The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, August 16, 2012 · 6 The Oakville Beaver The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5566 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 905-631-6095 Let's do more recycling Editor's Note: This letter was filed with The Oakville Beaver as a letter to Mayor Rob Burton and the Town of Oakville. Recycling in Halton falls under the jurisdiction of Halton Region while local parks are managed by the Town of Oakville. I am a 19-year-old university student living in Oakville, and care deeply about the environment. I am writing to you today because the Town of Oakville is not always giving its citizens the option to recycle when they desire. My friends and I were waiting to play soccer on a field that was being used by two children's teams playing in the Oakville Soccer Club. Once they had left, we started our own game, but shortly into it a woman interrupted. She had gathered up the previous team's plastic water bottles and wanted us to throw them out, as there was no garbage nearby. I volunteered, and later gathered up their water bottles after our soccer game, and walked across the field to the nearest garbage. Before tossing them in, I pondered how long it would take these dozen bottles to decompose in our landfill: Five-hundred years? A thousand? Despite my concerns, I did not pick them up only to put them back on the ground, and into the garbage they went. Strangely, this was nothing new. I have played soccer in Oakville since I was four, and for much of those 15 years I have filled up my own reusable water bottle. However, many of my friends and teammates would bring disposable plastic water bottles. Some of these bottles would make it to the garbage, and some of them would somehow be left on the field -- but not one would make it to a recycling bin, as there was never one nearby. Sometimes I think that having no accessible recycling bins can be used as justification for littering. There is no doubt in my mind that plastic bottles and aluminum cans all over the streets of Oakville would provoke a faster response to this issue than my letter. However, this is not the case as people tend to merely be content with throwing their recyclables in the garbage. This also has to change: there needs to be a recycling container beside every public garbage bin. Reusable goods such as plastics and metals that are thrown out will never come back, and they will be sorely missed when the world runs out of them entirely. Because of this, Mayor Rob Burton, I would like to ask you to please put a much needed recycling bin beside Oakville's garbage bins. At the very least, I hope you could upgrade our recreational areas to have recycling bins, as this is a common place for water bottle use and disposal. I realize Halton has recently added a composting program, which is a positive step in the right direction. However, when an apple core and a plastic bottle are both mistakenly thrown in the garbage, only one of these items will still be around after we are long gone. This is why I stress the particular need for change in our recycling programs. See We page 13 Letter to the Editor Neil Oliver Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West David harvey Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief Daniel Baird Advertising Director ANGELA BLACKBURN Managing Editor Riziero Vertolli Photography Director Sandy Pare Business Manager RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association MARK DILLS Director of Production Manuel garcia Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution KIM MOSSMAN Circulation Manager Website www.oakvillebeaver.com The OakvilleBeaver is a division of Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award Jason ransom / canadian olympic committee celebrating: Oakville Men's Eight Rowing silver medallist Doug Csima (left), fellow rower Doug Vandor, centre, and a team leader at the closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics, last Sunday. Questioning whether time flies faster as a person ages he question I've been asked the most of late -- aside from the obvious: "Are you going to sue the guy who gave you that haircut?" -- is, simply: "Where the heck did the summer go?" Because in the blink of an eye, we've reached the middle of August and, seemingly before we've even had an opportunity to reapply sunscreen and salve the idiotic itch of the monster mosquito bites, the annual e-mail arrives exhorting us to book our pool closing. Pool closing? Oh, can the Christmas advertising blitz be far behind? I believe that this is in part an age thing. I believe that the older you are, the faster summers fly. Nowadays -- as a guy with an unruly accumulation of age rings around the old eyes -- summers seem to move at warp speed. Conversely, when I was a kid, it seemed as though summers moved tortuously slow. Like they were running under water. Seriously, when I was a kid, the month of June was always a whole year long as time seemed to stop completely by about midmonth in anticipation of the end of the school year. Finally freed from the surly bonds of school, July was nothing less than a festival of fun. But then came August and the dog days. And, I'm ashamed T to say, by mid-August the crew and I were bored out of our minds. And, I'm ashamed to admit, more than ready to return to school. Consequently, just as I wished away every June, I also wished away a lot of Augusts. This drove my father nuts. He used to tell me to never wish away time. In Andy Juniper retrospect, I realize just how right he was: never wish away time. Or you'll find yourself at a certain age, helplessly, wistfully watching summer fly by. So, is my hypothesis true? The older you are, the faster time flies? It's a theory that some science supports, and some psychologists likewise back. In 1890, pioneering psychologist William James wrote that while childhood experiences tend to be new and fresh, in adulthood "each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine, which we hardly note at all, the days and weeks smooth themselves out in recollection, and the years grow hollow and collapse." Well, now we know why James was never known as Jimmy, The Happy Psychologist, and why his wife probably kept him a safe distance away from the sharp kitchen knives. Other possible theories as to why we may think time (and summers) fly as we get older -- as we age, each year gets proportionally smaller (one year is a whopping one-tenth of the life of a 10-year-old, but only one-70th the life of a 70-year-old), and as each year seems shorter compared to how long we've lived, it seems to pass faster. Well, that's about as clear as mud. How about this one: time passes faster because we're so busy juggling life that life just juggles us? Remember the old saying, "time flies when you're having fun?" Well, time flies even faster when you're too busy to slow it down and savour it. Now that makes a lot more sense to me. However, as much as I tried to savour this summer, it still sprouted wings. And now I'm left wishing I could catch August and hold onto it for a while longer. Before some crew comes to close the pool. Before the Christmas advertising blitz begins in earnest. Andy Juniper can be contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, found on Facebook at www.facebook.com, or followed at www.twitter. com/thesportjesters.