The New Stratas Fear: Missing out on Curbside Compost Service

You may have heard that, beginning this March, residents within the bubbling metropolis of Duncan B.C. will be receiving curbside compost pickup service.

Exciting news, to be sure.

Every residential dwelling — a.k.a. single family home — within the city limits will automatically get this privilege.

People living in apartment buildings and strata complexes, however, will not.

It's not because the city has a vendetta against multi-family dwellings. Apartments and stratas are considered commercial properties in the eyes of the tax collectors, so they are excluded from the municipally offered service.

Worry Not, Stratas!

We're here for you.

Cowichan Recyclists offers an extremely cost effective, clean and efficient curbside pickup service for stratas and apartments, too.

Just because the city can't deliver the service to you doesn't mean you can't compost with the rest of them.

Give us a call or e-mail and we can help you move toward zero waste.

Bike Maintenance: Maintenant or Mañana?

Bike maintenance is important, no doubt about it.

It's also something I wish I was passionate about.

Turns out I'm not.

I wouldn't go as far as saying wrenching makes me wretch, but it definitely falls prey to the pull of gravity more often than other tasks, sinking to the bottom of the to-do list time and time again.


202 days ago, this beauty nail took its toll on my rear Kevlar tire.

198 days ago, I replaced the tube.

The following 180 days were pure gravy — I'm pretty sure I didn't even put air in the tire.

Then, 18 days ago, the inevitable happened. The 6-month-old tube finally worked its way through the nail-torn hole in the tread, letting loose a depressing sigh as it slowly deflated in front of me.

My solution was obvious — use Katie's old, small, rusted mountain bike instead.

After nearly three weeks of slogging around on knobby tires with my knees hitting my ears, I'd had just about enough. But I didn't actually stop until her rear rack lost a nut and started dragging on the ground, making the bike inoperable.

Damn!

So here it is, just after 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night, and I've just come in from replacing my tube (which I bent the valve on) and tread (which I'm fairly certain I put on backwards) in the darkness of City Square.

Is procrastination worth it? I dunno.

I'll tell you what I think after spending the next six-months riding on a backwards tire with a bent, slowly leaking valve.

Extra! Extra! 3R's all about it!

I came across this photo today while spending time marveling at how fast time is flying and doing a little relaxing reminiscing.

Maybe it was the fact that this week, Gretz —The Great One — is marking his 50-year milestone. Maybe because he is now officially more than halfway to the revered 99, I meandered through pictures of yore.
Or maybe it was the impending marking of another set goal date. I'd marked February as a time for change and change is rarely tardy.

Whatever the reason, my flighty mind lit upon this picture and made me think, hmmm...how poetic.

I took this photo while working as a reporter/photographer for the Cowichan News Leader Pictorial when photography was my job and recycling was my hobby. I climbed as far as I could into the CVRD multi-bin to capture some diligent eco-warrior recycling my freshly-written prose.

And now, more than five years after snapping the photo, I'm on the outside of the bin looking in.

Recycling is my paid gig. Photography is a dusty hobby. And writing is, as always, somewhere nearby.

Whether you see it in the continuity of the recycling symbol or the idea of art mimicking life mimicking art, it's pretty rare to end up far from where you originally began. But taking that journey is worth it.