As residents of Grand Bay-Westfield, we are deeply concerned about the lack of accessible recycling options in our Town. Previously, we had the convenience of blue recycling bins located beside Foodland, near the boundary line where the City of Saint John meets Grand Bay-Westfield. However, to our disappointment, these bins were removed by the City of Saint John and/or Fundy Waste Management, with no debate from our Town of Grand Bay-Westfield Council to support our Town's residents.

Grand Bay-Westfield stands out as the only community without garbage pickup at residents' homes. This means that we are responsible for taking our waste to the dump ourselves. While I don't mind doing my part for the environment by properly disposing of my waste, it becomes increasingly challenging without convenient open hours at the dump, and also because of no access to blue recycling bins in our Town.  When we had blue recycling bins, it was easy to drop off recyclable items any time of any day, a few times per week, which is needed for people that don't have room to store recyclables and garbage in their homes.   Growing up in this community, we had access to dumps that were open 24 hours per day /  7 days per week.  In recent years when Fundy Waste opened their facility, it has limited open hours.   Having access to blue recycling bins 24/7 inside our Town is needed!  We shouldn't have to cart our recycling to the dump.  Sometimes I don't have a full bag of waste garbage yet, but I have numerous bags of recycling, and have to lug it to the dump and still pay full price for 1/2 a bag of garbage.

The process at the dump is not ideal either.  If you have more than 8 bags of garbage, plus have bags of recycling and/or compost, you have to drive through the whole circuit twice - because they have to weight your garbage, so you either have to go unload all your recycling and compost first then drive back to the entrance to go to the booth again to weigh your garbage; or weigh your garbage first and go unload your garbage then drive back to the entrance / booth again to get weighed again and pay then drive back around and into the facility again to unload your recycling and compost.   
And good luck lifting your bags of garbage up and over this tall railing into the garbage truck bed, and lifting your recycling bags up and over another tall railing to dump them into that big container.  Not ideal at all, especially since we have to waste our gas money bringing it there and pay to bring our garbage there, and doesn't matter if you only have half a bag of waste, still charged full price, which adds up.  To me that's penalized for recycling.  What was the point of having mostly recycling and only have a bag of waste, if I'm still going to be charged for a full bag of waste?  I know I'm helping the environment, but they're taking my money, when one of the reasons I recycle is to save money on paying for garbage bags and fees.  We shouldn't have to lug our recycling to the dump and go through that process.   Access to recycling bins in our community is essential!     The removal of the recycling bins and the limited hours at the dump has caused illegal dumping.  Meeting our residents' garbage and recycling needs would eliminate this and the need to constantly find volunteers to pickup road side garbage throughout our Town.

Recycling is a crucial aspect of waste management that helps reduce pollution and conserve valuable resources. By reintroducing blue recycling bins in Grand Bay-Westfield, we can encourage and facilitate proper disposal practices within our community.  

When friends/family from other provinces visit here, they can't believe what we have to endure for our garbage and recycling process.  
According to statistics from reputable sources such as Waste Reduction Week Canada, Recycling Council of Ontario, ReMM Group, Middle Georgia University, Recycling Revolution, National Geographic, Scientific American:

1) Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours.
2) Aluminum is 100 percent recyclable and can be recycled indefinitely.
3) An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now
4) At one time, aluminum was more valuable than gold! 
5) A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes! 
6) To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.  Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.  If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!  If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year. 
7) The average Canadian generates approximately 720 kilograms (1587 pounds) of waste per year.   Recycling just one tonne (1000 kg or 2205 lbs) saves approximately 17 trees from being cut down.
8)The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years. 
9) Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!  Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!  Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.  
10) An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space -- that's almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it. 
11) A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.  Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil. 

By having blue recycling bins readily available in strategic locations throughout Grand Bay-Westfield, we can significantly increase our community's recycling rates and contribute towards a greener future.

Saturday mornings at the dump are crazy busy now since they removed those blue bins, traffic going here and there, kinda dangerous to me, need to have more open/convenient hours outside of people's work hours, and you wait in a big long line to get in there.  Who wants to spend every Saturday (your day off) lugging garbage and recycling to the dump?

I kindly request that our Town Council of Grand Bay-Westifield work with Fundy Waste Management to re-instate essential recycling bins in our Town. Let's work together towards creating an environmentally conscious community where every resident has easy access to proper recycling options.

Sign this petition to show your support for the reintroduction of blue recycling bins in Grand Bay-Westfield. Together, we can make a positive impact on our environment and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,
Lorraine Gibson

* picture is a screenshot of CBC News Article about removal of blue bins to implement curbside recycling pickup (to everywhere except Grand Bay-Westfield!) - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/saint-saint-curbside-recycling-bag-tags-1.6286580