New GIGANTIC Blue Bins

[spider]

Getting better?

I had the chance to observe the new recycle and green bin pickup system in action today. The photo of my street looking north from my porch shows all the bins properly positioned, no parked cars and lot widths probably averaging less than 30 feet, an optimum situation. Let's see how it worked out.

There are 16 pickup locations in view on my side of the street, the crew pulled up to the first location at 3:23 pm and pulled away from the last one at 3:40 pm. Let's average it out to 60 seconds per pickup, curiously, the old inefficient method of getting it done was less than 20 seconds. How's that for progress?

The vehicle was a rear loader with separate compartments for recycling and kitchen goop and fitted with a small mechanical lift for the big bins. The crew was a driver, a passenger and a guy on the ground who had to wheel the bins out behind the truck in order to position them in front of the lift and then return them to the driveway. In fairness it was late in the day and the truck was likely pretty full and required compacting more often than usual.

The observations above were made a month ago, I watched the pickup process again today and the elapsed time was a few seconds faster BUT instead of 2 men and a truck there were 2 trucks and 4 men doing the work.
One crew emptied the big bins and the other crew emptied the little bins.

These guys work pretty hard, I don't have any problem with their efforts it is the system that sucks and probably costs you and me a hell of a lot more than we were told, apparently at least double on my street.

Oy! wait till it snows.

 

[spider]

Made in USA, Virgin plastic, quelle horreur!

One of the newspapers this morning revealed that the big blue recycling bins are manufactured in the USA of virgin material. No recycling here thank you very much even though I thought this was the point of the whole exercise.

Comrade Miller insists on sourcing Subway cars in Canada and paying a premium price to do so but not these plastic bins, I wonder why?

Unions maybe?

 

[egotrippin]

It's all feel-good bullshit if you ask me.

Also, didn't the city say that you could recycle your old bins? They keep throwing mine back onto my curb.

 

[slickpete83]

I just got the big blue one , but i want to change to a smaller one, its way too big for my family size.

Does anyone know how much this new bin will cost in new service fees ??? they will appear automaticly on our hydro bill i heard , but i'm not sure about this

 

[ganjavih]

Ah, modern city building... how sad.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I'm surprised you don't like our baroque-looking bins, ganja. The lids of the green bins, for instance, have all kinds of lovely little embossed hieroglyphics and pictographs on them - the kind of attention to detail you just don't see much of these days in our spare, pippypoo-free Clewesian universe ...

 

[Jarrek]

The new blue bins and garbage bins sure look much nicer than what people have right now though ...

 

[spider]

Sorry, I don't live downtown.

Am I being dissed for my choice of neighbourhoods?

I posted a photo of my street to illustrate a point regarding recycling pick up efficiency or the lack of it. Two replies did not address the subject, choosing instead to denigrate my choice of neighbourhoods in which to settle, a choice made 47 years ago.

At that time I had choices, within my financial capabilities, that included Pickering, Don Mills, Scarborough or many locations in the inner city, I chose my present location because I had lived for years in the inner city and was looking for something else.

Why do some people on this thread have such a problem with this? I have a 30 second walk to a bus that carries me to the Yonge subway in 20 minutes, am surrounded by parks and bike trails and am 10 minutes away from almost any box store you can imagine.

What's the problem?

 

[adma]

Ah, modern city building... how sad.

Is 50+ years old "modern"?

 

[Towered]

I assume that Ganjavih meant post-WWII auto-centric development when he said modern.

 

[Automation Gallery]

The new blue bins and garbage bins sure look much nicer than what people have right now though ...

My new bin was stolen in Parkdale on the first night out.
Give it back
City says its going to cost me extra to replace it.

 

[dob467]

I just got approved for bags - for both recycling and garbage. I live on a laneway, so it was a given I suppose. But the city employee who came to my house on a Saturday morning said they're working overtime and are worried what will happen once winter hits.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I bet they are. The garbage bins are available in smaller sizes than the recycling bins in some parts of town, and I can see people who can't wheel their blue megabin to the curb in the dead of winter putting their recyclables in the garbage bin out of frustration.

 

[TrickyRicky]

^We'll see when the grey garbage bins are rolled out and winter comes. For now however I must say functionally (forgetting about the cost for a moment) I'm actually a big fan of the bins. They are much neater, easier, vermin reducing and anecdotally improve the garbage and recycling habits of my entire neighbourhood.

I look forward to the grey bin roll-out because that is what the real issue is. A large stealth tax increase for less service. I plan to do my best to stuff that bastard to the rim every pick-up. Think Shawshank Redemption, except instead of bits of rubble from a tunnel through the wall it will be bits of my property from my on-going renovations and such.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

when you put your trash in the gray bin, does it have to be in bags?