Don’t trash the new waste plan
For those of you disappointed with the new garbage collection system city council approved by a vote of 26-18 on June 20: if you support the goal to divert 70 per cent of Toronto’s garbage, then you’re just getting what you asked for.
Though most of us are inclined to believe in a magical world that accepts our diverted recycling and organic waste free of charge (allowing us to live free of guilt, no less!), the fact is that diverting our trash from the landfill costs money. And as you may recall from previous articles that have run in the pages of EYE WEEKLY and elsewhere, the city doesn’t exactly have a lot of extra cash floating around (see: the street-furniture contract, budget talks, the city’s starving planning department).
Contrary to belief among the Karen Stintzs and Denzil Minnan-Wongs of the world, the $54 million that the new pay-according-to-the-size-of-the-bin-you-take-to-the-curb system is expected to generate isn’t a frivolous tax grab. Instead, the plan is to use the new revenue to pay for the infrastructure needed to deal with our growing diverted waste. This includes: increasing the capacity to deal with the 526,000 apartment dwellers who will finally be given a green bin; buying new, larger recycling containers with wheels; adjusting recycling facilities so that we can add Styrofoam and plastic bags to the blue bin; and treating waste before it’s disposed of in the landfill.
On top of all this, the new system should help Toronto reach its 70 per cent waste diversion goal by 2010 (in total, 250,000 more tonnes of garbage per year are expected to be diverted). Greenhouse-gas savings will be equivalent to taking more than 100,000 cars off the street; new jobs will be created, and the life of our landfill extended (meaning we won’t have to think about spending money on a new place to stash our trash).
The Stinzes and Minnan-Wongs will also tell you that the cost to the taxpayer of this new system is far too onerous. But as Pam McConnell pointed out, households who opt for the largest bin, which means they’d be paying $151 more than they do now, will only be charged an extra $2.90 a week for all those increased services. As McConnell would say: isn’t it worth an extra three bucks a week to have a future for our children?
Sprawl monitor
The Toronto Star has reported that enough land zoned for development has been bought up for “another two decades worth of power centres, business parks and subdivisions.†In other words, putting an end to urban sprawl over the next two decades could be mighty difficult. As University of Waterloo planning expert Pierre Filion was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star: “If you want to have an impact in 15 or 20 years, you have to start acting now.â€
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Spacing’s managing editor Dale Duncan writes a weekly column for Eye Weekly focused on City Hall. Each week we post her columns on the Spacing Wire.
6 comments
Diversion is a great word but a far better word is reduction. Diversion still uses energy and resources right down the line while with reduction, ie in packaging, energy and resources are never used at all.
While I support the majority of the plan, putting huge amounts of money into “new, larger recycling containers with wheels” is a huge waste of money (what’s wrong with the current, cheaply produced containers??) and produces more waste by producing more containers. The reuse portion of the 3 Rs has definitely been overlooked…
The Eye editorial suggests tagging garbage bags instead of selecting a garbage bin size. I used to live in Peel Region, where there was a three-bag limit, and additional bags needed purchased tags to be picked up. It wasn’t a major conservation effort, after all, Peel offers weekly garbage collection.
If Toronto went with a mandatory bag-tag program, it would be an improvement – even mail out some free tags with the tax bills, and allow people to buy tags at $1-2 each at libraries, community centres, even the corner store. It’d become “pay what you throw”, rather than “always pay what you think you may need once or twice a year”.
Interesting ideas, and what I like about the general idea of paying for garbage collection is that people will be more likely to choose products that have less packaging, making it economically favorable for firms to reduce the amount of packaging.
There’s also the issue of private waste disposal firms coming in and offering to take garbage for smaller fees than the city. Yes, that would blow the whole deal of paying for the new recycling program. That’s the problem with using economics to convince people to reduce the amount they throw out.
Generally speaking, I think tags or special bags is the way to go – but I understand that the bins were chosen in part to prevent injuries to the workers who pick up the garbage – the new bins can be automatically lifted by the trucks.
but still, I wonder if there isn’t a better way?
– money for new bins
– do old bins go to the landfill?
The three sizes of bins – there’s no flexibility – if I have guests for a month, I’m going to need a bigger bin – do I pay for a big bin all year ’round? Most won’t, and what will they do with the excess? (dump it, in some cases)
Perhaps a compromise – bin plus extra bags for an extra cost?
Alison, that’s essentially how it works. If you’ve got extra bags, you leave them next to your bin. The workers will put your first bin in the truck, then load your extra bags into the bin and deposit those.
Your first four extra loads are ‘on the house,’ so to speak, and everything after that is charged to your garbage bill. The City can track how many additional disposals they give you through the chip embedded in the bins.