City
Morning Brew: April 17th, 2009
Photo: "DSC05002" by mikepop2ca, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
A 15-year old and a 17-year old are in custody after an alleged botched parking lot gunpoint robbery spilled into Yorkdale mall [CityNews, video]. When mall security tried to apprehend the suspects, one guard was shot in the chest, and apparently saved by the bullet-resistant armor he was wearing. Some kids are really "brave" and really stupid these days.
Is your blue bin not big enough to accommodate all of your recyclables from pickup to pickup? The City is getting tough on items not placed into the bins [NP], and won't pick them up anymore. The solutions? Upgrade to a bigger bin at no cost (you don't pay for the bin, but will pay slightly higher collection fees) or, better yet, compact your recyclables. Jumping on pizza boxes and squeezing the air out of pop bottles is fun.
A landmark study into food-bourne illness in the city of Toronto finds that annually 1 in 6 people are affected by bacteria-induced illness as a result of eating food [Star], with less than 1% of cases reported. What the study doesn't make clear is how many of these cases are the fault of food handlers at grocers/restaurants and how many are the fault of improper handling and preparation by the consumer. The low level of reporting of illness isn't surprising to me, since the majority of cases likely only resulted in minor belly aches.
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Vehicles at two High Park area residences were brazenly sabotaged this week. Residents are fearful and stunned that someone would have the audacity to cut the brake lines of their cars [G&M], for no apparent reason. Could it be that the latest poll has suspected Liberal supporters being targeted by politically-motivated loonball criminals again?
Save our pools! Save our pools! It's not looking good for 39 Toronto school pools slated to be closed next year [Sun, video]. A small group of protesters, sporting swimsuits and goggles, tried to get City Hall to listen yesterday.
The City has pulled the plug on a controversial advertising campaign that references suicide and depicts a radio on the edge of a TTC subway platform [Star]. I agree that the ads are in bad taste [TOist], but the issue raises more questions. Does the company that took out the ads win with all the added media publicity? How does the TTC end up approving these ads (to be placed on their property, and in principle, contradicting their own values), only to revoke them after pubic outcry? How does the TTC allow the ad agency to take and use photos depicting their property, in a way that so blatantly contradicts their own values?
The Jays bats continue to boom, and the team sits at the top of the American League. A grand slammaroo last night was the icing on the cake in a 9-2 victory of the Twins [CBC]. It's early, but fans are excited.
Discussion
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These ads did not appear in the subway system. The advertising contract the TTC has is with CBS Outdoor. The bus shelter contract resides with Astral Media.
Thanks
Brad
No such policy exists for commercial photography (we don't ask to see concepts are how you plan to use the photos in question), though we are now reviewing that policy in light of this issue.
Brad
You wrote:
"The solutions? Upgrade to a bigger bin (you don't pay for the bin itself, but will pay slightly higher collection fees)"
What the story actually said:
"People who chose a bin that’s too small can trade up for a larger one free of charge, he said. They can even have two bins – both extra large – if they want, at no extra cost."
You only pay more in collection fees if you get a bigger garbage (gray) bin.
Probably not. In the article you link to, the police say there is probably no connection and, on the news last night, Ms. van Eck said she had a Green sign on her lawn during the election.
As for the "offensive" ad, here are some other questions... What is it about the ad that is so offensive? Is it because suicide is a taboo topic in our society? Is the ad offensive in general, or only when displayed on TTC property? I find the Koodoo ads to be in extremely bad taste (I know they're meant to be ironic, but I find cheap irony offensive), how can I get them banned?
To me it sounds like a cop-out for people who are not confident enough to state their real opinions.
This this, a thousand times this! I feel at this point that we are all unwilling garbagemen.....er....garbagepeople. I have no problem with expecting citizens to take some responsibility for their waste, but what exactly are the benefits for us doing this extra work? Taxes aren't any lower, and we are paying an extra charge for garbage pick up in the first place.
Pay more for less service and more hassles: Mayor Miller's Toronto.
Ummm - Let's see.
1. We all don't ship as much crap to Michigan
2. The city doesn't have to hire staff to do it, at union wages
3. We don't have to find a new place to dump our garbage as often
4. The organics that you throw out are turned into compost for the parks and rec department to use (thus lowering their costs)
5. The city sells the recyclables, lowering the costs for that program (IIRC)
Those are the first five benefits, off the top of my head. Anybody else have any ideas?
1)We still have a landfill - so we dump garbage in Ontario instead of Michigan...yay.
2)We still have garbage staff at the City, and the staff 'savings' doesn't exist in a huge area of the City - most of the 'old' City of Toronto still have to use 2 man trucks because the streets are too narrow for the new trucks.
3) Finding a place every 20 years isn't that bad if you don't have obstructionist councillors - remember, it was then Councillor Miller who derailed Kirkland lake, directly leading to 10 more years of trucking waste to Michigan....then he bought a landfill anyway.
4)Saving Parks and Rec compost costs? Negligible.
5) The City sold recyclables before the new system.
Please understand, it is not the concept of reduced waste that I object to, it is that I don't think that the City is doing a good job of implementing a terrible program.
Yay indeed. I hate the idea that we were having to truck our garbage not only out of the city, but out of the COUNTRY. What kind of crap is that? But if there's no penalty for having too much garbage, there's no incentive to reduce it.
2) The savings I was referring to was in not having to hire more staff to sort through YOUR garbage prior to disposal. I know - they wouldn't bother, because there's always new places to dump, right? Especially if you get rid of "obstructionist" councilors.
3) Why should we foist our garbage on other people? Seriously? Doesn't that just shift the costs ($$$ and environmental) for our lifestyle onto others? The costs will be the same, it's just YOU won't be paying it.
Jeez - you're bitching about $100/year per household? Pfft - how much did your house go up in value this year? How much benefit do you receive from being in Toronto? $100/household is negligible - and if you disagree, you're welcome to move to a region that doesn't have the same fees.
We live in a city of over 2 1/2 million people, in the middle of a region that contains over 4 million. Everyone contributes to the garbage. Everyone shares the pain of paying to dispose of it. If you don't like how it's being done, why don't you get involved with the process.
-Mall security wears body armor?
Wow.
Isn't that value only realized if you *sell* your house? Not that I'm arguing that we shouldn't pay garbage fees, but doesn't your house going up in value actually mean you lose money since you pay higher property taxes?
The point of the article is a result of the 'automation' of the pick up process. The one that used to be done by staff.
In fact, these staff were always paid a premium because of the conditions of the job so now if all they do is sit on their butt and merely push a button or wiggle a joy stick I believe we should claw back the premium thereby reducing the cost of service.
Of course we all know the union and our mayor won't hear of that even if it meant being able to hire more people but at the lower cost to enhance service.
Now we do the hands on work, clean up what they drop as the driver chats on his cell phone while a machine does everything he used to do.
The practical problem for me is that the extra large bin that my household shares with out landlord is just a little too small to last 2 weeks, but the porch is already filled by the existing bins. I guess we'll just hoard extra recycling elsewhere and spread it out across leaner weeks...