We understand that some people have trouble making ends meet.
But making someone else responsible for cleaning up your garbage isn’t the way to save a few pennies.
And we suspect most of the folks who dump their garbage on the doorstep of non-profits like the Sassy Lion Thrift Shop in Duncan are just lazy jerks who can’t be bothered to clean up after themselves.
It’s not like whoever dropped off the junk coated in rat feces and dried blood at the Sassy Lion thought their “donation” was anything other than garbage.
Nobody would look at that crud and think that anyone would ever buy any of it, even if it wasn’t coated in filth.
It’s not just that it’s disgusting, as the manager of the Sassy Lion told the Citizen in Wednesday’s edition, it’s a matter of the health of the employees who have to end up cleaning up the mess.
Exposure to bloody bandages can pose a serious health hazard, as it can transfer serious diseases. As can rat dung.
Dumped garbage is also an expensive problem for many thrift shops.
In the Valley many of our second-hand shops are run by charities and non-profits to raise funds that they then reinvest into the community.
Much of the labour are volunteers, who generously give of their time and expertise so that their fellow citizens can have the things that they need.
When someone dumps their trash at a thrift shop, the shop has to pay to have it properly disposed of.
That takes away money from important and needed projects in our communities.
In short, people who abandon their trash are hurting all of us, not creating a minor inconvenience.
The people who perpetrate this kind of appalling behaviour are of the same ilk as those who drive a truckload of trash out to a rural area and dump it.
Out of sight out of mind.
Except that of course it doesn’t just magically vanish. It shifts the cost of clean-up onto either a rural landowner or, often, the public purse.
Many times at least some of what’s in these piles could easily be disposed of without cost through existing recycling facilities or garbage collection.
It’s infuriating that some people have no compunction about just leaving their detritus for someone else to clean up.
It’s about behaving like a mature and decent human being.
If you made the mess, you clean it up.
