Dear Editor:
As a current employee of Summerland Waste and a future employee of BFI I felt compelled to write in after I read Gwen Redfern’s letter regarding the new yard waste bag policy.
I love my job and enjoy being a garbage man here in Summerland but I hate yard waste weeks because of the old bag policy.
All of these plastic bags need to be cut open so the contents can be composted.
This process doubles or triples our route times and is extremely back breaking. With paper bags we can toss it in, and keep driving.
As for size, I’ve noticed a few people are already using paper bags and they are the same size and maybe even bigger than plastic bags.
I know they won’t stand up to weather like plastic but maybe this will encourage people to store their yard waste out of sight in a shed, etc. and not at the curb as a eyesore.
Yard waste pickup is also increasing to once a month for nine months of the year which is more frequent than the old policy of every six weeks.
It is easy to criticize council when you don’t have all the facts — they know the yard waste situation and I only wish it had happened sooner.
Benj Brandsma,
manager, Summerland Sanitation Services
Summerland