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If garbage were gold, there'd be no more crisis. There'd be no more barges set adrift to wander aimlessly in search of a country to take in all the garbage. There'd be no question of charging homeowners by the bag for garbage disposal. There'd be no uproar over whose backyard we're going to throw the muck in. All that's needed is a change in attitude towards garbage. We have to turn it into a precious commodity. So precious in fact that peo- ple pay us to haul away our egg shells, chicken bones and wet paper towels. All we need to do is find a sound use for garbage. When you stop and really think about it, you find that countless op- portunities abound. Years ago in Centennial Park, Etobicoke built itself a ski hill out of garbage. Why don't other communities follow suit and build ski and tobog- gan hills in all of their public parks? Just collect the garbage, pile it till it's high enough, then cover it with top soil. Add a ski lift, a little snow and you're in business. And what about luge runs? We all saw the luge races at the Olympics but how many of us can ac- tually train locally? Build enough luge runs out of garbage and we'll have the gold and silver medals sewn up in 1992. But that's thinking small. Allow your im- agination to run wild and think of what we could build using the garbage from the entire nation. Allow your imagination to travel to a sunny spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean--like the south seas area where the tropical breezes blow and the temperatures never fall below seventy degrees. Where pineapples and coconut trees would thrive if only they had something besides salt water waves to take root upon. All we need are restraining walls--constructed perhaps from byproducts of used tin cans, glass and plastics. Canada could stake out a watery claim, drop the foundations and restraining walls into the ocean and begin the process of filling in to build a brand new island. But it would take tons and tons of garbage, One Woman s View by Chris Carlisle you might say. Exactly. Just what we have. In fact, we could even charge other countries to dump their trash in our new found tropical isle. Once the island is filled to the desired level, we start hauling in top soil and dump it on top of the few hundred feet of compost. Talk about fertile. Talk about warm. All that decomposing action below ground will keep things nice and warm above. Next thing you know, Canada has its own vaca- tion paradise. And to keep it growing, we keep ac- cepting garbage and expanding its boundaries. There'd be no garbage disposal problems any more. In fact, other countries would probably catch on very quickly and start their own resorts and before you knew it, garbage would become as scarce as oil a few years ago. Disposal companies anxious to sell refuse to landfillers would all be advertising, competing with each other to offer us the best price for our wastes. They'd probably come right to the house and remove the bag from the kitchen. No more nagging about whose job it is to take out the gar- bage. No more breaking your back lugging the cans to the curb and no more cleaning up after the crow and raccoon raids that spread trash all over the neighbourhood. As a test project, the government or some enterprising soul should think about a vacation island right here in Canada. We've got the Great Lakes with lots of space for a new island. If it worked here, we could go for the South Pacific or Carribean. Club Compeosts all over the world. And just think how nice it would be to go on vacation and not have to go through customs on the way home. You could bring back all the liquor and cigarettes you wanted and never have to worry about your bags being searched. It would create jobs and bring in tourist dollars from other countries. Canada would become a very wealthy nation and all because we had the foresight to turn out garbage into gold. It all sounds so simple. We just turn our 14-carrot bags of slop into 14 karat treasures, so to speak. Woman taking Central Seven to Human Rights (From page 3) ternity leave in September of last year, ~~ Mr. Duncan declined to go into details for the reason for her dismissal, but he did stress the or- ganization has been supportive of employees seeking maternity leave. He notes that of 57 employ- ees, 50 are female. "It is our posi- tion that by being supportive and flexible regarding matters of preg- nancy and maternity leave, we en- hance the liklihood and the ease of a valued employee's return to work following the maternity leave," he noted. Mr. Duncan pointed out that since 1984, there have been eight maternity leave situations at Cen- tral Seven. In five cases where ex- tended leaves were requested, they were granted by the organization. He said he would not discuss the specifics of Mrs. Ellis' case because it is still being reviewed by the provincial panels, but re- peated it had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Mrs. Ellis said she had no idea there were any serious prob- lems with her work with Central Seven, though she did have some dis-agreements with fellow em- ployees. She said she is very frustrated at this time with the way the case has dragged on with the Standards Branch. Five different review offi- cers have at one time or another been involved. And she said that taking her case to the government has cost her in excess of $2,000 in legal fees, long distance phone class, photo-copying numerous documents and sending letters etc. by registered mail. Mrs. Ellis said that even at this date she is prepared to nego- tiate some kind of a settlement with the organization, though she feels there is little chance of that happening. And she said she doens't know when the Employment Standards Branch or the Human Rights Commission will had down judgements on her case. Meanwhile, her daugher Jil- lian Ashton was born in mid- October. Mrs. Ellis said she wants to go back to work. "I liked my job (with Central Seven) and I was good at it," she said. Peeping groundhog could see your undies Port Perry residents watch out! A Peeping Groundhog is reported- ly on the loose, making a habit of peering into people's windows. Scugog Street resident Miriam Price called the Port Perry Star af- ter seeing this furry nosey parker sitting on the ledge of her sewing room. He apparently was fascinated and curious by the people inside. Or maybe he's just interested in learning how to sew. At any rate, this Peeping Hog hung around for a while, but has since left the Price's house. No doubt he's found other win- dows to peer through. Residents are advised to draw the shades if they're inclined to walk about in their underwear. Random Jottings by J. Peter Hvidsten SQUEEKY FLOORS ARE A PAIN IN THE BACK There are lots of reasons one might want to sneak around a house, but in our house | have nev- er had that luxury. I'm sure we've all sneaked by the kids room early in the morning to make our way to the kitchen, put the coffee on, open up the newspaper and sit down and relax for just a few minutes before the pit- ter, patter of little feet are heard on the floor. And what about the nights, when you arrive home late and eveyone is in bed, asleep. Whether . you've been out to a meeting, or just having a few drinks with some friends, when you arrive home, the last thing you want to do is wake up the family. Well in our relatively new home there has been one problem that has plagued us for the past two years. Sque-e-e-e-e-a-a-a-k-k-y floors. If there is anything | can't stand it is squeaky floor and our house was full of them......at least until last week. Finally after procrastinating for the past year, | decided it was time to do something about them, so arranged for a carpet installer to come in and lift the carpet. By the time he got to the house last Wednes- day, | had lifted the rug in our family room and start- ed the monotonous job of screw-nailing the under- lay back down. | decided while the carpet was up | would do a good job, so drove in a screw-nail be- side ever nail already in the sub-floor. That's a lot of screws believe me! But back to lifting the carpet for a minute. If you have ever had anything to do with laying a carpet you'll know they use narrow pieces of wood with very sharp nails sticking upwards along the edges to hold the carpet in place. When you are trying to lift the carpet off these needle-like nails, it is not dif- ficult to catch the ends of your fingers on them, causing nasty little wounds on your finger tips. It's not so much the injury as trying to keep the blood off the carpet after that. At one time | had three fingers wrapped in kleenex, all bleeding pro- fusely, while attempting to roll the carpet. It didn't take a lot of intelligence to tell me that | would have to get the bleeding stopped before | could contin- ue or our carpets would take on a new hue from the dripping fingers. For the next eight hours we ripped up one room, screw-nailed the floor, replaced the under- pad and carpet and then the installer stretched it back into place so that you would never know it have been lifted. We went through the family room, dining-room, two bedrooms, a long hallway and a foyer, repeat- ing the same steps in each. Doors came off, furni- ture was moved from one side of the room to the other, or into different rooms....... and then it was all over. After the carpet installer (hiring him was the smartest thing | did all day) left, | spent the next hour picking up the small pieces of carpet and shred- dings, vacuumed some of the rooms and replaced the furniture. With an aching back from being bent over so long | walked through the rooms we had screw- nailed. Proud of the achievement | beamed with de- light, when all of a sudden | stepped on a spot near the bottom of our bed and heard that agonizing sound. Squ-e-e-a-a-k! | couldn't believe it. We had missed one spot that was in my direct path to the washroom, and you know what a squeak sounds like at 2:00 in the mor- ing while you are making your way to the washroom for a "pit stop." In a fit of anger for being sa stupid, | grabbed the drill and a screw, found the spot that was squeaking and drilled the nail right through the car- pet, underpad and into the floor. And you know what?.......... It worked! That's right, | hit the spot the first time, ruffled up the rug pile and "presto", it was just like new. So just a word of advice to anyone out there thinking of building a new home in the near future. Make sure your contractor is one who doesn't cut any corners on the floor. Have them either nail and glue the sub-floor down, or a least screw-nail it so you don't run into the problems of having to do it yourself a couple of years down the road. You'll never regret it.....| can guarantee that!