Green Bins
Early this morning, I heard a radio talk show host ramble on about how bad our green bin program is in Toronto. For those who live elsewhere, we have a program in place to separate organic waste away from the landfill using green bins. The guy was complaining how much they smelled for the most part.
We use the green bin as extensively as we can. We don't have any significant problem with smell. When the bin is closed, it doesn't smell. It gets picked up once each week. We've heard people say it is a problem because animals get in. Once, a raccoon knocked ours over, but left after it coundn't get in.
It took a week or so to get in the habit of separating. Now we separate organic waste and recylable waste from garbage, and it is just no big deal to do it. The problem Toronto has is not with recycling; it's with figuring out what to do with what is left, since the Keele Valley landfill closed. In my mind, driving it to Michigan was crazy. Now we've bought a landfill site only a couple hours away - better, but still too far. Ideally, we should be dealing with Toronto trash close to Toronto, not exporting it elsewhere.
I've heard plenty of politicians talk about burning trash, but I'm not convinced they have any idea even what the process entails. Some communities around Toronto burn garbage. Has anybody measured emissions? Let's get the science on the table. If it poisons the atmosphere, let's close the door on it now, and if it doesn't, we need to do some serious analysis.
Should we have a new landfill site in the Toronto area? The challenge is that nobody wants it in their backyard. At the same time, people are buying new homes built on the very edge of the Keele Valley site.
What do you think of the green bin program?
Do you separate organics and recyclable material in your community?
How does your city deal with garbage?
10 comments:
We have a recycling plant not too far from where we live, so as and when is necessary, we drive there and put as much as we can in the relevant bins. We were very disappointed to learn, however, that they don't have a plastic recycling facility. If it's plastic, it just goes in the big hole, and from there... who knows? China, probably, where they then make it into toys to sell back to us, apparently.
There is also a twice-monthly paper collection round, and we keep that little appointment quite religiously -- not surprisingly, working with computers and printers and paper, we do produce a lot of the stuff.
A green bin will probably be the next step for us. More power to you guys for using it extensively.
I like the green bin program, and I divert everthing possible to it. I agree that TO garbage should be handled here, but I have no idea how. It's the over-packaging that kills me. With kids at Christmas, you are left with a flood of plastics and other materials. It's crazy.
I have three composters cooking away to make my garden gorgeous so I don't need the green bin very often, but my upstairs neighbours do. I'm really amazed at how well my family, living out west in small towns without the door to door pickup, does with recycling and sorting. My 82 year old mother, with the least awareness of environmental issues, sorts and transports stuff to a central depot. She's just operating with the sense that it is a better thing to do for some reason, and the grandchildren seem to approve.
I love the green bin pick up. One, because it is picked up every week.
Remember when Toronto garbage was picked up twice a week? Can you say "cut backs"?
(of which I noticed with giddiness that public garbage bins have been put back on the street. I wonder how much money was wasted by Harris and trickle down Lastman getting rid of public garbage bins, turning Queen Street West into a slum...and cutting back on jobs and cleanliness...to now re-installing the public waste bins cropping up every where.
Politicians are a bunch of wads.
The recycling bins pick up for newspapers and plastic long applied in Toronto before organic composting also was vey helpful.
Stop shopping.
Stop buying stuff for a while.
Buy second hand. Don't buy crap you don't really need or love.
Parents need to go to Wal-mart, Costco, department stores or whatever hell hole nowadays peopel buy these corporate toys and tell them, to stop buying all these packaged toys. Put pressure on Matel to serve Barbie up in recycled paper products without the shiny finishing and twist ties. Tell them , Walmart, KMart whatever, that they need to tell Mattel and all the other toy companies the packaging is over the top.
Home Depot...pressure them into avoiding all the products that over package. You can't even buy nails anymore without needing a chainsaw to open the package. Tell them you won't shop there anymore.
Let Home Depot do all the dirty work of pressuring Makita (well actually, their packaging also tends to be the carry storage bin for product...see nicely done Makita) or power tool manufacutrers NO PACKAGING!
If enough customers...starting with YOU and ME talk to Home Depot and grocery store mnagers and PR...they will listen and talk to the manufactures, designers and distributors for us.
Burn garbage? Recycle it all...almost everything we make and use can be recycled.
Research Germany's garbage program...almost nothing actually makes it to the landfill. I wonder if they even have landfill.
Perhaps my friend Greg S. will pipe in here...
Second try. I think some areas of Germany now have garbage police to make sure you are sorting your garbage correctly (oh brave new world).
Most apartment houses in Frankfurt have four different types of bins in front of them. We have two yellow bins for recyclable packaging, two green bins for paper, one brown bin for compost (your green bin), and one gray bin for regular garbage (i.e., everything else). The grey bins are expensive.
At just about every major street corner there is a large container with three colored holes for three different colors of glass. Almost all plastic bottles and some glass are deposit bottles and every store that sells drinks is obligated to accept returns, even if the bottles were purchased elsewhere. There are drop off locations for toxic materials that shift around town from month to month and you can call to have electronics and furniture or renovation waste picked up.
Nevertheless, I have read that the recycling does not function as well as planned and that, in addition to landfills and incinerators, Germany sometimes exports its garbage to less densly populated countries. (Don't hold me to that.)
Most kitchens have integrated garbage pail systems under the sink for two or three different pails. We've got one 20-liter pail and two 10-liter pails in the pull-out shelf under the sink. It only took me 15 years to get used to the system. (Don't tell the garbage police!)
Hey Greg, thanks...when I visited your palce I was so taken by the garbage ssytem. I remember even my different papers from my cigarette packs were sorted, from foil to the celophane.
God, it's great tos ee you surface here...now all we need to do is get you to start a blog too man!!! Just think...a blog would be an amazing place to post all your naturalist photos...your challenging thoughts, and all notes and links to the cool stuff you find online...come on Greg JUST DO IT!!! BLOG!!!!
:)
We don't use the green bin, though I would do my best to fully support the program for our condo corporation. Currently our trash is collected by a private source, and we seperate plastic, glass and paper. Toronto should have it's own landfill, maybe the Leslie spit could be modified?
I agree totally with Candy and Greg: packaging is the problem and there seems to be no will on the corporate side of things to reduce plastics and papers etc. It's ridiculous. I do the recycling around here. We don't have a green bin program. Our recycling is picked up every other week and you can put just about everything you need to in it. As for your landfill...I don't think it's fair to other communities to farm out your garbage. It should be taken care of locally.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the grocery stores (and maybe some other stores) have to have packaging bins at the exit so that you can leave unneeded packaging at the store after you check out. That certainly adds incentive for the retailers to pressure the producers to keep the packaging to a minimum. I don't think the plastic bins, paper, or biodegradble bins cost anything to use. The biodegradable bin is not compulsory to use.
I like Candyminx's comment.
I miss the green bin program. I was so thrilled when it was introduced and our garbage cut down a huge amount. We also had a composter that most of us in the house used. I have to say that the upstairs dwellers would often opt for the green bin over our own compost! I say take responsibility for your own garbage, people. Anyway...now that I've moved to the western part of the country, I really miss the green bin program and don't understand why more municipalities aren't doing it. For two of us in T.O. we had a small sized bio bag of garbage every week! Now we have a garbage bag half to three quarters full every week. There's a better way and T.O. is leading the way.
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