Re: Enough reasons exist not to build sewage plant (Letters, April 26)
In his letter Ted Dew-Jones listed seven reasons that discredit the idea that Victoria needs a land-based sewage treatment plant.
I not only agree with him whole-heartedly but I think he could have added a few more things that should negate the whole bizarre idea of this project. Some additional things that everyone doesn’t even think about are:
•Are we going to build a billion dollar sewage treatment system to treat all the things that are currently going down our sewer pipe? Not water or water soluble items.
•The proposed sewage treatment plant will only eliminate solid waste. All liquid waste and water soluble products will continue to be pumped directly into the ocean.
Many of the items that we think should be excluded from going into the ocean will in fact still go there. All of the water and water soluble products will continue to be sent directly to the ocean as it is now.
•A vast portion of the solid waste that they are planning to remove from our sewers is in fact edible green garbage which we put into our garburator systems and is perfectly edible for the sea life.
How much of the “solid waste” would not have to be treated if all municipalities instigated a green waste collection program? Do we have to spend over a billion dollars to do this?
• New programs should be set up to help us to return the “sewage system” back to what it was originally intended to be used for.
• Programs should be set up to explain to us how to eliminate some of these things that many of us put into our sewers.
• Unused pills and medical items should be easier to return to any pharmacy, not just the one where you bought them.
• Just because latex paint is water soluble doesn’t mean you should wash your paint tools into the sewage system.
• If the label has come off the paint container it’s not accept it at the recycle depots. Should we have to put everything in one can with a label or throw it into our garbage?
• Who needs pink toilet paper? Don’t use bleached or coloured paper. Use unbleached paper, it does the same job and is cheaper to manufacture. It keeps it out of our sewers.
Johannes Karpes
Victoria