Editor:
I wanted to write out of concern for an issue that I've noticed for a long time.
It seems that Burnaby fast food restaurants and coffee shops, which produce a huge amount of waste on a daily basis, are not required to recycle containers, paper, or compost as residents are, rightly, required to do.
Given that these businesses are generating infinitely more waste than any average family, I wonder why they are not required to better manage the vast quantities of recyclable materials that are thrown into their trash cans every single day.
As an example, I just had lunch at Wendy's on Kingsway and the photo shows the amount of waste from one meal for one person, much of which could be recycled if restaurants were required to provide receptacles.
The existence of fast food restaurants is a fact of life, but it seems they should be required to minimize their landfill-bound waste given the sheer volume they generate.
Also, many restaurants still use Styrofoam containers for take-out food. While many residents, like myself, are diligent about bringing any Styrofoam to the eco-centre, since the city does not collect Styrofoam with other recycling, many people just throw Styrofoam in the garbage. As you know, Styrofoam is a material which takes an incredibly long time to break down in a landfill.
As a citizen of Burnaby who is concerned about our environment, I implore you to impose greater requirements on the biggest contributors to landfill waste. I would love to see our beautiful city be a forward-thinking leader on this important issue.
At the least, they should be required to use containers made from alternative materials which can be composted. These exist, and would make it so there would be very little waste which would have to be sent to landfills compared to the mountains every fast food restaurant generates every single day.
Carly Franklin, Burnaby
