Bloor West Toonin'/Town Cryin' 16

Here's this month's Town Crier cartoon.

Some background for those not living in Toronto. Toronto City Council has decided to start a user-pay garbage system. Very soon us Torontonians with have to decide how much garbage we are going to produce, and we are going to have to pay for a bin to put our said garbage in. The bigger bin you decide to have, the more you're gonna have to pay.

Now, of course I'm all about decreasing our garbage. And yes, I'd love it if people recycled more. But I just don't think that this was the best idea. First of all, once again, it just seemed to be decided by council PDQ, without much feedback from the people who live in the city, or much attempt to think of alternatives (like, why not a 'pay per bag' concept instead?) I'd love to know how much it cost to purchase all these stupid plastic garbage containers. And will we get reimbursed for the money we had already spent on the containers we purchased to put our garbage in before this dumb decision? Never mind that already people are complaining that the containers are too frickin' large to drag down along the side of their narrow alleyways.

I just don't see how this system is going to encourage people to recycle more. What I see is that we are going to have people do whatever they can to get around this system. People will compress their garbage, so garbagemen will have to deal with bins that are extremely heavy. Then I'm sure Toronto Council will go back and vote on some new law about the weight of your garbage. And there will be a hell of a lot more illegal dumping, you can count on that. Which ain't gonna make this city very pretty-looking. But oh no, Miller says Torontonians "have a choice" with how to deal with our garbage.

Choice my ass.You know what really cheezes me off?? It's this goddam attitude from every level of government that this garbage problem is all the fault of the average little guy. We are made to feel guilty for the endless amount of packaging and crap that we purchase. And yet these same stupid politicians are also encouraging us to "get out there and buy more, spend more money" in order to keep the economy going. Not once have I heard or read Mayor Miller talk about how the corporations are the bastards who keep producing all this useless shit that we all have to deal with. Nope. It's apparently all our fault, and it's all up to us to clean up the mess. And boy, we're gonna pay for it. And so while we are made to feel guilty, and have to once again pay for this problem out of our own pockets, corporations continue to get tax breaks from the government, instead of fucking fines for producing all this shit. Pardon my rant, but this situation really pisses me off.

This latest garbage fiasco is not an effort to really solve the garbage problem. It's a cash grab, plain and simple, and these bloody politicians should have the balls to at least admit to that fact.

Comments

[BrainFry]

Don't hold back, P. tell us how you really feel!

[Bibliohistoria]

Here, Here, Totally agree with you.

You're absolutely right about the corporations who put out all the plastics and styrofoam and cardboard and paper that we end up throwing away.

I'm wondering about the apartment buildings. There are thousands of apartment buildings on Toronto and I wonder how much they will have to pay, to put out the garbage and how much our rents will go up to cover the damn garbage.

[Beth]

Got delivery of our new "blue" bin this week. It's friggin' huge! People are wondering where the hell they are going to store it. (Not all homes in this area have garages.) Kind of an eyesore.

[Brian Fies]

I'm not trying to be deliberately dense, but how do you get rid of your garbage now? Has it been a free public service?

I didn't see a summary of your current system in the article link, but the new system looks like how I've disposed of trash my entire adult life. If your household produces a little garbage you get a small bin and pay less. If you produce a lot of garbage, you get a large bin and pay more. Apartments get one or two enormous bins and split the cost. Assuming the city is trying to minimize landfill waste, incentives/disincentives like that make sense to me. I don't see any difference paying for trash disposal than for water or electricity.

We've also got a big bin for recycling and a bin for biodegradable yard waste: grass, leaves, branches, etc. (I've lived under many different recycling/yard waste schemes involving big bins, little baskets, throwing it in the street, or burning it in a drum (back in the old days)). In practice, we recycle a lot more than we throw away, like three or four times the volume. Our average weekly garbage could probably fit in a large bucket.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm a little mystified by the outrage because it sounds like the system you're switching to is one I've always used, it works fine, and I've never really thought about doing it any other way. Because I'm dense.

[Ellen]

Oooo, you touched a nerve. I too, am so tired of always being sold that line -it's all about individual responsiblity to clean things up. Vancouver is aiming for zero garbage, which will mean more non-recyclable items will end up in the blue bin or dumped and we'll just pay more for the hassle of cleaning it all up.

[rosemarie]

I live in a Chicago suburb and we have a pay what you throw out rule, but it works. First off, we don't have to buy a container that might not fit. The rule is: no container larger than 32 gal because the garbage men have to lift it. Each container has to have a sticker that costs about $2/ea. Recycling is Free.

For us, this works great. We recycle everything anyway so we put out our garbage maybe 1-2 a month. I notice that in our area people recycle more and throw away less.

So maybe this will work -- although TO is a much larger city than my town. Chicago doesn't have a clue.

[heather (errantdreams)]

*vigorous nodding* Politicians come up with the most labyrinthine, ridiculous so-called 'solutions' to problems that just cause more problems, no matter where you live. It drives me insane.

Apropos of almost nothing, I read a book recently that made me think of your comics' visual style: 'A Corpse in the Soup'. (If you want more info on it, I recently reviewed it on my site.) I can SO imagine your illustrations in those books, and I mentioned your site to one of the authors.

[Guy]

I have just a couple of comments to add here regarding Brian's observations:

Whether you are in Toronto, outside Chicago, or in Boise, Idaho, garbage collection and recycling is not free. It's easy to forget that municipal property tax is meant to cover these costs, along with road repair and snow removal. My property tax dollars go towards road repair even though I don't operate a car; my contribution goes towards funding schools, even though I don't have children. That is acceptable because ultimately, we all benefit from these services.

However, expenses are such that current funding is no longer tenable. More revenue is required for more services than at any other time in our urban history. Additional charges such as tagging bags for pick up are supplementary only - they don't cover the cost of garbage/recycling services.

Should families with more children pay more for their waste disposal? Why not charge them more for school tax? Why not charge them more for the vehicle they take their children to school in that's wearing out the roads and polluting our air? Why not charge me less property tax because I generate less garbage than that family with a flock of kids and I don't drive a vehicle at all?

The answer, of course, is that our city is a community, where people are meant to live in a symbiotic relationship, supporting one another for the greater good of all.

As Brian pointed out, "Assuming the city is trying to minimize landfill waste, incentives/disincentives like that make sense to me." What is lost in the debate is that the corporate sector has not been included in the argument. Garbage removal is not a tax-deductible, business operating expense for me. And what "incentives/disincentives" have been provided for manufacturers to reduce superfluous packaging in their products and unnecessary waste in their production methods - the sources of all that garbage that goes into landfills? None in my community.

It's well and good to say that people should be proactive and reduce their personal "footprint" on the ecological landscape, but what good is that to a family with several children, or the Sick Kid's Hospital here in Toronto, where hundreds of gallons of milk are being drunk every day and that milk is packaged in non-recyclable, non-biodegradable plastic? Should we tell them to buy single-serving, waxed containers?! We had something they called "glass milk bottles" when I was a boy. I would carry these bottles back to the store for a refund ( a novel idea, don't you think?).

Packaging, the materials utilized, and manufacturing processes are increasingly geared towards maximizing profits. No consideration is given to garbage clean-up or recycling the post consumer packaging. Nestle now sells "Taster's Choice" coffee in a container comprised of 3 different plastics; a few years ago they were still using a glass jar. Popcycles are starting to be sold in plastic wrappers, instead of paper wrappers as they have been for 50 years!

At the height of our generation's environmental crisis, corporations are exacerbating the problem - just to make a bit more profit.

Meanwhile, back in Toronto, residential property tax is going up while business property tax is going down; residential charges for water consumption are going up, Brian, while rates for business consumption are going down; let's not forget about electricity.

Now, Coca Cola Corporation can pay less to use those millions of gallons of municipally purified water to produce their product; will the cost of a can of Coke go down? Will they create more jobs with the savings they realize? I don't think so - profits will go up, however. They certainly don't pay for garbage pick-up; it's a tax-deductible operating expense.

The same corporations get reduced electric rates based on volume consumed, just like water, then they waste it by leaving the lights on in their skyscrapers all night - but that's okay because they can call it an operating expense. How about those corporate executives who wander the halls of these skyscrapers in three-piece suits in the middle of July and the hottest weather of the year, then crank up the air conditioning, spiking the consumption of electricity to keep themselves cool?

Our government prints posters telling us not to run our washing machines at peak hours of consumption and they have now instituted new "smart meters" to charge residential consumers more for electricity consumed during "peak hours" - the peak hours are during the business day, 9-5. Keeping those executives in three-piece suits cool is also a business expense to be written off, far more important than the schedule of a stay-at-home mother trying to get her laundry done before the family comes home and expects dinner on the table.

Is this really fair? Or just? Or in the best interest of our communities? Is it true, as in Orwell's novel, "Animal Farm", that "some animals are more equal than others"?

It's all in the way you frame the question, Brian. Rather, it is all in the way that the powers-that-be frame the question. Is the consumer of wasteful products the chicken in this question, or the egg? Which came first? Who's zoomin' who?

Finally, we are not converting to a new system of garbage/recycling pick-up here in Toronto. The municipal government is replacing the old, perfectly functional containers with a new, improved one! This shows voters how progressive they have become on the issue. Now, they can introduce another residential user fee to neutralize the effects of reducing corporate user fees! Meanwhile, we just keep seeing more garbage produced and less landfill sites available. More people coming to Canada means more consumption, and more non-recyclable garbage - thanks to the manufacturers.

During the late 70s, toxic emissions from individual automobiles were reduced, but now the volume of cars on the road has increased so much, we are producing more pollutants and
greenhouse gases than ever before. Is the solution to take away all of our cars, tax the shit out of individual consumers, or force manufacturers to produce an environmentally friendly product?

Still a "little mystified by the outrage" additional fees for garbage pick-up is generating, Brian? I'm not.