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New GIGANTIC Blue Bins

The large bins will also take up plenty of sidewalk space. On my street, it might make it impossible for someone with a stroller to get by.

For me, the bins won't be problem in terms of storage, and my household recycles so much that sometimes we fill up a garbage can in addition to two of the old bins. But the program is definitely not well thought out.
 
junctionist said:
The large bins will also take up plenty of sidewalk space. On my street, it might make it impossible for someone with a stroller to get by.

For me, the bins won't be problem in terms of storage, and my household recycles so much that sometimes we fill up a garbage can in addition to two of the old bins. But the program is definitely not well thought out.
Click to expand...

Who puts their garbage out on the sidewalk anyways?
 
Indeed, and I must say that was an interesting miscommunication.

To clarify:
On my street, it might make it impossible for someone with a stroller to get by on Wednesday, garbage collection day, when the containers meet the street too nicely ;).
 
San Francisco uses this kind of bin for recycling, garbage and compost.
You can get various sizes. Interestingly, they charge a higher rate for the larger recycling bins as wells as the larger garbage bins. I think that's a good move since recycling is still waste that you should try to reduce and it's expensive to process.

SF has a lot of row houses, but most of them have outdoor passageways/tunnels from front to back. People tend to store their bins in these passageways.

However, in places where people need to climb a lot of steps to get to the house, they just leave the bins on the sidewalk. Imagine, a street lined with 17 foot wide row houses each with 3 big bins sitting in front of it. The bins come to dominate the streetscape.
 
Admiral Beez said:
No one is going to leave their blue box permanently on public property such as the sidewalk.
Click to expand...
With those monster blue bins - that's exactly what I've seen in some rural communities - people building boxes at the roadside, to hold the bins in place. Sure beats dragging it down 18 steps every week (how is that even safe?).

For me the new bins are great. With 4 people in the house lately, we fill 4 blue bins every pick-up. And it's not difficult to get from the porch to the street. But this doesn't work for everyone, and I don't see any reason why someone can't continue to use the existing containers if it suits them fine.

If they are going to lift these all into the truck mechanically - how long is that going to add to pick-up? I'd think it would take twice as long to mechanically lift up the bin to the truck, than the guy currently takes to simply toss the contents in. Less breaks necessary perhaps ...

I can't imagine that the size of these things are going to block sidewalks - might be even better than now, as it's difficult to walk down the street after a garbage pickup on blue-bin day, with a half-dozen empty containers littering the sidewalk in front of each house - it's not like they make much effort to keep the sidewalk clear now!
 
These things are ridiculously large. I can imagine how they're going to look in front of all the little heritage houses in my Cabbagetown neighborhood. Not to mention all the hassle moving them around. Why not just use clear plastic bags? They can be recycled along with the other stuff and don't need to be stored? Did the city really spend $56 million on these? I smell a biodegradable rat.
 
Is it possible for you downtowners to coordinate with your neighbours so that 3 households dump their recyclables in one bin?
 
Has anyone at city hall given any thought to the vagrants that go through our recycling looking for empties? First of all, if you're spun or drunk, you could easily fall into the bin. Secondly, if all the glass, paper, cardboard, etc. are mixed today, the fellow now has to sift through the entire bin, which is quite a job for the large bin.

My next door neighbour doesn't return his wine bottles, but always recycles them. AFAIK, he does recycle beer bottles, or doesn't drink beer. He got tired of the folks digging through his bins so now he breaks the wine bottles before putting them in the bin. Not nice to the trash man, but we don't have to listen to the passersby digging through the bins in the middle of the night.
 
hipster - that's what i'm thinking.. a central large bin shared between 2/3 households that is locked by smart card that is accessible only to the residents... for garbage, recyling, and organics.

on a related note: what happened to that vacuum-tube system that someone was proposing several months ago?
 
My family in Germany has what I might call a trash station next to their driveway. It's hard to describe, but it's about 3 feet high by 5 feet wide and enclosed with a door, and it has various bins inside.
 
I think my family does a good job recycling and perhaps to a fault will err on tossing something in the blue bin over the garbage can. I've struggled with which blue bin to choose because I think the medium bin should be sufficient for most of our regular needs, but on occasion, we will need more space. The large bin is definitely too big to store and wrestle to the curb. I've also looked at the garbage bins the city will soon roll-out and have similar feelings. At 1.5 bags, the medium bin is just enough for most of our needs, but at times we will need more space. At 3 bags, the large is too big. Since the city will not occasionally accept any overflow from the bins, and I can’t easily make space for two large bins, I've decided to go with the medium blue bin and the large garbage bin and I will simply dump any recyclables that do not fit in the blue bin into the garbage bin.

By adopting this approach, I will certainly end up recycling less with the new bins than I do today. But I don't feel I have much choice because of the limited selection in bin sizes and the city not willing to pickup occasional overflow.

I wish the city would offer bins in a size between medium and large.
 
I can't find my city-issued PIN and I want to order a medium (Cabbagetown factor)... there's no instructions on the Blue Bin website on what to do... I guess I'll have to accept the large, and then pay to exchange.
 
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