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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance Times, 1995-05-24, Page 5• ens ossay on Ashfield Ed Note: The following is an essay " written ,by RR 3, Lucknow resident Phil Payne for his F.E. Madill ,I:'nglish Class. The family wakes early. Not be- cause they want to but because they are awakened. Bulldozers. Large trucks. Swarms of seagulls. They live with it. It's breakfast time, and they are out of water . The father drives to town to get more water. Meanwhile the mother and child make breakfast. Scared to eat the eggs, which are home grown they make pancakes. The father arrives back with water. Now they can make coffee. After eating breakfast they all get in the car and travel far away to a close friend's house. Already up and about, expecting them the friend welcomes them in. There the fami- ly showers. They leave, knowing that they can't stay forever, and head home. Within a mile of their house they put the windows up in their car. As they get out of the car, they wrap towels around their nose and mouth. Quickly, they run into their house. Don't worry, they and many more like them will get used to it. Huron County Health Unit by-law Dear Editor:. For the past year Huron County Health Unit has been working with the town of Goderich to establish a non-smoking by-law. The pro- posed by-law would. require Gode- rich restaurants to designate two- thirds of their seating area as non- smoking, and designate enclosed public places and municipal build- ings as smoke free. The by-law was defeated on a four to four tie vote at the Februrary 17, 1995 Council meeting. The aim of the by-law was to protect people from second hand environmental tobacco smoke. Second hand tobacco smoke has immediate adverse effects on peo- ple suffering from asthma, chronic bronchitis and heart disease. As far back as 1986 environmental to- bacco smoke was recognized as the most important preventable cause of disease and death in the devel- oped world. There is solid over- whelming evidence that tobacco smoke is an important cause of res- piratory symptoms and disease in infants and children whose parents smoke and in non-smoking adults. People who are addicted to to- bacco are quick to remind us that they have the right to smoke, to- bacco is a legal product and this is a free country. Smokers do have the right to poison themselves and degrade their health. They have the right to engage in this high risk behavior. If people wish to risk their lives by racing automobiles on a race track, they have their right to do so. If however they wish to race their cars down public highways they are stopped, fined and imprisoned. Smokers have a right to poison themselves, but they do not have the right to poison innocent bystanders. This proposed by-law is a small step in the right direction. ' It is however just the first small step. This by-law will help to create a general' climate of disapproval of smoking. This will help to protect children and young people from the example of those, who despite its grave risks, continue to smoke. I would urge residents of Gode- rich to contact their council mem- ' hers and let them know' how they ' feel about the smoking by-law. The residents of other towns should also .1Qbby their council members foil a public environment free of -tobacco smoke. Dr. P. Englert President Huron County Medical, Society A landfill site is not a pretty pic- ture. Mounds upon mounds ofgar- bage, bulldozers, large trucks and swarms of seagulls. Although most household garbage is recyclable, it seems as though it is too much work to separate garbage from re- cyclable products. It shouldn't be too hard to separate chemical and nuclear waste from garbage, .but with all the garbage in a landfill site who is going to look for it? The pollution and contamination of CH nearby waterways and the destruc- tion of habitat seem not as impor- tant as having a place to put our garbage, Incineration, or burning garbage, is an alternative to landfill sites. We, if we choose, no longer have to put tip with contamination; pollution and general destruction of our environment. The sight of a landfill site being constructed would bring tears to the eyes of surrounding landown- ers and bring joy to the Provincial Government, knowing that they've taken the cheapest route possible with no concern of the after effects on the environment. I think that most people would rather look at the incineration plant than a mound of garbage, and it can only get worse. With population escalating the amount of garbage will also rise, and when the capacity of the landfill site reaches full, another landfill site -will be constructed. All it takes is one incineration ,plant to service a large area. Not too many people realize the extent of recycling and the amount of products which can be recycled. It seems just as easy to put every- thing into one bag rather than put- LET ting the recyclable products in to their respectable containers. You would think that if the government really cared about the environment they would put a tax on any prod- ucts which can't be recycled. Blue boxes work great, but why not give every Canadian citizen one. Cur- rently they are being used in larger towns and not in rural areas. If• a landfill site were built, it should be used for no other reason than a place to put garbage. Not a drop off spot for nuclear or chemi- cal waste. There is no method for dealing with these kinds of wastes other than temporary storage in the ground and on the floors of bodies of water. It would be much easier to disguise this waste and dump it off in a landfill site. A black or green garbage bag can hide a lot of things. We also do not know where this garbage is coming from. I don't think anyone will rip open every garbage bag and search for illegal waste. In place of local ecosystems sur-, rounding landfill sites we will in- stitute our own system, "the wreck- osystem"; build, dump, bury, and destroy. Take Blenheim Ontario -for example. The people there fought to the end to deflect a land- fill site but to no avail, Now, with- in miles of. the site people have to discontinue, using their ' wells and tap into the nearest town's water supply. The water was so polluted that it was unsafe even for domes- tic use. Waterways as far as five miles could be affected, depending on the slope of the land. Not only will we be destroying water quali- ty, we will also be destroying land which could be worked. Ina time when there is a shortage of topsoil, you would think that a swamp or non workable land would be used. It will probably never happen but why doesn't someone put a dump in the city instead of destroying the land that feeds the people of the city. It doesn't have to be as bad as it seems. Incineration plants are proven to be environmentally vi- able and are much nicer to look at than a landfill site. The people of Brampton, british Columbia and Europe have seen the light. They have disregarded expense in return for a cleaner place to live. How muchdamage can an incineration plant do to the environment and the land it sits on compared to a crater of garbage. Not only will an incineration plant help keep the en- vironment clean, it will create, on a small scale, employment. It takes from twelve to fifteen workers to keep the plant up and running. Ca- nadians are the world's greatest polluters of the environment and therefore we should want incinera- tion because we need it! Landfill sites bring unnecessary disturbances about in a once peace- ful area. Recycling can only get better in the future, but it depends on us to do our part in making sure we do our best for the environ- ment. If incineration plants are put into a place instead of landfill sites it will be virtually impossible to dump illegal waste anywhere. Un- less we clean up our act now, eve- ryone in the future will be spend- ing a lot of money on water filtering. Sooner or later we will have to go with incineration or else there will be a landfill site within twenty minutes of every single per- son! Maybe by then it will be too late, and there is no harm in start- ing now! r. CAVALIER. BEST BUY! BUDGED BEST 1995 ECO EOMY AND R O O T E AAA TOP TEN LIST BOTH DOM N ESTI AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION • C;AAiBEST`BE CHEVROLET CAVALIER. CANADA'S BEST SELLING CAR FIVE YEARS RUNNING. -_ALTER BEST CAR% 3EST''SMALL CPtI 1,995. - MOTORWEEK DRIVER'S CHOICE •.. AWARD 1, 1 CAVALIER BEST TIME! THE BEST TIME TO BUY IS RIGHT NOW. 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