By Wesley Dearham, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, October 29, 2020
Why not have pick-up days for hazardous waste?
Recently, I drove to one of the City of Ottawa’s hazardous waste depots held periodically through the year. This one was at the Barrhaven snow dump, many kilometres from my Westboro residence. To their credit, those who organized and ran this event did a superb job given the hundreds of cars bearing a variety of household hazardous waste ranging from toxic and flammable liquids to propane tanks and fluorescent lighting tubes. Traffic flow was well managed. One also has to give credit to the many Ottawa residents who took the time to dispose of this waste in a responsible fashion.
There is, however, a serious flaw with this operation — no fault of those who operate or participate in it. It defies logic that so many vehicles need to line up and idle their engines for nearly an hour to accomplish this important task. This aspect of these depots contravenes the goals of reducing global warming and air pollution. The city has announced its new climate change masterplan with great fanfare. One relatively easy way to reduce greenhouse gases would be to eliminate these drive-in depots or at least diminish their impact.
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