What should Toronto do with its garbage?

Toronto has lots of land for a landfill.

What London, --for the time being-- has that Toronto didn't was politically expedient land to use as a landfill.  Someday down the road, London and all other municipalities will face the same "crisis" as Toronto did, a lack of politically easy land to use as a dump.

Meanwhile, the city of San Francisco has a 60% diversion from landfill  because they've gone to mechanical and hand sorting garbage. And, as much as I don't like John Tory, he was right back during the mayoral debates when he said incineration should be looked at. 

To which Miller replied, and I paraphrase, "okay, in which neighborhood are you going to put the incinerator?"  which shows how keenly Miller understood this as a political problem, and not one of geography or physics.

If the province made no exceptions to the do not ship policy on garbage, we'd be a decade ahead of where we are now in terms of dealing with this garbage.

And, I wouldn't hold up London as a stellar example of garbage management.  Hardly.   For example, for me to dispose of my growing collection of batteries, I will have to drive all the way across town-- actually about half way between London and St. Thomas-- during a narrow window of opportunity on a Saturday, find the hazardous waste repository.  I suspect it's behind the  sign that says "beware of rabid tigers".  

Not  exactly user friendly.

Landfilling all our stuff is probably the worst alternative currently available to us.  No matter how you construct and locate a landfill, there's  always dust, allways leachate, and all those household chemical wastes end up in the water shed-- or as airborne dust-- sooner or later. 

The solution, for Toronto and everyone, is an agressive policy where manufacturers and retailers are told they cannot use packaging that can't be recycled.   And, I'm still for separating garbage at the consumer end to reduce how much mechanical and hand sorting has to be done at a depot.  And whatever can't be recycled at that point should be incinerated.

In the other thread, Tommy, you said that it looks "good on ya" in Toronto that we had to wallow in our own filth for a month.

What have Torontonians here done that is more deserving of that than what you do in London?  Why does it look any better on me than it would on you?

Good question Michelle.  I don't have any answers though - only questions! 

I found this article in the Star both interesting and depressing http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/660864

When I moved here I found it odd that we didn't need to sort any of our recycling - it all gets lumped in together.  Is that how it is in other cities too or just here?  People like to recycle - it's easy and makes us feel good about ourselves.  But as soon as it's *too* difficult or inconvenient, we just throw things in the garbage - which is apparently where everything ends up anyway. 

I live in an apartment so I don't know how public pickup works.  Is there a limit on the number of bags we can put out?  

What percentage of Toronto's garbage is from residential versus commercial and industrial? 

Questions, how many bags/cans of garbage are you allowed to put out each week? Is there a service charge for more than the limit, if there is a limit? 

In London, we are allowed four bags per pick up-- which is on an "eight day cycle" which really means eight days between pickups sometimes, and up to 13 days at other times, due to holidays and such.  Four bags is a lot, but it should be noted that's the starting number, I expect the city to ratchet that number down in the years to come.

What have Torontonians here done that is more deserving of that than what you do in London?  Why does it look any better on me than it would on you?

It doesn't strike you in any way ironic?

Let's see if I can put this forward without rambling too much.   Going back in history, the tory sollution to the Great Toronto Garbage Crisis was to find places to ship it out to, including one idea of putting it  down an abandoned mine shaft somewhere on the shield.  As long as the idea of exporting Toronto garbage was a right wing idea, progressives in Toronto were up in arms about it.  Then, when supposedly progressive David Miller suddenly got the same idea,  progressives in Toronto forgot all their opposition to shipping out the garbage.

And, down the road when David Miller leaves municiple politics and jumps to federal or provincial politics-- under the Liberal banner-- to do tory things like the Liberals always do, lefties in Toronto will moan about what a traitor to the cause Miller was, what a back stabber he is.

Well, there's such a thing as backing into the knives you know.  The probelm with left wing or progressive politics is that we really set ourselves up for this kind of thing.  Maybe we can pile our ire upon Bob Rae on that score, -- fool me once, shame on you-- but this is twice now. Shame on us.

Again, if John Tory by name and deed had manuevered to put Toronto's Landfill where David Miller did, every progressive on this board and in Toronto would have had a screaming shit fit.

But because Miller wears a progressive mask, it's okay.

Tory is as tory does.

And diapers in the green bin!  don't those take 5000 years to decompose of something like that?  I don't understand why anyone thinks it's ok to put them in the compost.  I've been waiting (and hoping) to see a response to the Star article that explains what the city was thinking.

But it left me with a very bad impression of Miller in particular.  How could he not know what was going on?  Tommy, I think you might have his number.

I agree that there needs to be more recycling in apartments/condos and office towers too.

Recycling is just one of the R's.  Eventually, we'll have to focus more on reduction.

Thanks Michelle, seems to me garbage rates should go way up and aggressive re-cycling programs enforced or put in place. People produce lots of garabage because they can.

I live in a small community,  and even we do not have a land fill. Garbage must be separated into recycleable divisions, and if it is not and they can track you, you get a fine.

I'm not sure I understand the moral superiority of burying one's garbage within city limits.

It goes back to the idea that the garbage problem will continue as long as we are allowed to make it someone else's problem.  An idea that I think has much merit.

Wow, tommy 4 bags a week is a lot. We have about 1 1/2 bags per month.

Nanaimo, for example has, or used to have 5 years ago now, a 2 bag per 7 day week limit, or 1 smallish garbage can, and if you want(ed) more than that you have to buy tags to put on your bags/bins. No outdoor compostables are allowed either, it must go to the dumpt and you pay by weight. Every mall pretty much has huge recycle bins for cardboard, cans, plastic and paper and they are well used.

Disposable diapers need to be banned. As do all plastics.

Snert really not conflateable and i agree with Tommy,  farming out your garbage problems and making them someone else's is unacceptable.

ownership of responsibilities to one's own waste. Shall we start shipping our shit and piss to other nations so we don't have to pay for waste processing plants too, and say "well they wanted to buy it"?

Sure, I suppose it is, remind.  But could you perhaps come up with a good place within Toronto city limits to store garbage from almost three million people?  I notice that Tommy hasn't come up with a solution either.  I guess we're just supposed to magically make it disappear - or we're supposed to magically produce no garbage at all or else wallow in our filth - because we don't have the wide open spaces that Londoners do.

Do Londoners produce no garbage at all?  Should they be expected to produce no garbage at all, or just wallow in it?  Or is it okay for them to dump it all in the wide open space they have within city limits because they have that wide open space?

Reminds me of an Aislin cartoon from way back, with two City of Toronto garbage trucks parked nose nose in front of the Sky Dome, with one driver saying "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" 

 Shall we start shipping our shit and piss to other nations so we don't have to pay for waste processing plants too, and say "well they wanted to buy it"?

I don't know about our bodily waste, but some of our electronic waste is being shipped to Asia, where women take apart the cicuit boards with bare hands. Cadmium, finger licken' good.   And, when the ships that carry that waste are themselves turned into waste, they are taken to Bangledesh ship breaking yards, Where workers in bare feet take acetalyne torches to them and cut them to pieces.  Unless they blow up because of residual fuel in pipe, then the job gets done quicker.    I forget the life expectancy  of Bangledeshi ship breakers, but it's jaw droppingly short.

Why is my garbage more of a moral responsibility for me than anything else is? If someone wants to buy it, and I want to sell it, why am I supposed to refuse to enter into that agreement on some kind of "it's MY responsibility" grounds?

If they want to buy it, why not?  We'd be paying either way, so it's really not like we'd be walking away from "our responsibility".

Ironically, though, this all seems to fall apart at the individual level.  If I pay the City to take my garbage, that's perfectly fine.  I'm a responsible citizen following the rules.  But if the City pays someone else, we've all somehow collectively shirked our responsibility??

Heck, during the strike, labour-friendly citizens were urged NOT to deal with their own garbage, but to wait for someone else to carry it away for them.  And you're still talking about "taking responsibility for your own waste"??

I'm assuming the municipalities who contract to landfill garbage are doing so willingly.  Are you saying they aren't, and can you back that?  Or who are these unwilling??

Where should we put the extra waste processing plants, Tommy?  (We have a number of them already.)  Which neighbourhood in Toronto do you want to displace people from?  (Yeah, Rosedale works for me too...) 

The point being, Toronto does not have any space at all for a landfill site within our borders.  I could see if you were saying that it's wrong to do landfill to begin with - heck, I agree with you.  But you're doing it.  The garbage you create (and four bags a week?  that's a hell of a lot more than Torontonians are allowed to create) is going into landfill.  The garbage we create is going into landfill.  The difference is, the wide open spaces for landfill happen to be closer to you than they are to us in Toronto.

Whether the almost three million of us live within Toronto city borders and ship our garbage out to the wide open spaces, or whether we all disperse and move closer to the wide open spaces so that we can say that we are living in the same municipality as our garbage, the fact is, three million people produce garbage that has to go somewhere.  If you had three million people in London, you would no longer have wide open spaces to dump your four bags a week either.

So is your solution that we all just move out of Toronto and into London, where you do things so much better?

I'm assuming the municipalities who contract to landfill garbage are doing so willingly.  Are you saying they aren't, and can you back that?  Or who are these unwilling??

The Toronto Dump, located some 200 km outside of Toronto is a private  landfill.  So, no one was consulted, no one profits excepts Green Lane.  Of course, that had to pass provincial approval.  But  with our current system where a "majority" government exists with something around a quarter of the popular vote, your attachement to some democraticly expressed will or  approval is somewhat tenous at best, Snert. 

That said, remind, I would really love for Toronto to come up with some innovative solutions, like that plant that uses garbage as fuel to create electricity.

I would also like to see us come up with tough new bylaws regarding the way we deal with trash and I want to see them enforced.  I think our current practices have been oversimplified to the point where they're not effective.  Right now, we don't have to separate our recycling, which is fine, as long as it really does get separated at the plant and isn't just diverted to landfill. 

But the thing about our green bins not making effective compost due to plastic bags is scandalous.  There's no reason why we should be using plastic bags in our green bins if it renders the program useless.  I understand that the issue is compliance and that in a city with so many people, with such density of population, it's almost impossible to enforce garbage rules unless you make them the utmost in simplicity and lazy-friendliness. 

For instance, I think apartment buildings SHOULD be forced to do recycling and green bin stuff.  If that means apartment buildings have to get rid of their garbage chutes, have a garbage room that is staffed with someone who ensures that people are not contaminating composting and recycling with garbage, then so be it - consider that a cost of doing business as a landlord in a green(er) city.

There's no reason why apartment buildings shouldn't have to comply.  And yeah, it's less convenient to take your garbage to the garbage room than to dump it all down a chute, but hey.  Life's inconvenient sometimes.  We're all going to have to get used to being inconvenienced in order to deal with this problem.

Ban disposable feminine hygine products too. (said to make a point, not really serious)

No, we do not have a land fill.  Have not had one for 13+ years. This area is the watershed for 2 major river systems and a significant spawning area. Hell...you can't even tube down the creeks and  rivers in the summer, nor wade in them even.

Our garbage has strict recycle rules, separate bins  and placement areas for everything. Batteries go in one place, plastics in another, tins in another, toxic paint cans and stuff in another, and so on.  This gets picked up by paid contractors to take the full bins to the appropriate recycleable industry.

Then the actual garbage bins are shipped to a mechanical and hand sorting plant, where they separate it out into recycleable bundles. If you have broken the garbage rules and they can trace you, you get a significant fine. What remains, is incinerated.

You can get plastic bags at the store here for 19 cents a bag, or 70 cents for a cloth bag. So pretty much everyone uses cloth, as they hold about 3 plastic bags or more full of groceries, and of course bins, that I have ever seen, except tourists and they take theirs away with them.  ;) We even have signs in the grocery stores reminding people to wash their bags regularily.

No to diapers. But as there is about  10 children born into the community each year, it is not a significant enough factor to get people on board to fight to have them banned. Also, the Mennonite and  environmentalist contingents in the community use cloth, so statistically about 5 babies, at the very most,  would be being forced to wear disposable diapers. And perhaps not then even, as cloth diapers are way more affordable, and this valley's people are thrifty, if nothing else. Even back 12 years ago, when the granddaughter was a baby here, and I was around a lot of babies, all of them wore the cloth velcro kind, that I knew.

Punish new parents?  Get real! I was a working parent who took her child to day care ffs, and I did not use disposables. The day care simply threw them into the container I provided, and which I took home when I picked up my daughter.

Plastic backed diapers are nasty harsh on the environment...perhaps have an internet search about it to inform yourself before you have children! There are great velcro cloth diapers, shaped exactly like disposables, or get yourself a diaper service.

I have long advocated getting rid of plastics, and the implimentation of hemp fibre hard surfaced products instead, here. Have you ever done any thinking on what the contued use of plastics will mean to  society and the world environmentally?

And I have banned as many plastics as possible from my life, and have done so for decades.

Heywood, there are actually adult diaper services on VIsland and plastic sanitary needs for women should be banned too.

I really can't imagine the extra work involved with cloth diapers. With three kids running around we already spend all our free time in the laundry room (or so it seems like).

Check out the prices of a diaper service heywood,  and compare with what you spend on disposable diapers and garbage bags to hold em all. It has been my experience that diaper services come out about the same as what you would spend on  the costs of disposable diapers per month.

We going to keep cutting down trees to satisfy the disposable diaper demand?  Which is above and beyond the plastics used in them and their environmental impact at all levels.

Also..if your other kids are over 4-5, make them do their own laundry, and I mean wash, dry, fold and put away.

Fair enough. I'll look into a service and see if it will cost the same or close enough. ( with three kids cost is a major driver).

Ya me too, pogo, I don't understand this whole 'convienence'  and time saving thing!

With regards to the environmental impact of diapers, the general population is unaware that there is actually a third diapering alternative; the flushable diaper (the most popular of these being the gDiaper

ETA: Note to Ghislaine; If day cares are not dumping the solid wastes into the toilet, from disposable diapers, before throwing them away, they are breaking the law. So there is no time difference to their efforts in dumping the solids from a cloth diaper and throwing the cloth diaper into a container provided by the parents.

There is a reason why Toronto has curbside composting and London doesn't.

Achurly, when London got on the blue box program, they gave out backyard composters for free. I don't know of anyone around me that doesn't compost in the back yard.  Not to say everyone is a fanatic, but there you go.

The main problem with incineration here in Ontario is that this was sold to us decades ago, when the technology wasn't so good-- but yet we were told it was.   I lived in a nieghborhood where the "Energy from Waste" plant was located near Adelaide and Commissioners road.   We were assured by an engineering consultant that the temperatures of combustion were so high, you wouldn't get funky things like dioxins and the like from incomplete combustion.  

Of course, it never worked that way, and it eventually shut down.   Problem is with these projects is that the engineers and others who assure us that it's okay are never around to face any consequence for being wrong.

Which leads to an understandable amount of distrust.  Selling incineration in Ontario, because of past mistakes, will be an uphill battle.

Getting back to something Catchfire said:

But if we had to confront our own waste--you can bet we would figure out how to solve a lot of problems pretty quickly.

It points to a mindset we really have  to shed.  It's not our garbage.  We didn't create it, and for the most part we didn't even ask for it.

Cost has to be accounted at the point of origin, at the manufacturer and retailers.  If they feel like passing that cost on to us at the price tag, so be it.   It's better than the way they are currently passing on the cost-- mercury in your tuna sandwich.

But that's antiquated thinking, I guess.  Even on the left we have expunged any idea of corporate responsibility from our very thoughts. 

Excellent points!

For  example, if we go to buy a BBQ chicken at the store, we have our own glass dish with lid, to have it put in, we do not take the plastic container they come home in  from the store. Usually they will take one right off the rotissery (sp?) and put it in the container for us. We may only get one a couple of times a year, but still those plastic containers are not our problem to deal with. In fact, I am thinking about doing the same for grocery store  meat and cheese purchases. That we do not buy a lot, is no excuse to accept their packaging.

And yes, we  try to only buy things with minimum plastic packaging to them.

It is one's personal choice to decide not to buy the things, that come in things, which are destroying our environment. And to not insist that more things be developed and utilized that are environmentally friendly, as well. People who say they care about "the children" but yet do not do such things, are speaking empty platitudes, as their own immediate "convienence" is more important to them, than a future for their children and grandchildren.

Well I hate to throw a spanner into the works - but it t'ain't just landfill.  All major urban areas in Ontario and really frikkin everywhere are spreading sewage sludge on that arable land.  Sewage sludge is full of all kinds of nasty stuff from heavy metals to pharmacuticals to oils and beyond.

The problem, like garbage, is it just magically disappears - only to reappear in rural areas.

While we have garbage pick up now - where we used to live we had to take all of our own garbage to the dump ourselves - and pay a fee per volume.  Let me tell you - that reduces what you throw out in a hurry.

And Heywood we had three kids in diapers, on our own dug well and we costed it out and it was waaay cheaper over the long term to use re-useable diapers.  You pay more up front of course, but it is far cheaper over the long haul.  By the way the best bleaching agent for such things is sunshine. 

Yes, sewage sludge is another serious problem too.  The main purpose of the "energy from waste" plant in London was to burn the sewage sludge, but for some reason I can't recall, it never worked properly.    I'm not entirely sure what London does with it's sludge right now.  I think it goes to the dump.

Getting back to diapers, I have been trying to remember all the decision making my ex and I went through regarding them.   We started off with cloth, but went to disposable, and for a while a combination of the two.  I remember smell being  a consideration.  You can rinse the cloth diapers in the toilet all you want, but between pickups they still ended up smelling.  Which is stupid, I guess.  In the olden days, people probably expected that a young familie's house would smell of diapers, and it wasn't a big deal.  But today it is.   And, cost is a funny thing.  I seem to remember that even though the disposable cost more, you paid as you (or your kids) went,  instead of a monthly bill.  When you are a young family on a strict budget, cash flow enters into considerations.   Seems you always had a few bucks for a bag of disposables (no price break on volume, ever notice that? Same with formula)  but for some reason we were always juggling the diaper service bill.

In the end, I think our decision making was guided more by convenience than anything else, truth be known. 

It only took me a few seconds to flop one of the girls onto the change table, undo the tabs, wipe, and flip on another diaper.  A bit longer if I was about to go out and leave them with my then wife, as I'd sprinkle in a few pinches of course sand in the diaper to make them misserable for her.

Kidding.  I never did that. 

Often.

Compare that to the extra steps, the rinsing and struggling on the rubber pants, (them, not me--that came years later) and my personal fear, the  manipulation of the diaper pins with my big meaty man hands.  I had an unreasonable fear that one day I'd accidentally skewer one of them, and that would be imprinted on them for life, untill they were in court and blaming me for an arson they committed in their twenties.

Since those two are now in their twenties, and-- to the best of my knowledge-- not arsonists, I say go with disposables, just to be safe.

Well, that shows how outdated I am, and my advice.

Except for the sand thing. You'll want to use at least an 80 grit, Heywood.

Is anyone following the progress or testing of the plasma arc gasification project in Ottawa?

There is some discussion about building a plasma arc gasification plant here in Minnesota that would handle 500 tons of municipal waste per day.  I'm just starting to look at the pros and cons of the technology so that I can better understand whether or not such a waste management process makes sense or not.

But, I'd be curious to know if anyone here is familiar with the technology?

_______________________________________

Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!

To my mind sludge is in some ways a bigger problem.  A garbage dump is a very localized problems in some ways - ignoring the possible threats to aquifers.  Sludge on the other hand is spread over a wide geographic area making possible problems all the less containable in terms of land degradation.  Although if someone wanted to put a dump right next to me - I might be a little less casual.

They both come from the same 'out of sight - out of mind' mentality we are all guilty to of to some degree or the other.

When I was a kid going to the dump was an adventure.  I still have the button accordian I found when I was 10.  Today though the modern dump is just a mismash of crap.  We have moved to a disposible, brittle plastic world and that means we throw out a LOT more stuff than we ever did before.

And Tommy you are aging yourself.  By our youngest indoor tornado our diapers were held together by velcro - had a built in leak barrier and by 'storing' the used one in a small garbage pail with water rarely smelled much. 

Then my 'vison' of what stinks might be a bit skewed 

Filling two lines with cotton diapers was no trick on wash day  when we were both students, and it was spring, in the banana belt of St.Catherines.

Then I got a job that took us to Manitouwadge. There were no clotheslines for the apt. building and minus 30-40 was not uncommon. Income and cold weather combined to bring about a switch to disposables.

In the late 70s (now living in townhouses) my partner led the charge for blueboxing in multiple-unit dwellings in the region where the concept of recycling with blueboxes was birthed, starting with single family housing. (Waterloo Region). 

We progress, with climatatic conditions and housing and the increasingly toxic waste of our industries in mind.

But pity the politicians who have to deal with the variety of perspectives posted here.

This last part of the discussion illustrates the beginning of this thread: People who do try to help the environment sometime get sanctimonious about what other people are doing without understanding their problem.  Likewise most Canadians tend to get hollier-than-thou about Toronto without understanding the situation here.

It makes as much sense comparing Toronto to some little place of 100,000 people, as is does to compare the disposal problems of a luxury cruise ship to a 5-person yacht.

Someone earlier said that all his friends have backyard composters. About half of Torontonians live in apartments, many without balconies. What are they supposed to do with their compost?

I guess that was about balcony-less apartment dwellers who don't recycle their compost.  You do have a point, but don't just criticize Toronto.  How many rural people live a car free life?  We all have to work at it, and hollier-than-thou won't help anyone.

Apparently you do not read links Ghislaine, nor think too much about your belief system flaws.

Disposable diapers are a huge problem and if your friend is so poor she should  definitely be using cloth diapers, as they are a hellva lot cheaper to use than paper plastic ones.  Time crunched schedule? Give me a freakin break, you speak as if no one has had a "time crunched" life too. Frankly, I do not accept that excuse, not for myself, nor anyone, it is destroying the environment.

My computer, that is now10 years old,  has much less impact on the environment than 3 years of disposable diaper use. My phone is  about 25 years old, at least, and a land line to boot, I won't go the cordless route with those nasty batteries. No cell phone  either and a 20 year old TV that is second hand. I buy seasonal fruit and veggies from BC,  when I have to, and in winter I buy BC hot house, if I want something fresh. I have a garden, and I freeze and can. This year I have 52 tomatoe plants, which I started from seed, and will be freezing and canning the fruit. Also, I wild berry pick just got back actually, was out before the heat hit, at the first light of day, and have been freezing and making jam, for days now. I  also pick mountains greens and freeze them for the winter too. I hang my clothes up  to dry winter and summer alike and have done so always. Clothes, towels, sheets etc...last longer too.

You see...I have been walking the talk my whole life, literally.  I understand that "inconveniece"  claims usually = laziness, and it is destroying our world. And BTW, we haul our water too. FYI, I am not living some cushy lifestyle, where I pontificate on what others should be doing, while doing the opposite myself.

Plastics can be fazed out, and other sustainable products like hemp fibre composite products can be implimented in place of plastics. Do a internet search on hemp composites

Meanwhile, before the fazing out starts, things like disposable diapers need to be banned. I do not care if people get angry so what? I am angry about their wilfull destruction of the environment.

In respect to my comp, my tower is metal, and I would just get whatever is broken internally fixed, scanner printer and screen is plastic. Scanner and printer if they ever break, will not be replaced. The most I would do is buy a new screen, if ever needed.

Also, plastics in medical use, can be fazed out too. BTW, they use products that are not plastic based for people who have allergies to plastics.

Just because you cannot imagine a world without plastics does not mean it cannot happen. It will happen as more people realize just what plastics are doing to the planet.

Fine with me.  I use the Diva Cup.  (Probably too much information, but just to let you know that there actually ARE non-disposable alternatives to pads and tampons.)

re:  Toronto

I think part of what is at play here is an irrational tendency to hate on the next biggest city (which can be a joke like inter-faculty rivalries at a university, but unfortunately some people take it seriously) - for example, people from a small town can hate on Brandon, and people from Brandon can hate on Winnipeg.  And as Toronto is the biggest city in the country, it will draw the ire of not only people living in other cities in the region, but the whole country (even people from Winnipeg who have never been to Toronto).

I think part of this irrational hatred stems from jealousy over big cities having more political clout due to their higher population ("center of the universe") and better services and more high-profile events (most people's favourite bands aren't going to play a town with a population of 483).  I think there are also some old cultural memes regarding "small town values" at play as well.

I just have to respond to this because I've seen this line before

Actually, engineers have very strict professional and ethical guidelines, and there are major consequences for unprofessionalism.  For example, all the engineers who signed off on the walkway at the Hyatt Regency hotel lost their liscences and can never practice engineering again, and I think some of them went to jail.  Engineers have to look at a ton of background knowledge and weigh a lot of pros and cons and make a lot of difficult decisions which are far beyond the capacity of most people (most of which still carry a level of risk either way), although I will admit there are a lot of cultural problems in the profession and how problems are framed (most of which are caused by the profession existing within capitalism).

Unfortunately, it is the corporations responsible for the final decisions which are never held to account.  You decry expunging any idea of corporate responsibility from our very thoughts, then turn around and point the finger at some amorphous white-collar blob of the salariat who are only doing their jobs instead of the corporations, their cost-benefit analyses, and the system of capitalism causing a certain culture in people who make decisions, which filters down to the smart people they hire to tell them what to do.

Toronto garbage workers have been routinely mixing green bin organics with regular trash that is trucked to a Michigan landfill, say city employees interviewed by the Star.

The workers – who return to work today after a five-week strike – say this occurs at those transfer stations where all types of garbage are first brought after collection from homes.

A former manager in a transfer station confirmed he had seen this happen and that some managers allow the practice to get rid of the enormous amount of green bin waste produced by Torontonians.

Green bin program a mess

Self-righteousness and childish insults contribute nothing of value to a discussion.

Actually, we don't have more political clout on an individual level OR a collective level.  Rural and small town/city votes are worth WAY more than urban votes.  If we in the city had the same representation as rural ridings, we'd have a heck of a lot more MPs and MPPs than we do now (or rural ridings would have a lot less).  I'm fine with the way things are now, because I think it's important for small communities NOT to be drowned out by cities politically.  But this idea that Toronto - with our NDP MPPs who never have any clout politically, and our Liberal MPPs who currently have no clout politically, all of whom are drowned out by the Conservative MPPs that suburban sprawl hell (like the 905 region) and most of the rural areas keep foisting on the province - somehow has more political clout is laughable.

Furthermore, we have better services because, unlike suburban sprawl hell cities like Mississauga, and other cities and small towns, we feel those services are valuable and we pay for them.  Furthermore, Torontonians' provincial and federal taxes also subsidize public works projects in other cities and small towns where they pay a fraction of the municipal property taxes we do.  Which is fine, once again, I think it's only fair, especially since densely populated areas and non-densely populated areas are interdependent on each other for the things each doesn't have.  But the resentment Toronto gets in return for our contributions gets a little old.

But the resentment Toronto gets in return for our contributions gets a little old.

Maybe cause no one was told garbage was going to part of the quid pro quo.  Which seems rather post hoc, anyway.