Editor:
“Go Green,” they say, and I did.
When you travel by bus, SkyTrain and foot, you do not cause any extra production of air pollution, carbon and other greenhouse gases. It’s environmentally friendly.
Something you might think that the City of Burnaby would support and encourage. But just try going to the EcoCentre, a.k.a the recycling centre on Still Creek Road as a pedestrian.
I took my vegetable oil, which can only be disposed of there, in the little two-wheeled cart. As I walked up the nice pedestrian path from the sidewalk that leads to the centre, a man ahead waved me away yelling, “You can’t come in here. Go around the side.”
Surprised, I yelled back, “There aren’t any sidewalks.”
His reply, “It’s not my problem.”
He was correct, but it certainly was mine as I was confronted with having to navigate the roadway with cars zipping through into the facility. Most unsafe. After watching for a break in the traffic, I moved as quickly as possible, forced to walk on the road while dragging the little cart, all the while hoping to avoid being transformed into “road pizza” by a car.
I contemplated the likely mass of brilliant minds that must have not only designed this facility, including the access, but approved of it, too. And wondered how this is in keeping with global understanding of our effect on climate change by using fossil fuels.
Maybe it was built even before the “oil crisis ”of the 1970s. But no, it was built only about five years ago. And it isn’t just pedestrian access that is missing, but bicycles, too. Lots have little trailers attached, suitable for carrying items. As there is the “greenway” bicycle path running right along the front, this would seem to be a “no-brainer.” But, in reality, it is actually a true “no brains at all” planning and implementation example.
I wonder about Burnaby’s understanding of the meaning of the word ecological when they call it an “Eco Centre.”
In trying to figure out the cause of the dysfunction I see in my culture, it helped me to read the words of Stan Rowe in the first chapter of Biodiversity in British Columbia. He explains the system as fragmented, mechanistic and reductionist.
Knowing this, citizens can then begin to make adjustments to overcome these limitations and move toward a connected, relational and biologically based thinking which is surely the type of planet we live on.
Barbara Westerman, Burnaby
