By Doug Draper
Those dastardly grass clippings were back on the agenda again this June 28 at a Niagara regional public works committee meeting. 
Imagine that. Here I am on a nice sunny Tuesday morning, walking into a Niagara regional headquarters housing a government responsible for the proper spending of hundreds of millions of our tax dollars, and instead of hearing more about how we are going to expand the pathetic public transit services we have in this region, I get treated to another half-hour discussion on grass clippings.
Furthermore – and here’s the part that is really going to annoy anger the hell out of people with such a lawn fetish they are almost using tweezers to pick up every last blade of grass after a cutting – the public works committee voted in favour of a recommendation to keep the recent ban on the curbside collection of grass clippings in place.
If the committee’s decision is approved by a full committee of the regional council this coming July 7, it may amount to a horror film like ‘The Return of the Grass Clippings’ for those with a lawn fetish. And for some of them, it will apparently be back to bagging their lawn clippings and dumping them in ditches on isolated stretches of road.
For the rest of us, it will be leaving the clippings on our lawn where they make for a natural furniture and helping the regional government save somewhere in the neighbourhood of half a million dollars every year in collecting lawn clippings at curbside.
It will also mean fewer odour problems at compost facilities where grass clippings have proven, in the past, to go so septic at times, the stench can be unbearable for miles around. More than half the population in communities in the Greater Toronto Area and other regions of southern Ontario have learned to live with a ban on the collection of grass clippings. Surely residents in Niagara can too.
(Share your views below on this post and continue to visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
make for natural furniture ????????????????
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I agree completely with Doug and empathize with you having to sit through these insane debates. Can you imagine what people in third world countried would think if they were forced to listen in. I can see the look of puzzlement come across their faces as they wonder what we are concerned about. Maybe these same people also spray their lawns to keep them pristine and free of those terroist weeds and therefore are concerned to leave them behind as the spray may get even more toxic if not removed.
Hope the region uses common sense and hangs tough.
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I appalud Doug Draper for his wise words on this issue. It was appalling how St. Catharines City Council attacked the region for this overdo reform. It is important in extending the life of our landfills, and therefore saving our communities from pollution from either icineration or a nes dump.
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agreed agreed agreed.
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To those still having difficulty processing this concept I say to them mulch already. It isn’t difficult. You cut the grass and leave it. Less work. Gone are the days of having the immaculate looking golf green lawn. I would like to see the region take a further step by banning clippings from commercial business and residents who drop them off. There is no reason in the world why anyone needs to pay for the gas to drop off grass clippings anymore. The way it stands now shows the region is only partially committed to the environment. Are we accepting grass clippings from Toronto?
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