For the last week in our neighbourhood it seems like the city and public garbage can receptacles have all disappeared… No notice was given, one morning we left to go to work and they were there, then that afternoon we came back and all of them had vanished…
Not sure if they are being replaced by bigger and better, not sure if they are all given a much needed deep cleaning since they stunk to high heavens after this past summer’ strike… but they are nowhere to be found around here… So what do Torontonians in Cabbagetown do? Yep, you guessed it, they throw their garbage on the sidewalk, or in people’s doorway, or on store window ledges, or simply anywhere they please…
Yesterday, at 8am, on our way out the door to visit DR’s father, I took a broom and swept our doorway of garbage… the store owner next door arrived while I was doing this and said she had done the same thing the morning before, it was full of garbage…
Thank you Cabbagetown residents and visitors. You really didn’t learn anything during the strike, did you?
Right at the bottom of this post is a little info about the garbage cans:
http://cabbagetownnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/olympic-torch-twenty-kids-from.html
Remember those dingy square things covered by lots of advertising and little holes at the top with doorways that snapped down on your knuckles? They’re toast. In the normal scheme of things, something new would arrive in their place. But not yet. Maybe soon. It’s gratifying to see that we’ve still got clean sidewalks. Thanks everyone for resisting the temptation to toss your stuff into the ghostly remains of the old cans.
Thanks for the info Wendy, I’m gonna keep reading this blog you’ve linked to.
But if you’re going to thank anyone, thank the store owners and residents who sweep the sidewalks of trash every morning, not anyone else, because, they are tossing their stuff all over the place where garbage cans should be.
As this is happening during the Copenhagen meetings, I think its just really interesting that people REALLY don’t want to do the right thing unless it somehow benefits them. As a former smoker who carried his butts to a trash can and put them in a special container at the beach until he got to a garbage, I can attest that it doesn’t take very much to just hold onto that shit until you find somewhere to put it. People gross me out regularly… I also hate when people who read Metros on the subway throw them on the ground. Its the same thing, only there, there’s recycling bins RIGHT OUTSIDE THE TRAIN. Carry on.
All public areas in the UK (railways stations, airports etc) have been devoid of garbage cans (we call them bins) since the 80s due to the terrorist threats. It can be a right pain when you want to get rid of a sandwich wrapper and there’s nowhere to put it. I tend to hand them back to the place I got it from of I’m still in the same area.
(I by pure chance escaped a blast when I was a kid back then – the bomb had been in a trashcan we’d walked past literally a minute before – I still remember the scene of carnage).
I e-mailed 311 about this. This is their reply:
Please note that the Transportation Services is currently rolling out the new Street Furniture Program and as such, all street furniture elements including bus shelters, benches, litter bins, bicycle rings, info pillars etc. are currently being installed by Astral Media, City-wide.
The City’s existing contract with Eco-Media Inc. expired on October 14th, 2009, and the company is in the process of removing their litter receptacles (3 comp. stainless steel bins) from the public right of way, City-wide. All pre existing Eco-Media bin locations are currently being surveyed for new Astral Media bins where possible and new bins are being installed. This initiative will continue over the coming months until all the bin locations have been addressed. In addition, temporary Rubbermaid bins are also being installed to help with the transition where Eco-Media bins are currently being removed. Transportation Services is in the process of replacing approximately 4000 litter/recycling bins and therefore, coordination/inspection and installation will take some time.
For more information on the Coordinated Street Furniture Program please go to: http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/roads/furniture.htm