GIGO

Bin problem fix is in the bag

Garbage containers are just too big for homes without driveways or backyard access

By SUE-ANN LEVY

Paula Abelha says the proliferation of the city's new grey and blue bins are starting to make her west Toronto neighbourhood look like an industrial area.

The Rutland St. resident says most of her neighbours are "struggling to figure out" what to do with the bins -- where to store them and how to get them to the curb on garbage day.

She told me she can only imagine what it will be like when there is the kind of snow we saw last winter.

"They're everywhere," she said. "They're an eyesore."

Late last week, I visited Abelha's street and neighbouring Connolly St. in Little Italy along St. Clair Ave. W, where the homes are so tightly packed together residents have little choice but to manoeuvre their way past the bins left on their tiny porches or on the boulevards out front.

In fact, we counted 168 bins sitting out for all to see along Connolly alone. They looked like a battalion of bins lined up to do battle.

It's absurd. Yet I'm betting this is one mess Mayor David Miller and his green cronies on council never even gave a moment's thought when they rammed through their poorly conceived and cost-prohibitive bin program -- with limited public consultation -- a little more than a year ago.

It's become obvious there's nowhere to store the unwieldy grey, green and blue bins in many dense neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto and the old cities of York and East York, where garages are a rarity, as are driveways.

Now perhaps Miller and Co. just couldn't care less, as long as they get their garbage tax. But it's hardly anyone's idea of the Clean and Beautiful city about which His Blondness yakked incessantly during the first four years of his "mandate."

Coun. Cesar Palacio said the whole garbage bin program has been a "nightmare."

He's heard, nevertheless, that Socialist Silly Hall may soon come up with an "out-of-sight" bylaw to force people to either stash their bins away or build a small compartment to house them.

Now that would be the height of cheekiness. But never rule anything out from the mayor and his arrogant minions.

Abehla says they ended up with two medium recycling bins to allow them to bring them from their backyard and their garage -- where they store them -- along the narrow passageway to the front. "It just seems to be so much," she said.

Connolly St. resident Jo Lynn Dickinson isn't so lucky with space.

She has been forced to put all of her bins on the tidy front porch of her rowhouse -- not a very pretty sight for company who come to visit.

"I don't like it ... it's very cluttered looking," said Dickinson.

She feels the concept is the "right idea" -- if there's a place to store the bins. "They're not geared for this type of development," she said.

Dickinson and her neighbours are not alone. Cabbagetown residents have had it up to their eyeballs with the new bin program.

Joice Guspie told me yesterday when her neighbour's car is parked in her shared driveway, "there's no way in hell" she can get her large grey bin from the side of her semi-detached home (where she stores it) to the curb -- especially when the snow flies.

"This winter it will either go on my front lawn or on my front porch," she said. "It offends me ... people are going to store them wherever they can."

Cabbagetown-area resident Linda Dixon says to add insult to injury, the city's garbage employees -- both the inspectors and the collectors -- don't seem to have a clue what to do with bulky extra items like pieces of wood.

"It's so confusing the different bins ... what you can put in them," she said, noting everyone's verandas are "getting to be an eyesore" with all the bins.

HE'S OPTING OUT

Shuter St. resident Bill Eadie has come up with the solution that should have been applied to everyone in this city -- had Miller and Co. not been pandering to their union pals.

With the city's permission, he said he's "opted out" of the bin program -- seeing as he has no room to store any bins at his compact row house.

Instead, he buys yellow stickers for his garbage bags, and puts out recyclables in a clear bag.

"I find using bags to be a great convenience," Eadie said. "Too bad the city was unwilling to give everyone the option of using bags."