Editor:
I’d like to throw out some brickbats and bouquets following Saturday’s cleanup on the Trans-Canada Highway.
For the life of me, I can’t understand how every year we end up collecting so much garbage from the sides of area highways. According to Volker Stevin, volunteers picked up more than 400 75-litre garbage bags on Saturday. Brickbats to the customers of the fast food outlets. Why do you keep using the sides of the highways as a garbage can?
The same can be said about those who are drinking and driving. There are far too many beer cans and liquor bottles being tossed. Brickbats to the drivers who use plastic bottles or jugs to empty their bladder while driving and then leave them on the roadside. I have nothing printable to describe my contempt.
The same can be said for people tossing soiled diapers. Brickbats to the people who can’t move away from the shoulder lane and give cleanup volunteers or highway personnel a little room to work safely.
Bouquets to Patty, Gary, Peter and Michael at Volker Stevin who picked up all 400 plus garbage bags the volunteers filled from the Banff National Park east gates to Highway 40, from Highway 1A to the Bow Valley Parkway, plus all the other items people seem to lose in their travels.
But the biggest bouquet is for all the volunteers, the community groups and young and old who gave up part of a beautiful Saturday to make such a huge difference in keeping this little piece of paradise as special as it is.
Paul Baumberg,
Dead Man’s Flats
