Swallowed by blue bin behemoth
New recycling boxes have gone jumbo. Do you have room to store these monsters?
By SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN
Bill Eadie has nowhere to store the city's huge new recycling bins either in front or inside his compact downtown row house.
The Shuter St. resident said his property is 15 feet wide and there is four feet between the front of his house and the sidewalk, not that he'd want to put the bin in front of his house anyway.
"It's a good solution for the suburbs," the avid recycler told me last week, noting the bin packed with recyclables would also be far too heavy to lug from inside his house. "It was just not well thought out (for the downtown core)."
South Cabbagetown resident Sandy Tipper, who is handicapped, said besides the difficulties he'll have getting an enormous bin to the curb, there is no place to put them but in the snowbanks in winter because the city's "streets aren't cleared properly.
"It's not that we don't want to go along with it ... it's physically impossible for many people to do it and comply with all the city's bylaws," he said.
Joice Guspie says storage is an issue at her Cabbagetown semi-detached home.
"I'm not sure where a smallish or a medium bin is going to fit into my life ... it's just too unwieldy," she said. "I resent it being rammed down my throat. On the other hand I'm really trying to be a good recycler."
Unwieldy, massive, poorly-conceived, rushed through with little or no consultation and a waste of money. Those are only some of the criticisms of the costly new "brontosaurus" bins (my words) either just rolled out or soon to arrive in every Toronto neighbourhood.
Rob Orpin, the city's director of collections, said they distributed the recycling bins -- medium, large or extra large -- to Scarborough residents in December; bins for homes from Victoria Park Ave. to east of Yonge St. will be rolled out early next month, followed by homes west of Yonge St. tentatively scheduled to be distributed in mid to late-March.
The city's producing about one million new recycling and garbage bins altogether, which will cost about $50 per bin or $68 million, including taxes and the cost of maintaining the bins.
Orpin says they knew downtown would be a challenge. They're recommending homeowners take the medium bin on an interim basis until they can be switched with small bins that will be ready in the fall. The city will offer side and back-door pickup to people with mobility issues, he said.
The challenges are not just limited to downtown. Storage will also be a problem in my own midtown neighbourhood, where there is very little room between some houses. I'm sure the city's bylaw officers won't appreciate a large blue bin standing out front of any home, let alone plunked in the midst of our home's beautiful landscaping.
LAST-MINUTE INFO
That said, it was hard to tell whether the downtown residents I spoke with last week -- who were sent a notice on Jan. 2 and had only until this past Friday to decide which bin they wanted -- were more upset with the last-minute information provided or the size of the bins themselves. Council approved the bins and the garbage tax in June.
"City Hall pretends to consult with the residents but they're only going through the motions," said Eadie. He added the city is "not being upfront" about its intention to force three new large bins on everyone -- a black garbage bin (that will be subject to the new garbage tax starting Nov. 1) and a larger green bin in addition to the recycling bin.
Rod Muir of Waste Diversion Ontario has been against the new bins from the get-go, largely because of the huge cost.
He points out city officials are only anticipating an extra 15,000 tonnes of increased recyclables in return for the cost expended -- about a pound or two extra per household per week.
"It's an absolutely insignificant amount for the money that's being spent," he said, noting it will take three or four years for Torontonians to realize they've hardly moved the diversion "needle" at all.
Muir makes no bones that the carts -- which will be hoisted into city garbage trucks using a mechanical arm so garbage workers don't have to lift them -- is more about paying back the CUPE unions for supporting Mayor David Miller in the 2006 election.
"This is their reward ... this is going to make their job easier," he said, adding contrary to the city's claims, it will slow down the pickup process "like crazy" on crowded streets packed with parked cars. "And it's going to cost all of us lots of money."
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RECYCLING BIN SIZES
Medium (holds 2 blue boxes): 23" (deep) X 20.2" (wide) X 39.1" (high)
Large (holds 4 boxes): 28.1" X 26.7" X 40.6"
Extra-large (hold 6 boxes): 33.7" X 28.7" X 45.1"
