gristle
Senior Member
So, what are you gonna do now?
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Stash the trash: Takeout coffe cup deposit at Tim Hortons et al?
- Thread starter MindMe
- Start date
So, what are you gonna do now?
nfitz
Superstar
I'm absolutely disgusted that anyone would make such an ageist comment. Such vile bigotry is not appropriate.
Dan416
Senior Member
Gosh I'm agreeing with nfitz again. This is beginning to happen far too frequently for my liking.
Anyway, I absolutely agree about these Tim Hortons piggies. I grew up in the "don't be a litterbug" era and I never litter. Just physically can't. I don't understand when that stopped, but things are a lot messier these days. If it takes a deposit system to do something about it, I'm all for it. I like the idea of the poor doing some good by scrounging up thrown away garbage to earn a few nickels and dimes.
doady
Senior Member
Disgusted? What's truly disgusting is all the litter and gum on the sidewalks, put there by the young people.
John Revolta is right on with his description of the sad state of today's young people and today's parenting methods,. There has been a sad decline in corporal punishment, parents all too rarely give their kids a good beating anymore like the good ol' days. And, as he says, combine that with all this new technological, cell phone, texting, social networking Facebook bullshit, young people are just getting dumber and more out of control; the state has to keep them in line somehow or it will just get worse, because the parents certainly aren't going to do it, not these days, like in the past. That's the sad truth, young people are preventing the City of Toronto from realizing its potential. Just implement youth curfews, limit their access to social networking, and the youth will stop holding this city back.
John Revolta
Banned
Speaking of wasteful. I'd like to see second hand, pre soiled toilet paper brought to market. It would save a lot of trees in the process.
John Revolta
Banned
I'm gonna cry, cry, cry, cry...96 tears.
John Revolta
Banned
On top of that woman aren't homemakers anymore. They now work full time, like men and that leaves less time watching over their children and keeping them in check. Kids have way too much freedom and that's a recipe for disaster when you don't have parents monitoring them, but to survive in this country it's basically necessary for both parents to work just to make ends meat. Life should be more affordable for all. We're way too over worked in North America and people are exhausted and miserable from the rat race of their daily lives. That's probably why common courtesy is rare in this age. I'm not sexist, I just find it funny that so many women strive so hard for equality, yet they still expect men to pay for dinner and open doors for them.
Wasn't spanking banned in Toronto several years ago? I love how others are allowed to tell parents how they should discipline their children. Most kids these days are begging for a red chimp ass. Beating your children is one thing and I certainly don't approve of it, but spanking isn't going to harm your child or emotionally scar them. It will definitely get their attention and make them think twice about doing something wrong because they know the consequence of those actions. The people that oppose this type of discipline are obviously very insecure and were quite likely abused by their mother or father as a child.
nfitz
Superstar
You know what I see? Cigarette butts ... and smokers crowding around the doorways of bars creating walls of smoke you have to walk through. These aren't young people ...
... and the typical Tim Horton's crowd doesn't look that young either ... I'm more likely to see a table of grannies than teens.
jeff316
Active Member
Actually, deposit-return systems guarantee that the stores do not bear the cost - the consumer does, all of it - with no guarantee that anything will actually be returned or recycled.
So to fund the system a 25 cent deposit plus costs on top end up being more like a 35 or 40 cent increase in the cup of coffee (a 20 or 30 percent increase on one of our most ubiquitous, everyday consumables - who wants to catch that politicial football?), and the manufacturer actually has an incentive to make sure that they get as few returns as possible because anything left over they can pocket.
Deposit-fee systems work well for certain types of products, particularly where there is a social habit (e.g. beer in Ontario) but in reality they're one of the more expensive recycling options out there. Bang for your buck is pretty low unless you're returning almost everything.
I mean, think about it. You need a tracking/auditing system, particularly if you have more than one location giving deposit returns. The product needs to be physically durable to be returned - these cups break down pretty easily, unlike beer bottles. Stores need infrastructure to handle the returns, space to store the old products, and enough space/staff so that the retail environment can handle the new people. It essentially requires a store to be built for it, specifically (like the Beer Stores are.) And if you're not returning it to the store, then you need to set up a whole additional retail-style network just so people can drop off the product and get their 25 cents back.
Is this technically feasible? Sure. At the end of the day, are the coffee cup recycling results going be worth the cost and the hassle? Nope. People get pissed about paying a 50 cent recycling fee - for an mp3 player that probably contains mercury or other harmful stuff. We want them to pay 30 or 40 cents more so we can have a deposit return system for paper cups?
That's not to say that deposit-fees don't/can't work in some situations, they obviously do, but there is a reason we moved away from it in the first place to build on more efficient models - the product and the retail market have to suit it for it to be successful. I'm not sure coffee cups are one of those.
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CityPainter
Active Member
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I hate litter too. But I think blaming Tim Horton's is a bit misguided because as the original article points out, they have the biggest market share on takeout coffee so of course they also have the biggest litter share. There's a Coffee Time near my home and, not surprisingly, we get a lot of Coffee Time litter on our street. Funny how that is. But I agree, if a businesses such as Tim Horton's and their numerous competitors make millions in profits from the convenience of selling take-out products, they should have to pay something back to the public realm to compensate for all the waste their business model generates. If this gets passed on to consumers, so be it. Perhaps it would encourage them to actually serve customers who are staying inside the coffee shop real ceramic mugs and plates. Remember those? But I can't see any proposal like that flying in Ford's Toronto (see "plastic bag fee").
Kids do litter more than adults (many seem to see it as a form of "rebellion", lame as it is) but adults certainly contribute their fair share. I've seen more than a few people return to their cars with their Coffee Time, and before pulling away, toss whatever other trash they already have in their car out the door onto the curb. Disgusting.
But other factors contribute, too. One is those sad new trash bins everyone hates. They are too small so they're often full. The flaps are gross and the pedals often don't work right, so I can speculate this encourages some lazier people to look for alternative means of disposal. Also, I notice that the trash bins in the park near us are different: they are just simple wire baskets lined with black trash bags. Whenever it gets windy, the bins that are less than half full get blown inside out -- all the trash inside flies away onto the ground the bag flaps like a flag. So some of what you see on the ground actually was at one point inside a trash can.
My pet peeve is gum and cigarette butts (which are related since smokers often chew gum to hide the smell). Near my building there's a convenience store beside an employment training centre that sends hordes of patrons out for smoke breaks every few hours -- conveniently, they stock up on both items at the convenience store, then drop their butts and spit their gum right outside. The sidewalk is plastered with a nearly solid blob of blackened gum, the intensity of which clearly increases as you near those two establishments. Again, I feel that the businesses generating that junk should be held at least partly responsible for cleaning it.
But I live in a fantasy world where I imagine that people should behave responsibly and everything should be fair -- I really need to get over that.
Kids do litter more than adults (many seem to see it as a form of "rebellion", lame as it is) but adults certainly contribute their fair share. I've seen more than a few people return to their cars with their Coffee Time, and before pulling away, toss whatever other trash they already have in their car out the door onto the curb. Disgusting.
But other factors contribute, too. One is those sad new trash bins everyone hates. They are too small so they're often full. The flaps are gross and the pedals often don't work right, so I can speculate this encourages some lazier people to look for alternative means of disposal. Also, I notice that the trash bins in the park near us are different: they are just simple wire baskets lined with black trash bags. Whenever it gets windy, the bins that are less than half full get blown inside out -- all the trash inside flies away onto the ground the bag flaps like a flag. So some of what you see on the ground actually was at one point inside a trash can.
My pet peeve is gum and cigarette butts (which are related since smokers often chew gum to hide the smell). Near my building there's a convenience store beside an employment training centre that sends hordes of patrons out for smoke breaks every few hours -- conveniently, they stock up on both items at the convenience store, then drop their butts and spit their gum right outside. The sidewalk is plastered with a nearly solid blob of blackened gum, the intensity of which clearly increases as you near those two establishments. Again, I feel that the businesses generating that junk should be held at least partly responsible for cleaning it.
But I live in a fantasy world where I imagine that people should behave responsibly and everything should be fair -- I really need to get over that.
MindMe
New Member
That's sort of the gist of my deposit idea. As kids you'd scour parks looking for pop bottles, haul them to the store, and buy candy. A deposit system on takeout cups would create this kind of underground industry. Street people could get something to eat.
And well said CityPainter. A balanced view on the issue. Thanks for your input.
And Fiendishlibrarian your Tim turd idea is brilliant. I'm totally stealing that.
SlickFranky
Active Member
Beer bottles are reused. Aluminum cans have a monetary value. Why would Timmies want a pile of filthy paper cups being brought into their stores?
A more realistic policy would probably be one resembling the plastic bag fee currently in place. Don't want to pay the 5-25c fee?...bring your own travel mug. Just like with the bags, that minor financial incentive will swing a huge number of people to reusable mugs.
A more realistic policy would probably be one resembling the plastic bag fee currently in place. Don't want to pay the 5-25c fee?...bring your own travel mug. Just like with the bags, that minor financial incentive will swing a huge number of people to reusable mugs.
John Revolta
Banned
Don't they have plastic mugs for sale? What they should do is just eliminate all paper cups and make you buy a mug that you bring in everytime you want coffee, as was mentioned above. That would be a huge incentive for them as they'd millions on mug sales alone.
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MindMe
New Member
A deposit system can work independent of recycle value. I doubt the milk jugs at Mac's milk are really worth recycling. The point is to give someone a cash incentive to collect them and bring them back or not just toss them onto your front lawn but retain it for the deposit.
adma
Superstar
You can't rrrroll up the rims on travel mugs. (Speaking of which, if you think things are bad w/Tim's cups now, wait half a month...)