What should I do about my garbage?
It happened again! My garbage was strewn all over the back alley behind my house. Somebody keeps opening my black garbage bags and throwing my stuff all over the place. It is really starting to get annoying because there is nothing more gross than picking up decaying banana peels and used paper towels. It's not just be either. This is happening to my neighbours too. The problem is that I think I know who it is, and I really feel bad for them. You see, I live in Kensington, and we get a lot of homeless people walking up and down our back alleys picking through the garbage. Most of them are looking for bottles and cans so they can take them to the bottle depot and get the deposit money for them. The reason I get frustrated with homeless people ripping apart my garbage is that I NEVER put bottles or cans in the garbage. I always put all my bottles and cans into clear blue plastic bags so that everyone can see what is inside of them. I then put my bottles and cans into the alley so that they can be picked up by whoever wants them. Usually my bottles and cans are gone within an hour or two. I guess there is such heavy competition for these bottles and cans that people are driven to ripping open people's garbage to see what they can find.
Anyway, I guess my point is that it is terrible that there are so many homeless people in Calgary when we are supposed to be going through an economic boom. Currently the Alberta government has a surplus of billions of dollars every year, but we don't seem to be able to solve the problem of homelessness. In fact, the problem is getting worse and worse. I just read that the average price of a home in Calgary is over $350,000. How many people can afford that? Also, because so many people are moving to Calgary every month (last I heard there are 20,000 new Calgarians every month!) there are getting to be less and less apartments available for rent. Rents are starting to get very expensive. Thus, even people with jobs can barely afford to rent an apartment. Something has to be done. My garbage is just one symptom of a big problem that is facing our city.
posted by Scott Douglas @ 1:06 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Government should build more buildings to decrease the number of homeless people. Then the rent will cheaper. hehe (i'm finding the house or apartment during these days, and the rent is expensive.)
Economic booms have a cost.
Usually, middle and high economic classes tend to increase their wealth, but lower classes get even lower.
Economic growth increases the gap between classes. There aren't a lot of countries that cares about social issues,
commonly they just want more money flow in their markets, and they want this money to generate industries.
Think this:
If you were governor, which of these industries would do you like to be the base of your country's economy?:
A - Cars
B - High Tech
C - Clothes
A and B will produce lot of money, while positioning your country in an excellent condition in international markets.
That's what we call a 1st world country.
So, it's better to produce cars and high tech. But wait a minute! We need ppl to buy this things we're producing!
Now, 2nd issue:
You (as governor) DESESPERATELY NEED ppl who can buy cars and computers (cuz you already opened their production plants); AND you only have a fixed amount of money...
Shall you distribute it equally? if you do it, no one could have enough money to buy expensive stuff.
Shall you give a lot of money to a half, and nothing to the others? YESSS!!!! That's the answer!
It's hard to say it. But countries' actions are leaded by their interests. And their interests are money money money. That's is wrong.
Government's interest should be make their citizens happy. Just that.
I don't want to continue talking about this, cuz this is already a huge comment.
And about your garbage...
Maybe separating into Glass / Aluminum / Paper / Organic could help.
Place some sign to let ppl know which kind of garbage is in the bags.
But problem is organic. Homeless ppl search food too.
You have two solutions for this:
1) Take out trash right before the garbage collectors arrive.
2) Using some kind of locked container to put garbage in. (But if it's locked... could collectors open it?)
Doing this, you'll leave homeless ppl without eating something too. It's a though situation...
Sorry for the large comment
wow, it's the longest comment I have ever seen! I think you are right, and the government's concentrating on getting more moeny to the exclusion of its citizen's happniess.
How can you write about a serious issue like homeless people in the way that seems so much inersting? I enjoyed reading it.
Post a Comment
<< Home