Another Major F&%kup By Comrade Miller & Cabal

Blue bins have to go big or go (back into) home
April 23, 2009
Royson James
Toronto's garbage rules seem made to be broken, er, altered, adjusted, tweaked. Exuberant recyclers who "feed blue" to the point of overflowing the blue bin say they're being punished for doing what the city encouraged them to do.
Toronto's sanitary workers are infuriating homeowners by refusing to pick up paper, plastics and cardboard bundled beside the blue bins – just as City Hall suggested.
The goal of diverting 70 per cent of city waste by 2010 hasn't changed; the collection rules have, says waste czar and Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker. And he is counting on resilient residents to help out the city. Again.
Nothing seems to deter Torontonians from diverting waste. They dutifully separate fish bone from fish wrap, aluminum foil from aluminum pie plates, plastic film from plastic bottles. They separate paper from glass and plastics, only to comingle them when the rules change. De Baeremaeker figures a citizenry with such a high garbage IQ can navigate the latest change.
"We're hoping this is a tweaking of the system," he said yesterday. "We are annoying people with the best of intentions."
When the new waste pickup system was implemented, City Hall said if you had a medium-sized blue bin but found yourself with recyclables more suited to a large bin, no problem. Bundle the overflow and it'd be collected. This didn't square with the automated system the city promoted as essential, but city councillors must know what they are doing. Right?
That was then. Now, the city is about to go with a fully automated pickup and is concerned that delays to manually handle overflow recyclables can add 10 per cent more time to the one-person crew's collection schedule. Some $5 million is at stake, city-wide.
"Get a bigger bin" is the new message. If you already have the largest blue bin, try adding a second one, De Baeremaeker offers, gingerly. And if you don't have the space? Well, only then will the garbage police let efficiency take a hit.
Some downtown neighbourhoods, and selected enclaves elsewhere, currently have manual pickup because of limited storage space for bins, large or small.
And those too-small green bins? Get another, for now. Larger ones are coming in 2011 when green bin collection also goes automated.
De Baeremaeker asks for patience as the city embraces a revolution in waste management.
With the fully automated pickup, drivers don't need to leave the trucks any more – if you position the bins at the curb just right. (That's the next battle. Testy drivers will start leaving behind bins not positioned correctly, ones out by a few inches. Imagine that challenge during snow pileups.)
Have extra recyclables? Store it until the next pickup. Or supersize your bin. (The blue bins and green bins are free. The cost of garbage bins increases with the size). And if you have the largest bin and no storage space, then you can put the overflow by the bin.
Let's see how long it is before the trucks leave behind overflow loads beside the largest blue bin. Expect more complaints.
De Baeremaeker: "It's a brave new world. There's a learning curve. We're not trying to be harsh and mean-spirited ... Some people were very angry and upset when we introduced bins in first place. Now, people settled down. They are thinking, `Now that I have touched the beast and rolled it out to the sidewalk, the beast isn't that bad after all.'"
If only it would live by the rules.