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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

11 comments

  1. The blue bins being made in the States is just another short-sighted accounting decision. Instead of looking what primary and secondary jobs a decision may create, they look at the pennies it would save.

    Same with the subway cars being made in Thunder Bay, the accountants start screaming about the pennies.

    The accountants made the same decision with the Canadian Olympic uniforms. They are being made in China instead of in Canada, just to save pennies and not jobs.

  2. My cousin owns a plastic factory in Toronto and makes plastic bins. He could have made the new ones.

    And speaking of no plan, one would think that the City would promote our existing blue and gray bins for garden waste so we would not need to use/buy paper bags. But no! That would make too much sense. Odd since the open bushell containers they talk about are the same size as gray boxes.

    They also got rid of the waste subsidy that encouraged people not to dump illegally and now they wonder why there are piles of plaster and drywall all over.

    Meanwhile in Edmonton….

  3. The Sun wants it both ways, low taxes and buying Canadian. Forgive me for making a simple observation, but this flies in the face of common sense. It begs the question, why was no Canadian firm able to meet this cost? And also, what is the role of government procurement? is it to get the best value, or to have other policy goals? The sun is the same paper that blasts the city’s fair wage policy as a waste of money.

    As for the new bins being produced from virgin plastic i’ll have to agree. In this case, the potential costs would have been worth it.

  4. Toronto City Hall looked south when they decided to replace our boxes with giant wheeled carts in their aggressive — some would argue delusional — plan to achieve 70% waste diversion from landfill by 2010.

    Who would argue it’s delusional? European cities have achieved drastic cuts to the amount of solid waste they produce. Who are these people who think it’s delusional?

    You couldn’t even get away with a statement like that on Wikipeda. They call it a “weasel word”.

  5. Hey folks it’s Miller and his projection of ‘green’. In other words… do as I say not as I do.

    It’s that way with most of his ‘green’ stuff.

    The surprise here is he didn’t bend over to protect a CDN union job. I guess someone stateside had a better offer for Miller that is. We constituents continue to pay for the privilege of more of his waste.

    Plus how in the world will he ever achieve his precious 70% diversion of waste when all his research proves he can’t do it without forcing this recycling policy into practice in every apartment in the city? And then there’s all the businesses he also ignores.

    Maybe I’m missing the point… this is only about keeping lots of staff hired writing reports, getting estimates, making collectors jobs easier, etc.

    Ever hear of a garbage collector who does not have to lift anything? Mine is on his cell phone while he presses the lift button.

    Ahh only in Toronto.

  6. What are you talking about? This new system is clearly imported from somewhere.

  7. In New York I get recycling pickup once a week. We don’t use blue bins at all – we just put the recycling in clear bags or cardbox boxes on the curb. I wouldn’t mind using simple, small blue bins but replacing them with monster bins and sticking to biweekly pickups is dumb urban planning.

  8. To my mind, TCHC tenants convicted of serious criminal behaviour – especially where violence is concerned – should be evicted and those waiting for housing put into their accommodation. The evictees should then be returned to the waiting list at the same level as a similarly situated new applicant.

    This is not to say put them on the street, merely into whatever situation those now on the waiting list find themselves in. By the time they get to the top again maybe they will value it more. Meanwhile, TCHC tenants should not have to live in fear simply because they are socially housed as some kind of punishment for their situation.

  9. Mark, FYI, a lot of people who are street homeless are on the TCHC housing list. So there’s a very reasonable chance that by evicting someone you would be sending them to the streets/shelter system.

  10. Kevin – I see your point. However, I don’t think the status quo, where people who would make good tenants are in shelters while people who participate in criminal conduct remain within TCHC is tenable. How do we make the system equitable?

  11. “Meanwhile, TCHC tenants should not have to live in fear simply because they are socially housed as some kind of punishment for their situation.”

    Where are the police and security in this? If someone’s convicted of a serious crime, is there not a judicial system in place to punish them?

    I don’t agree with allowing the TCHC to restrict its services to only favourable clientele. They’re a social housing commission, not social engineering.