This is the parking lot on the north side of the SARCAN building on the north side of Tisdale. As you can see there is nothing there. For all of the years we have lived in Tisdale big blue dumpsters have occupied this location and it is where Tisdale folks take their old catalogues, retired phone books, old newspapers and cereal boxes. The paper and cardboard recycling project that has been part of Tisdale's waste management system has been ended.

In May of 2007 it was mentioned on this web site that the paper products going into the recycling bins was being taken to the Tisdale landfill site. At that time despite every effort by Tisdale, Nipawin and other rural communities determined to do the right thing, they could not find a place to take their recycliable material. The whole useless process cost the town about $19,000 a year and was simply going no where so it has been terminated.

For all of us, and in Tisdale that pretty well covers the majority of people, recycling is the right and appropriate thing to do but our municipal governments simply can't go it alone. All across North America there are serious problems with paper and just about every other form of recycling. Our consumer oriented culture and governments with the inability to see beyond the next election have simply bailed out of support of green projects of all kinds.

With a recession now in full grind in the United States and a serious economic turn down in Canada politicians at the top level of government are not interested in basic green projects. Without the support of senior governments the municipal governments are left alone to face the economic burden and as we see with Tisdale and Nipawin they have given up.

In the minds of many doing the green thing is actually cheaper than the consumptive mayham we all take for granted but Canadian tax payers were given the choice in the last election and they chose parties that supported conservation efforts. The only problem is there were three such parties and though the majority voted for a better world the trash and burn Conservatives returned to govern.