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Undoubtedly, most folk have heard the expression a storm in a teacup. Well, here in Calgary we’ve a battle in a clamshell brewing.

The item in question — a plastic container generally used to hold pastries and cakes — is a pain in the posterior for our gung-ho recycling warriors down at city hall.

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Getting someone to take these items after Calgarians have done their duty by dropping them into their respective blue bins has turned into a logistical nightmare. So much so the city is spending about $300,000 a year just to stockpile the stuff until a solution can be found. (Hey, for a miserly 10 grand, I’ll store a bunch in my backyard.)

The simplest and quickest solution, of course, would be to bury the clamshells and other unwanted rubbish in a landfill on the edge of town, the way it was done for decades all across Canada. It’s not as though we’ve run out of land in this country, for heaven’s sake.

But my guess is such a blast from the past proposal will prove unacceptable to our more socially conscious councillors, so likely we’ll keep scouring the globe to find someone — anyone — who’ll accept this stuff as we continue spending taxpayers’ money on storage.