SUNSET LOOKOUT, NOT SO SUNNY NOW   

Thursday, July 14, 2011

It was in the mid 1990s when the Prince Edward Region Conservation Authority (today, Quinte Conservation) decided in favour of decommissioning Sunset Lookout, a popular lookout point overlooking Muscote Bay, west of Demorestville. Vandalism was rampant at this tiny spot, and the escarpment had become a regular garbage dump with televisions, beds, discarded kitchen cupboards, household garbage and general refuse being unceremoniously dumped over the edge of the embankment to let tumble down the forested hillside.

After the area was no longer maintained, and the amenities removed and grass allowed to grow, the once popular lookout point lost its macabre appeal. The irresponsible and slovenly gradually faded from view as Nature did its best to absorb the refuse. This past month, there has been renewed interest in the location, and the cliff edge once again became a repository for a truck load of discarded lumber, comprising two by sixes, boards and a variety of other discarded lumber pieces.

One has to wonder why this dumping even occurred when a convenient transfer station is located only four kilometers east of here, at Demorestville.  However, it does happen with disturbing frequency, wherever there is a dead end road, a pull over spot or some other remote nook or cranny. We are a wasteful society, extremely so. If this had been our waste lumber, we would have reclaimed and saved what we could, and sawed up the rest of it for our outdoor wood fired barbeque.

In the 35 years that we have lived at our current location, recycling or reusing everything that we can has become routine for us. Very little on our two-acre lot where we live ever goes to waste.  We feel rather guilty even putting a bag of garbage out at the roadside for pickup once a month, never mind the weekly bags we see at the ends of some driveways. Used lumber is reused, if practical, or cut up into smaller lengths and stored away to be burned some evening as we relax around our “campfire”.

Brush and trimmed limbs are never taken to the transfer station. Instead, they are put through our wood chipper every fall to be used as mulch or compost in our gardens. Kitchen waste is composted, much of it returned to the garden whence it came. I have even developed a Power Point presentation, “Backyard Magic – Getting the Most from Compost”. Audiences are amazed when I show them how easy it is to compost and list the items that can be turned into black gold – everything from the usual recommended items to the unorthodox that are seldom considered as fodder for the composter – paper towels, tissues, shredded paper – anything that will rot. In this presentation, I dispel the myth that compost smells. If done properly, composters do not emit an odour. So, it is not necessary to hide the composter in the northwest corner of your property as though it were something to be ashamed of, and hidden from view. Composters that require hiking boots to reach are seldom used to their fullest potential. Our three composters are located right at our back door.

Everything that is created on our two-acre lot, remains on our lot, if it is possible to do so. It just makes sense not to waste. One must wonder with our burgeoning population growth, where all our garbage is going to go eventually, if society continues to waste as it has through the years. The late Doug Sadler who was way ahead of his time with some of the comments he made in his column in the Peterborough Examiner, once said, The end of the earth will not come by fire or flood – it will come by being buried alive in disposable diapers, fast food containers and products built to last only a few years.”

Despite our admirable efforts at recycling the plethora of electronics on today`s market, it is sad that modern products are not built to last. A refrigerator that my parents bought in 1950, continued to soldier on faithfully until the farm was sold in 1976. Then it returned for an encore at their new home in Picton as a spare in their basement for another 25 years!  A refrigerator my wife and I bought in 1999, now sits on our sundeck, awaiting pickup by HydroOne’s Great Appliance Roundup. The sales clerk at the store where we purchased our replacement openly stated that appliances simply are not built to last more than a few years. That is really sad considering how far we have come with technical advances.

Meanwhile, helpful Internet websites are replete with suggestions on how to re-use items that would otherwise be tossed into the garbage, from using egg cartons for starting garden seeds, using dustpan dust as mulch for potted plants, to using old broken crockery as part of the mixture for a concrete garden path or to mosaic a bird bath. If one used all the suggestions I found on a few randomly picked websites, no one would ever have a bag of garbage again!

It`s a case of acting responsibly and always being mindful of where our garbage ends up after it leaves the roadside. There are so many ideas out there that can be applied to everyone`s property in an effort to keep our discarded items in our own backyard and out of the landfill. Certainly, the truck load of discarded lumber at Sunset Lookout could have enjoyed a more useful afterlife than sliding down a privately owned shoreline embankment.