bothered to rinse clean. So, it does look like evidence that our so-called recycling agencies were quietly shipping the worst of the worst abroad and have now been caught out.

What made them so confident they could get away with it?  Because we're "developed"? And they're just "developing"? Well, the Filipinos and the Malaysians seem to have a pretty well-developed sense of justice, and it's sad to see what we've developed into.

Canadians need to take a moment to bow our heads -- in shame!

On a possibly encouraging note:

CBC: Burning garbage produces electricity for Metro Vancouver.

• The regional district said the waste-to-energy facility produces enough power to supply the equivalent of 16,000 homes in the region.

A few years ago, incineration was seen to have been a pollutant, but it seems the process may have been improved:

Sciencing.com: Advantages of Solid Waste Incinerator

• Modern solid waste incinerators separate most dangerous gases and particulates from the flue gas produced during incineration.

Not keen on the word "most" there, but it's better than nothing, I guess.

By the way, there's a guy in Thunder Bay who regularly photographs the strewn trash he comes across during his outings, as well as the effects of a cold Spring on flowers' attempts to bloom.
​