Mayor's Garbage Taxes Will Increase That 15%

Of items illegally dumped items in parks and the mayor knows that and you can expect to to see more garbage police added to an already bloated union staff.

The People Respond

City watching its waste
April 05, 2007
Jim Byers
city hall bureau chief

Too much garbage in the recycling bins. Too many recyclables in the garbage cans.

And way too much dog doo-doo.

The city of Toronto did an audit of waste in city parks last year, and a newly released report shows Torontonians have been slow to get the message about what should and shouldn't go into trash bins. After sifting through almost three metric tonnes of waste from 585 litter bins and 157 recycling baskets in 126 parks across the city, workers found that about one-quarter of the stuff people dumped into garbage cans (about 5,100 tonnes in all) were things that could've been recycled, including paper and glass.

Almost the same amount was pet waste, while 10 to 15 per cent was household waste that was illegally dumped in the park, including diapers, old VCRs, cat litter and large amounts of plastic bags.

At the same time, only 59 per cent to 66 per cent of the stuff dropped into recycling bins was actually recyclable material, while about one-fifth was organic material and another one-fifth was general, non-recyclable stuff.

"It remains a struggle for us," said Paul Ronan, director of parks for the city. "It's still going to take some time."

The city hopes to improve the numbers through education programs, but the report said that as a last resort bylaw enforcement officers could be given the power to issue tickets to people who don't recycle.

Ronan said the city is still learning about the best way to get people to recycle.

"We find, for example, that people relate to visual references more than words" on the recycling bins, he said.

Ronan said it's hard for people to keep track of what can be recycled and what can't, and what products can go into which bin.

"You get certain cups made of polystyrene or something, it looks like it can go in the bin. People put it in the bin in good faith but it contaminates the recycling stream."

The city study found that trash cans in parks were stuffed with waste from fast-food outlets. Of 572 trash baskets examined, coffee cups and lids from Tim Hortons were the top fast-food contributors in 303 cases.

"Actually, Tim Hortons has done a great job working with us," said Ronan.

"They do a lot with our annual clean-up days."

Coffee cups from some shops can be put into green bins, but most have a liner in them that makes them unsuitable for blue boxes. The city has installed green bins in four city parks as a pilot project, but Ronan said there isn't enough money to put them in every park.

City councillors talk all the time about Toronto going green, but the report states there's only one recycling bin for every four garbage cans in city parks. Only about one-third of those bins had a sticker label to show park users what could be recycled.

"We're getting better and better," Ronan said.

"We have money in the budget to add more bins in our parks, but we have 1,500 named parks in the city, plus a lot of other, isolated, small areas that are treated like parks."

Dog droppings also are a major problem at city parks. One large, steel trash bin at Humber Bay Shores Park was found to have 7.2 kilograms of dog feces, and the report said workers found 626.5 kilograms of pet waste during the audit.

The report suggests that some sort of green-bin system might allow park users to properly get rid of pet waste. It also says the city could require park users to carry pet waste out of the park with them.

But Ronan said that's not practical because many pet owners live in apartment buildings and the city hasn't yet introduced green bins into multi-residential units.