living
FROM THE EDITOR
WHETHER YOU WERE CURSING OR PRAISING
the groundhogs’ predictions on February 2, here we are, well on our
way to the first day of spring.
I’m sure you’ve seen signs of it popping up throughout our city and
your neighbourhood–trees budding and perennial shoots poking up
out of the ground, neighbours cracking open their windows and getting
outside for some yardwork–one of my neighbours had his lawn raked
and mowed before the end of February–I’m still not sure how I feel
about that.
With spring comes the annual Spring Home & Garden show
(March 16–19 at Exhibition Park) as well as the need to do some spring
cleaning, update and freshen up your home, and purge old and unused
items. Before you run those out to the Waste & Recycling Centre or
call the City’s Large Item Service for a pickup, consider donating those
items or finding a new use for them. For instance, pairing an old light
fixture with a few outdoor solar lights can make for some interesting
outdoor lighting features–Pinterest is full of ideas on how to reuse and
repurpose items throughout your home.
Working with Kathleen Sheppard and Mike Spencer from
Environment Lethbridge on this issue’s cover story (p. 32) has
encouraged me to really look again at the purchases I make and what
I do with those items when I feel they’ve hit their end-of-life cycle.
Should I have made the purchase to start with? Can the item be
donated? Or can the item be reused or repurposed for something else?
In the wake of City Council’s vote on curbside recycling in January,
Environment Lethbridge issued a very insightful commentary in its
February newsletter. In it they state: “Perhaps the recent decision by
Lethbridge City Council to reject curbside recycling in Lethbridge
should be a reminder that recycling is intended to be the last of the 3Rs
with reduce and reuse leading the way in how we manage our garbage.
In our efforts to do the right thing, it’s easy to forget that recycling is
the last best option. In fact, recycling should be the thing that we do
after we have exhausted all other possibilities, after we have thought
about our need to buy more stuff, after we have reused and repurposed
and composted, then we should recycle as the best alternative.”
While there are many people on both sides of the fence when it
comes to the issue of City-managed curbside collection, and everyone
seems to have an opinion or stats and data that lean one way or the
other, it seems clear to me that we’ve lost sight of those first two Rs, and
that maybe it’s time we stepped back and put the emphasis on reducing
and reusing.
Story idea? Letter to the editor? Email: [email protected]
06 LETHBRIDGELIVING.COM
MAR-APR 2016
JENN S. REMPEL
P H OT O G R A P H Y: D E J O U R DA N ’ S B Y L I F E T O U C H
@jennsrempel