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Hydrogen
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Remember to take into account condo units and apartments; one can't compost easily in such buildings.
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Garbage: Pay-as-you-throw
- Thread starter unimaginative2
- Start date
ShonTron
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For once, Royson James has written a fairly good column, on this very subject. Some of the criticism I completely agree with, and his favourite punching bag is not mentioned.
Why has waste become a shell game?
Jun 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Royson James
Guests at my house expect a paper plate-free zone; each guest, numbering 10 or 100, is expected to use the green bin; and my weekly routine is to root through the various bins and ferret out recyclables from the garbage bag.
So, I plan to take the smallest of the four garbage bins the city proposes to make available next year, even though the city secretly wants me to take the larger ones so it can get the added revenues.
Why? Because it is a good motivator to reduce waste.
But, in the back of my mind, I know that if too many of us do that – if we actually succeed in reducing our trash – we would make liars of the city's bean counters.
And if the bean counters fail in their analysis, they'll surely jack up the rates and we will all pay more, no matter how much we recycle.
At the core of this new scheme is a plan to raise more money for waste management – which I don't object to – and to do so as surreptitiously as possible so that there is as little accountability and outcry as possible. That is objectionable.
Toronto now diverts about 42 per cent of its waste and aims to get to 70 per cent by 2011. The new waste system that charges everyone separately for waste is designed to net the city an extra $54 million under the guise of reducing waste.
There are some things that are great about the plan, a lot good, and too much bad.
Great? Proposals to take the blue box and green bin to apartment buildings and condos where they are seldom seen. Homeowners will get a larger blue box and green bin, the size of recycling carts. And more materials like polystyrene and plastic bags will be accepted in the blue box.
What's good? Plans to set up reuse centres and advocate for better product-stewardship on the part of manufacturers. This is not great because we've been hearing about this for years, with little progress.
And here are three bad areas:
One: It penalizes large families. One reader emailed to say he now pays huge taxes for a large house for his nine-member family and they struggle, despite heroic efforts, to reach the six-bag garbage limit.
In the new regime, while he continues to pay huge taxes for other services, many he doesn't use, he will be forced to pay extra for the largest bin to throw away stuff forced on him by manufacturers.
Two: There is a built-in incentive to go for a bigger bin – even as the city claims a waste reduction goal.
Why does the small bin ($209 per year for 75 litres) cost $2.79 per litre, while the largest bin ($369 for 360 litres) costs only $1 a litre. Doesn't this discount rate for the big dumpers encourage homeowners to take the big bin? And when one pays for a big bin, isn't there a subtle incentive to actually fill it – seeing as you are paying for the extra capacity?
Three: Costs will rise. By turning garbage into a utility, the city is freed of the compulsion to mind costs. Currently, waste management falls under the direct scrutiny of the annual budget process. Take the cost of the mill rate and the tax hike everyone reports and debates, and there will be little rigour and motivation to curtail costs.
Friday: You have questions about the new garbage plan; we give answers.
Why has waste become a shell game?
Jun 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Royson James
Guests at my house expect a paper plate-free zone; each guest, numbering 10 or 100, is expected to use the green bin; and my weekly routine is to root through the various bins and ferret out recyclables from the garbage bag.
So, I plan to take the smallest of the four garbage bins the city proposes to make available next year, even though the city secretly wants me to take the larger ones so it can get the added revenues.
Why? Because it is a good motivator to reduce waste.
But, in the back of my mind, I know that if too many of us do that – if we actually succeed in reducing our trash – we would make liars of the city's bean counters.
And if the bean counters fail in their analysis, they'll surely jack up the rates and we will all pay more, no matter how much we recycle.
At the core of this new scheme is a plan to raise more money for waste management – which I don't object to – and to do so as surreptitiously as possible so that there is as little accountability and outcry as possible. That is objectionable.
Toronto now diverts about 42 per cent of its waste and aims to get to 70 per cent by 2011. The new waste system that charges everyone separately for waste is designed to net the city an extra $54 million under the guise of reducing waste.
There are some things that are great about the plan, a lot good, and too much bad.
Great? Proposals to take the blue box and green bin to apartment buildings and condos where they are seldom seen. Homeowners will get a larger blue box and green bin, the size of recycling carts. And more materials like polystyrene and plastic bags will be accepted in the blue box.
What's good? Plans to set up reuse centres and advocate for better product-stewardship on the part of manufacturers. This is not great because we've been hearing about this for years, with little progress.
And here are three bad areas:
One: It penalizes large families. One reader emailed to say he now pays huge taxes for a large house for his nine-member family and they struggle, despite heroic efforts, to reach the six-bag garbage limit.
In the new regime, while he continues to pay huge taxes for other services, many he doesn't use, he will be forced to pay extra for the largest bin to throw away stuff forced on him by manufacturers.
Two: There is a built-in incentive to go for a bigger bin – even as the city claims a waste reduction goal.
Why does the small bin ($209 per year for 75 litres) cost $2.79 per litre, while the largest bin ($369 for 360 litres) costs only $1 a litre. Doesn't this discount rate for the big dumpers encourage homeowners to take the big bin? And when one pays for a big bin, isn't there a subtle incentive to actually fill it – seeing as you are paying for the extra capacity?
Three: Costs will rise. By turning garbage into a utility, the city is freed of the compulsion to mind costs. Currently, waste management falls under the direct scrutiny of the annual budget process. Take the cost of the mill rate and the tax hike everyone reports and debates, and there will be little rigour and motivation to curtail costs.
Friday: You have questions about the new garbage plan; we give answers.
afransen
Senior Member
"One: It penalizes large families. One reader emailed to say he now pays huge taxes for a large house for his nine-member family and they struggle, despite heroic efforts, to reach the six-bag garbage limit."
My parents and sister (four residents), while still living at home, easily made less than one bag of garbage per week. We don't have greenbin, just blue and grey... Now, if we had greenbin, we would produce perhaps a third to half of a bag per week.
My parents and sister (four residents), while still living at home, easily made less than one bag of garbage per week. We don't have greenbin, just blue and grey... Now, if we had greenbin, we would produce perhaps a third to half of a bag per week.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Council set to vote on fees for garbage pickup
Opponents complain of 'environmental McCarthyism' as mayor champions measures to divert trash from landfills
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
June 20, 2007
Toronto residents will have to reach into their wallets to drop their garbage at the curb starting next year if Mayor David Miller and his allies eke out the votes today at council for a new user-pay system.
After a daylong debate laced with catcalls of "stealth tax" and "environmental McCarthyism," councillors agreed to wrap up the discussion with a vote today.
The garbage levy, similar to fees applied in other major cities in North America, is part of an ambitious package of measures aimed at diverting 70 per cent of Toronto garbage from landfill by 2010, up from 42 per cent now.
If council adopts the package - opponents predict it will squeak through - single-family homeowners and high-rise dwellers will pay a separate fee for garbage pickup instead of paying for it through the property tax.
The new levy, expected to raise $54-million a year, would pay for the extension of the "green bin" organic collection to high-rises, the addition of plastic and polystyrene to new blue recycling carts (replacing the blue and grey boxes) and a new curbside pickup service every two weeks for bulky items, such as mattresses, that would go to landfill.
In effect, the more garbage left at the curb every two weeks, the higher the fee.
A resident who puts out a 75-litre garbage bin, the smallest of four possible options (about one large garbage bag), would pay no more than the current $209 cost of garbage pickup included in the annual property tax bill.
For a 360-litre garbage bin, the largest of the four options, a resident would pay an extra $151 a year. That's about 4½ bags.
"This is very fair because people have an alternative," Mr. Miller said in the debate, arguing that the levy will pay for recycling and spur residents to put out less garbage. "It allows people a choice."
But many suburban councillors and others closer to downtown did not see it that way.
"I don't like the argument that if you don't support this you are not in favour of environmental reduction of garbage," said Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth), among a core group of right-leaning politicians opposed to the measure.
"There is an atmosphere of environmental McCarthyism that pervades this council," he said, his comments nearly drowned out by the mayor's left-leaning allies.
Mr. Ootes and others complained that the $54-million in revenue from the levy is the same as a 4-per-cent property tax rise, coming in advance of new taxes and levies to be debated by council next month.
Beyond the regular critics, several councillors who often vote with the mayor expressed strong opposition, including Peter Milczyn, Suzan Hall and Gloria Lindsay Luby.
"It is very complicated for residents to understand," she said. "It may be moving too much too fast."
Opponents complain of 'environmental McCarthyism' as mayor champions measures to divert trash from landfills
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
June 20, 2007
Toronto residents will have to reach into their wallets to drop their garbage at the curb starting next year if Mayor David Miller and his allies eke out the votes today at council for a new user-pay system.
After a daylong debate laced with catcalls of "stealth tax" and "environmental McCarthyism," councillors agreed to wrap up the discussion with a vote today.
The garbage levy, similar to fees applied in other major cities in North America, is part of an ambitious package of measures aimed at diverting 70 per cent of Toronto garbage from landfill by 2010, up from 42 per cent now.
If council adopts the package - opponents predict it will squeak through - single-family homeowners and high-rise dwellers will pay a separate fee for garbage pickup instead of paying for it through the property tax.
The new levy, expected to raise $54-million a year, would pay for the extension of the "green bin" organic collection to high-rises, the addition of plastic and polystyrene to new blue recycling carts (replacing the blue and grey boxes) and a new curbside pickup service every two weeks for bulky items, such as mattresses, that would go to landfill.
In effect, the more garbage left at the curb every two weeks, the higher the fee.
A resident who puts out a 75-litre garbage bin, the smallest of four possible options (about one large garbage bag), would pay no more than the current $209 cost of garbage pickup included in the annual property tax bill.
For a 360-litre garbage bin, the largest of the four options, a resident would pay an extra $151 a year. That's about 4½ bags.
"This is very fair because people have an alternative," Mr. Miller said in the debate, arguing that the levy will pay for recycling and spur residents to put out less garbage. "It allows people a choice."
But many suburban councillors and others closer to downtown did not see it that way.
"I don't like the argument that if you don't support this you are not in favour of environmental reduction of garbage," said Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth), among a core group of right-leaning politicians opposed to the measure.
"There is an atmosphere of environmental McCarthyism that pervades this council," he said, his comments nearly drowned out by the mayor's left-leaning allies.
Mr. Ootes and others complained that the $54-million in revenue from the levy is the same as a 4-per-cent property tax rise, coming in advance of new taxes and levies to be debated by council next month.
Beyond the regular critics, several councillors who often vote with the mayor expressed strong opposition, including Peter Milczyn, Suzan Hall and Gloria Lindsay Luby.
"It is very complicated for residents to understand," she said. "It may be moving too much too fast."
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I think this is a bad idea. I am all for reducing waste but working to improve the ability to recycle and compost needs to be the focus. We need highrise buildings to be forced to create solutions that ease the recycling process. We need fines for those who put recyclables into the trash. We don't need to pay for garbage we can't avoid creating... and in the end if people can pay a relatively small fee to pollute (or illegally dump) then not much is being solved. If living crime free costed $209 and for an extra $155 dollars you could commit crimes would you have really created much of a deterrent?
Why aren't plastics which can't be recycled economically allowed to be used for packaging. I'm noticing more and more number 1 and 2 plastics but there are still a lot of the less recyclable ones out there. In addition packaging is getting more wasteful as time goes on and the government is doing nothing to stop it. Sure individually packed everything might be nice and convenient but how hard is it really to take something out of a big package and place it into a reusable container? Before you know it they will be individually wrapping tic-tacs.
Why aren't plastics which can't be recycled economically allowed to be used for packaging. I'm noticing more and more number 1 and 2 plastics but there are still a lot of the less recyclable ones out there. In addition packaging is getting more wasteful as time goes on and the government is doing nothing to stop it. Sure individually packed everything might be nice and convenient but how hard is it really to take something out of a big package and place it into a reusable container? Before you know it they will be individually wrapping tic-tacs.
Prometheus The Supremo
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i wonder how possible it would be to scrap the recycling program, send everything to a sorting facility and pay people to seperate everything that way almost everything could be recycled?
it would probably be hard with our waste volume.
can't wait for AI robots that detect and sort garbage!
they really need to ban PVC.
it would probably be hard with our waste volume.
can't wait for AI robots that detect and sort garbage!
they really need to ban PVC.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Apartment buildings already pay to have their garbage taken away by contractors, not by the city. Contractors won't take garbage that has recyclables or building materials in it. They'll open the bags and refuse to take the bin if non-garbage is mixed with the garbage
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Then they'll have to open each bag to see what's in it first, surely?
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Which is what they do - otherwise they get dinged when they take it to the dump.
RJR123
Active Member
In my building you separate your recyclables from rubbish in the trash room right on your floor. It's so nice not to have to lug all of those empty liquor bottles down the elevator any longer, incurring stares from nosy neighbours.
The property manager is forever reminding people not to mix recyclables with rubbish, but I'm sure people are still mixing the two up.
The property manager is forever reminding people not to mix recyclables with rubbish, but I'm sure people are still mixing the two up.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The City takes away small amounts of building materials from house renovations, no questions asked. You see piles of it put out on garbage nights along residential streets, and it mostly all goes. Of course sometimes garbage-pickers take stuff too - including the bottle-return people - so there is a disadvantage if you live in a multi unit building and can't take your recyclables and garbage to the street to have it sorted through and picked clean. Scrap metal merchants drive around the streets too, looking for old water pipes from renos or whatever. Recyclable cardboard was a hot item about ten years ago.
So what does an apartment or condo dweller do when they renovate their place if the renovator doesn't take all the stuff away?
So what does an apartment or condo dweller do when they renovate their place if the renovator doesn't take all the stuff away?
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
We have blue and grey boxes in our garbage rooms too. It's always reassuring to see that not all the beer and wine bottles are mine.
When I did my renos, I took my own trash away.
When I did my renos, I took my own trash away.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
God knows where my old wood floors ended up.
Or my garage! Maybe the contractor reassembled it and sold it on - it was in good shape, built in 1930 and taken down when I was away on holiday in 1993. ("Honey, I'm home! But Ambrose dear, what have you done with the garage?" )
Or my garage! Maybe the contractor reassembled it and sold it on - it was in good shape, built in 1930 and taken down when I was away on holiday in 1993. ("Honey, I'm home! But Ambrose dear, what have you done with the garage?" )
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Ah, the vacation reno. Some friends and I spent a delightful dinner this spring convincing the father of one of them that no good could come from his having an elevator installed in his house while his wife was away.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I'd love an elevator in my place ( "Second floor - antechamber, throne room ..." ) but, living alone, I'd be terrified I might get trapped inside if it broke down and by the time someone figured out they hadn't seen me for a while I'd be a mummified, skeletal corpse with one finger on the emergency button.
Talking of mummies - mine may return from England if she can't find a suitable retirement home: every middle-aged gay man's worst nightmare - The Mummy Returns.
Talking of mummies - mine may return from England if she can't find a suitable retirement home: every middle-aged gay man's worst nightmare - The Mummy Returns.