Dear Editor,

I have been feeling quite guilty over the past year that I don't use the Green Can for my food scraps. I have sheepishly thrown everything out together in one big garbage can.

This week, I decided I would embrace the environment and do my part. I scoured the Langley City and Township to find one of those nifty food scrap bins I see advertised in the community section of the paper.

After getting in and out of my car five times at six different stores, I finally found a healthy supply at Canadian Tire. They even have handy laminated charts explaining the Green Can program.

Right next to the buckets were the bucket bags.

These are identified directly on the box as "compostable" bags designed for the buckets.

They were the only bags, I might add, that Canadian Tire had on shelves for the bucket.

Feeling exhausted but pleased, I returned home with bucket and bags, and happily started using them for my scraps.

I now sort my bottles, cans, paper, boxes, plastics. and food.

I have my correct cans, labels, and bins. I can already hear the sound of trees growing and birds chirping.

So, you can imagine my extreme frustration when today, for the first time ever, I received a green sticky note on my "green can" saying they could not pick up my nicely sorted food, since it was in a "plastic" bag.

That plastic bag is the very compostable bag that is sold with the bins. Apparently, according to the Township, it's not compostable enough.

So, I'm sorry, but the Township has made it far too difficult.

I'm going back to putting all my garbage out together in one big, ugly black garbage can that has served me perfectly fine for the past 25-plus years.

Garbage Grump (name withheld), Langley