The busy bureaucrats in Regina have found another way to keep their pay cheques coming. They have decided to revamp the solid waste disposal system, up, down and sideways. Thus far, their ultimate solution is like a fog-shrouded iceberg. Details and dimensions are indistinct.
Historically, fresh garbage has been a problem whereas old garbage is a boon for archaeologists. A productive midden brings joy to the hearts of the diggers who are fleshing out the bones of past history and filling the display causes of modern museums.
Fresh garbage is what we deposit in landfills and the places we used to call nuisance grounds.
In the past garbage disposal has been both a private and a public concern. At one time, families living in the proud city of Naples had a pig tethered by the door. It was the garbage control unit. In the 15th century, herds of public pigs travelled through cities towns and forests eating everything organic that human beings discarded. The pigs were owned by the local authority, be it a nobleman, bishop or a council of prominent citizens.
Public pigs were part of the garbage control system of New York City in the early 19th century.
In economically powerful India, after human scavengers have salvaged whatever they can, waste disposal is left to wandering goats and cattle. When the waste piles grow too large, they are turned into smouldering pyres. We are doing better than India in Saskatchewan right now, even before the bureaucrats have improved anything.
What municipal ratepayers in Saskatchewan can expect from the latest ukase is still shrouded in fog. Ostensibly, existing landfills will be turned into transfer points and the final resting place of everybody's garbage will be in regional super dumps, designed and constructed to prevent contamination of ground water. Maybe the effort will be worth it and maybe not. Ordinary citizens don't know what was factored into the super dump decision. Are present landfills more likely to contribute to a massive pollution of ground water than are the widespread use of agricultural chemicals and the noxious by products of the extractive industries? Trucking garbage for longer distances would increase air pollution. Is this acceptable?
There are reasons for cynicism. At present, representatives of rural municipalities, towns and villages are consulting together to determine where the super dumps will be located. Will their co-operative congeniality continue when each one wants a super dump to be located in or near the jurisdiction he represents?
Municipal governments are the creatures of the province. They must do whatever the bureaucrats tell them to do. In the fight against Dutch Elm tree disease, professional arborists must also do what the bureaucrats tell them to do. Individual citizens can do as they choose. Most of them wouldn't know an elm tree from a kumquat. Also most of them, if they find the new garbage disposal too inconvenient, will begin depositing their garbage in ditches and hidden ravines. Household incinerators, the use of which has been banned, are being built again.
A truly confirmed cynic will see all of this as an attack on small local jurisdictions and the rural way of life. The administrative costs of health care now are proportionately higher than they were before the closure of small hospitals. The effective enforcement of elm tree regulations is impossible without a burgeoning tribe of inspectors. The attack on the time-honoured tradition of fowl suppers shreds the familiar tapestry of rural life. And now, garbage.
Constantly, the bar for small jurisdictions is being set higher. There are wise academics who hope the little people will give up. Saskatchewan has too many local governments, they believe. Apparently, they don't understand that the effectiveness of local government is not measured in numbers. A small jurisdiction where a council dedicated to common sense merits the approval of its ratepayers is a valued part of a better world. Larger governments, regional or provincial, which enmesh citizens in a web of unnecessary regulations are more like a chronic disease.
