dob467
Active Member
Any thoughts on the new blue bins? Anyone get one yet?
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/291913
Bigger bins no small problem
TheStar.com - GTA - Bigger bins no small problem
Recycling storage tough at compact homes
January 08, 2008
John Spears
City hall bureau
Small is not beautiful when it comes to Toronto's new wheeled recycling bins.
Residents of compact inner-city neighbourhoods – many of whom are now being asked to choose the size of recycling bin they want – are not currently being offered the option of a "small" bin.
Households west of Victoria Park Ave. and east of Yonge St. have been getting cards in the mail recently, asking what size recycling bin they want.
They're offered three choices. The smallest on offer is called Medium, roughly the size of two blue boxes. Householders can also pick Large bins, about the size of four blue boxes; or Extra-Large – equivalent to six blue boxes.
Scarborough residents have already made their choices and are receiving blue bins. But because Scarborough is largely suburban, with wide lots and driveways, most houses have plenty of space to store them and wheel them to the curb.
That's not always the case in central neighbourhoods, where some houses have no front yard and no driveway or side yard.
They'll have to store the bins on the back deck or basement, and haul them through the house to get to the curb.
Terry Maiden, of Monteith St., just got a card from the city asking him to choose a size. He grabbed a tape measure and discovered that only the medium bin will make it up and down the stairs to the basement, where he keeps his recycling.
All the houses on the street are built with the same dimensions, he said, so he and his neighbours are stuck with one option: "Nobody's going to have a choice."
"The only alternative is keeping it on the deck at the back of the house; but nobody's going to want to do that, because then you've got to lug it through the living and dining room."
Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste for Toronto, said the city will eventually offer small recycling bins to those who need them. The trouble is, they won't be rolling off the production line before fall.
Very few households will find the small bins hold two weeks' worth of recycling, Rathbone said.
The new bins will be delivered in the area between Yonge and Victoria Park starting Feb. 2.
Households west of Yonge St. will get their recycling bins later in the year.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=226761
Thursday, January 10, 2008
City wants residents to reuse, not recycle, old blue boxes
Kelly Grant, National Post
Published: Thursday, January 10, 2008
Arne Glassbourg/National Post
TORONTO - City Hall is hoping to avoid picking up homeowners' old blue boxes and trash cans as Toronto's new waste regime kicks in, instead urging residents to find new uses for their old bins.
"You can store firewood in them. You can put books in them. You can put your kids' toys in them," said Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, chairman of the city's public works committee.
The city has already started delivering large recycling carts to Scarborough as part of a new pay-as-you-throw garbage plan designed to keep more trash out of the dump.
The carts will be rolled out across the rest of the city between now and July.
As the bins arrive, Torontonians will need to figure out what to do with more than one million blue boxes weighing a collective 1,850 tonnes, or as much as 265 male African elephants.
Toronto's garbage boss, Geoff Rathbone, says residents who do not want to turn their blue boxes into laundry bins or tool boxes can drop them off at waste stations for recycling.
If residents clamour loudly enough for it, the city will pick up the bins at curbside on a designated day -- but if that happens, the cost of collecting the bins will likely outstrip the money Toronto could make selling the high-density polyethylene bins in the hot recycled plastics market.
"That's the silver lining here," Mr. Rathbone said. "We can get about $400 per tonne for it."
At that price, if Torontonians voluntarily turned in all one million bins at waste stations, the city could rake in as much as $750,000.
Still, that windfall is a small fraction of the $56-million the city is paying for 540,000 new recycling carts and 540,000 garbage carts.
"There's a lot of recyclers that would love that plastic," said Joe Hruska, municipal relations officer for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.
"It 's valuable material because it's a homogenous source of plastic. It's all blue bins."
Toronto's blue bins could be recycled into a wide array of products, including plastic toys, car parts and plastic containers for anything except food, he added.
Mr. Rathbone and Mr. De Baeremaeker both said they expect most Torontonians to follow their advice and keep their old blue bins.
Getting rid of old trash cans is a bigger concern, they said.
Toronto's new trash regime includes new carts for both recyclables and garbage.
The garbage carts will be delivered over the summer and fall, in time for the program's official Nov. 1 launch.
Old garbage cans have fewer alternative uses than blue boxes -- Mr. Rathbone suggested using them to store yard waste, but the options essentially end there -- and cans are trickier to recycle because of such impediments as metal handles and stickers on the sides of the cans.
Plus, getting surplus cans to waste stations could be difficult for some, Mr. De Baeremaeker said.
"It's a pain in the rear end because you've got to go from your house, put it in your trunk or whatever and get up to the [waste] transfer station," he said.
"What if you don't have a car? You're going to take your garbage can on the bus? There's all these situations we can't forecast."
City council adopted the new approach to garbage service last summer.
Right now, Torontonians pay for trash collection through property taxes, never seeing a direct bill.
When the new system kicks in on Nov. 1, homeowners will be charged a fee on their utility bills, depending on the size of garbage bins they chose.
The smaller the bins, the cheaper the bill.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv....INTELBINS12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/
NEW BLUE BINS
I'LL TAKE A VENTI
JOHN LORINC
January 12, 2008
Is the City of Toronto trying to supersize its new blue bins?
This week, thousands of east-end homeowners received brochures asking if they would like to choose a medium, large or extra-large recycling bin, each equipped with wheels and a flip-top lid, as part of the city's drive to reach a 70-per-cent waste-diversion rate. As with Starbucks and their coffee, the city isn't promoting a "small" version, although works officials have hinted that one may be available later in the year. The program will continue to roll out through the rest of the city over the coming year, and will also include the distribution of new containers for garbage bags, which will be available in four sizes and one colour: grey.
Works Department pamphlets say the volume of the medium-sized bin is equivalent to two conventional blue bins; the large, four bins; and the extra-large, six.
But the math looks a little, well, trashy.
Toronto's venerable blue bins hold about 2.3 cubic feet of waste, while the deeper versions have space for 3.4 cubic feet.
Based on the city's published measurements, however, the new medium bin has a volume of about 10 cubic feet - sufficient to hold the contents of four ordinary blue bins.
The extra-large, which could be described as the Hummer of waste receptacles, will hold enough recyclable material to fill about 10 blue bins - well above the six shown on the brochure. (The mitigating factor is that, unlike with conventional blue bins, it may be more difficult for space-conscious residents to climb into the new models to stamp down all the cereal boxes and milk cartons to pack in more stuff.)
Quite apart from the size issues, the replacement campaign has an ironic footnote. The city won't collect the old bins, citing expense. Instead, residents must devise alternative uses or drop them off at city collection facilities.
Those skanky old bins, it seems, can't be tossed into the nice new ones with all other recyclables.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/291913
Bigger bins no small problem
TheStar.com - GTA - Bigger bins no small problem
Recycling storage tough at compact homes
January 08, 2008
John Spears
City hall bureau
Small is not beautiful when it comes to Toronto's new wheeled recycling bins.
Residents of compact inner-city neighbourhoods – many of whom are now being asked to choose the size of recycling bin they want – are not currently being offered the option of a "small" bin.
Households west of Victoria Park Ave. and east of Yonge St. have been getting cards in the mail recently, asking what size recycling bin they want.
They're offered three choices. The smallest on offer is called Medium, roughly the size of two blue boxes. Householders can also pick Large bins, about the size of four blue boxes; or Extra-Large – equivalent to six blue boxes.
Scarborough residents have already made their choices and are receiving blue bins. But because Scarborough is largely suburban, with wide lots and driveways, most houses have plenty of space to store them and wheel them to the curb.
That's not always the case in central neighbourhoods, where some houses have no front yard and no driveway or side yard.
They'll have to store the bins on the back deck or basement, and haul them through the house to get to the curb.
Terry Maiden, of Monteith St., just got a card from the city asking him to choose a size. He grabbed a tape measure and discovered that only the medium bin will make it up and down the stairs to the basement, where he keeps his recycling.
All the houses on the street are built with the same dimensions, he said, so he and his neighbours are stuck with one option: "Nobody's going to have a choice."
"The only alternative is keeping it on the deck at the back of the house; but nobody's going to want to do that, because then you've got to lug it through the living and dining room."
Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste for Toronto, said the city will eventually offer small recycling bins to those who need them. The trouble is, they won't be rolling off the production line before fall.
Very few households will find the small bins hold two weeks' worth of recycling, Rathbone said.
The new bins will be delivered in the area between Yonge and Victoria Park starting Feb. 2.
Households west of Yonge St. will get their recycling bins later in the year.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=226761
Thursday, January 10, 2008
City wants residents to reuse, not recycle, old blue boxes
Kelly Grant, National Post
Published: Thursday, January 10, 2008
Arne Glassbourg/National Post
TORONTO - City Hall is hoping to avoid picking up homeowners' old blue boxes and trash cans as Toronto's new waste regime kicks in, instead urging residents to find new uses for their old bins.
"You can store firewood in them. You can put books in them. You can put your kids' toys in them," said Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, chairman of the city's public works committee.
The city has already started delivering large recycling carts to Scarborough as part of a new pay-as-you-throw garbage plan designed to keep more trash out of the dump.
The carts will be rolled out across the rest of the city between now and July.
As the bins arrive, Torontonians will need to figure out what to do with more than one million blue boxes weighing a collective 1,850 tonnes, or as much as 265 male African elephants.
Toronto's garbage boss, Geoff Rathbone, says residents who do not want to turn their blue boxes into laundry bins or tool boxes can drop them off at waste stations for recycling.
If residents clamour loudly enough for it, the city will pick up the bins at curbside on a designated day -- but if that happens, the cost of collecting the bins will likely outstrip the money Toronto could make selling the high-density polyethylene bins in the hot recycled plastics market.
"That's the silver lining here," Mr. Rathbone said. "We can get about $400 per tonne for it."
At that price, if Torontonians voluntarily turned in all one million bins at waste stations, the city could rake in as much as $750,000.
Still, that windfall is a small fraction of the $56-million the city is paying for 540,000 new recycling carts and 540,000 garbage carts.
"There's a lot of recyclers that would love that plastic," said Joe Hruska, municipal relations officer for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.
"It 's valuable material because it's a homogenous source of plastic. It's all blue bins."
Toronto's blue bins could be recycled into a wide array of products, including plastic toys, car parts and plastic containers for anything except food, he added.
Mr. Rathbone and Mr. De Baeremaeker both said they expect most Torontonians to follow their advice and keep their old blue bins.
Getting rid of old trash cans is a bigger concern, they said.
Toronto's new trash regime includes new carts for both recyclables and garbage.
The garbage carts will be delivered over the summer and fall, in time for the program's official Nov. 1 launch.
Old garbage cans have fewer alternative uses than blue boxes -- Mr. Rathbone suggested using them to store yard waste, but the options essentially end there -- and cans are trickier to recycle because of such impediments as metal handles and stickers on the sides of the cans.
Plus, getting surplus cans to waste stations could be difficult for some, Mr. De Baeremaeker said.
"It's a pain in the rear end because you've got to go from your house, put it in your trunk or whatever and get up to the [waste] transfer station," he said.
"What if you don't have a car? You're going to take your garbage can on the bus? There's all these situations we can't forecast."
City council adopted the new approach to garbage service last summer.
Right now, Torontonians pay for trash collection through property taxes, never seeing a direct bill.
When the new system kicks in on Nov. 1, homeowners will be charged a fee on their utility bills, depending on the size of garbage bins they chose.
The smaller the bins, the cheaper the bill.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv....INTELBINS12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/
NEW BLUE BINS
I'LL TAKE A VENTI
JOHN LORINC
January 12, 2008
Is the City of Toronto trying to supersize its new blue bins?
This week, thousands of east-end homeowners received brochures asking if they would like to choose a medium, large or extra-large recycling bin, each equipped with wheels and a flip-top lid, as part of the city's drive to reach a 70-per-cent waste-diversion rate. As with Starbucks and their coffee, the city isn't promoting a "small" version, although works officials have hinted that one may be available later in the year. The program will continue to roll out through the rest of the city over the coming year, and will also include the distribution of new containers for garbage bags, which will be available in four sizes and one colour: grey.
Works Department pamphlets say the volume of the medium-sized bin is equivalent to two conventional blue bins; the large, four bins; and the extra-large, six.
But the math looks a little, well, trashy.
Toronto's venerable blue bins hold about 2.3 cubic feet of waste, while the deeper versions have space for 3.4 cubic feet.
Based on the city's published measurements, however, the new medium bin has a volume of about 10 cubic feet - sufficient to hold the contents of four ordinary blue bins.
The extra-large, which could be described as the Hummer of waste receptacles, will hold enough recyclable material to fill about 10 blue bins - well above the six shown on the brochure. (The mitigating factor is that, unlike with conventional blue bins, it may be more difficult for space-conscious residents to climb into the new models to stamp down all the cereal boxes and milk cartons to pack in more stuff.)
Quite apart from the size issues, the replacement campaign has an ironic footnote. The city won't collect the old bins, citing expense. Instead, residents must devise alternative uses or drop them off at city collection facilities.
Those skanky old bins, it seems, can't be tossed into the nice new ones with all other recyclables.
