Illiteracy, Apathy, or Ignorance?
Photo taken and question posed by guest contributor Steven de Sousa.
Sometimes a photo is worth a thousand words, and sometimes a photo very poignantly asks a very direct question. What are your thoughts on the commonly observed yet rarely addressed problem of recycling sorting (not just on the TTC)? Is it a problem of illiteracy, apathy, or ignorance?
Comments (32)
Looks like a little of all... However, the proper bin for newspapers is over filled. It seems reasonable that people put their recyclable trash in the next bin - also for recycling (people don't have to sort papers from glass and metal at home for recycling). The next one looks pretty full too. Maybe they put recyclables into the garbage because they couldn't fit it into the proper bin.
I'd rather they put newspapers into the garbage rather than make more of a mess of our already messy stations.
I bet those stupid Metro papers take up the majority of all three bags.
Those things are a gigantic waste. They are virtually content-free and make a huge mess since a lot of TTC riders don't bother to recycle them. They just leave them lying around everywhere.
POP QUIZ:
You walk up to a this setup with your empty Starbucks takeout cup of tea (the paper cup, the plastic top, the paper collar, and the teabag). What goes where?
I believe the only recyclables in a Starbucks cup are the lid and the slip. The cup is non-recyclable due to being covered in wax or something.
One extra thing, my office building does not recycle. It's a huge waste of paper that is going into the garbage. Isn't it required? I'm just wondering because I hate the waste.
Jerrold has a good point, sometimes it can be a little confusing. But I bet apathy is the biggest problem.
Does it even matter? By that I mean, does the bags go to separate facilities, or do they go to one master one that sorts them on-site anyway?
Like many things in this city, these bins suffer from poorly designed signage. It's easy to point the finger at "other" people. They're ignorant, apathetic, illiterate. But really, not everyone is hateful of the environment and disrespectful to well laid recycling plans. At a glance, while hustling through a crowd of commuters, these signs simply aren't clear. Much of the TTC is confusingly signposted and so is much of Toronto. That's the first problem to tackle. In Montreal, they have the same Metro papers and, recognizing that they are a unique category of waste, set up special clearly marked wall mounted bins designed solely for Metro papers. With problem #1 addressed, I think it then becomes fair to start pointing the finger at lazy commuters for what's still not properly recycled. (and maybe at the TTC for why these bins are overflowing!)
We take recyling for granted at home. We get ours picked up for free. Businesses aren't so lucky, they have to pay someone to pick their garbage and recylcing up. (assuming they are over a certain size)
Paper, Garbage, Plastic/Glass/Metal are all picked up by different places. Aside from city collection, there really isn't a universal recycler.
Most businesses will opt to just toss their recyclables in the trash due to the expense of having to hire two other trucks to pick up their recycling (Which may not be in high quantity anyways). Some will just recycle paper and cardboard products as if they have enough suitable material, recyclers will often pay THEM to pick it up.
hey maria take some initiative. talk to your superintendent, and get your colleagues on board. you can do it. all it takes is putting a green/ blue bin in the appropriate place.
I'm pretty sure ttc trash all gets dumped together, and is then sorted later at a facility. When the recycling streams are so contaminated there's really no other way. I do find the signage confusing though - I'm not sure why, but I always find myself having to doublecheck which bin is which .
For those that feel it doesn't matter (because it'll be sorted anyhow): are you suggesting that the sorting process isn't helped by initial consumer-level sorting? If that's the case, they why does the TTC (and the City, and fast food restos, and airports, etc) pay for these multin-bins to begin with?
There should be a newspaper bin on each subway car that new riders can re-use newspapers instead of sitting there with nothing to do other than stare at other riders and freaking them out.
re: reusing Metro
I've always thought the unofficial system of leaving it on your seat was fine, but appearantly thats not kosher by TTC management.
GO trains are nicer for that. If you commute by GO, unless you take the first train you never need to pay for the Star :P
I like finding things to read on seats. As long as papers stay on seats (and not on the floor), TTC management should encourage this. Tough one to make work though, so their "don't leave papers on the seats" policy is likely their reluctant compromise.
Don't we all miss the 'good old days?'
Long before the politically correct government insisted that we recycle... we had CLEANER bus and subway stations. But nooo, there's not enough 'garbage' bins now. They (the government' want us to submit to them and play with garbage
by 'recycling' with fewer bins.
I hate recycling. The hypocrisy of the idea to make me rinse my mustard and ketchup containers for example, all the while BEING TOLD to save on water.
Going back at the TTC - if one bin is full, use the other. They won't recycle, why should you?
I agree with atanga. The title of the post is missing one more possible reason. I don't think the major issue is neither one of illiteracy, apathy, or ignorance, it's merely poor design and labeling. Most people care about recycling, but if they have to slow down or stop to look at the tiny images on the labels and figure out where to dump their garbage, then you're expecting too much. TTC puts the money and effort in designing, manufacturing and installing these things, but I doubt they ever run these idea by a professional in human factors or advertisement design, or run a pilot and see how people react and how it can be improved, before spending a lot of money on it.
I think it's apathy. I see overfilled garbage cans all the time, and I have a hard time believing that it takes more than a five or ten minute walk to the next available one. Oh no, carrying an empty coffee cup in my hand! There
Bad design can definitely be blamed, but if you resent taking an extra three seconds to read a sign and find it a barrier to doing what you profess to care about, you are lazy.
I'm guessing if they did run a pilot or invest money in researching it, they'd: 1) Spend too much on the research relative to the information they got back 2) Promptly forget about following up, leaving the test bins where they are and never installing them other places.
Design, design, design. Anyone who has designed public spaces will agree with me that unfortunately a good number of people are animals so you must design the hell out of something to see it used correctly.
1) Any quick survey would easily reveal what the primary need is. (i.e. newspapers). The newspaper bins should be visually dominant and adequately sized. Clearly here they are nice and symmetrical when empty but totally wrongly sized for actual use. At Grand Central in NYC there are massive, huge bins just for discarded papers because that is the most popular item that is thrown away after a train ride. (And hey, if you want to make it so that people can also take papers out of those bins for re-reading, that can be designed)
2) The icons for the bottles vs paper must be, what, 3" high? Giant, clear signage is needed. The text should be changed to LITTER RECYCLE NEWSPAPERS. Be blunt or people without the sense or time to analyze the little pictures will not pay attention.
3) The slots should be shaped to guide use. People are thus given a last reminder of what to do. Slots for newspapers, small circles for bottles and square openings for general litter.
On the whole, it's nice to see the TTC try (as opposed to New York, where the MTA does zero recycling and the PATH system is too paranoid to put garbage cans back in stations at all). They just need to design these better.
I don't have an answer - I did night shift at my work place for some time, and realised that the cleaner, best intentions that she had, never bothered, nor even realised, that it was worth sorting the recycling from the non-recycling - but I will print this photo and place it on my workplace's wall. I want it to change, maybe this will affect others too.
Fantastic photo.
Who gives a @#@$, this is Toronto. At least people didn't toss the garbage on the ground like in the rest of the city.
Is the cleanup still only done after the afternoon rush hour, or in the evening? Those bins should be cleaned out after the morning rush hour, afternoon rush hour, after midnight, and at anytime just before it does get full. If the bins are full, they are not cleaned out fast enough.
Agreed about the design - there is more space devoted on those labels to the back-patting logos than the icons denoting what goes where.
If I have a newspaper or plastic bottle in hand, I always find myself having to walk right up to these bins and scrutinize them because it's not intuitive which recycling bin is which.
Gloria, you'd be surprised at how long a walk it can be to the next garbage can. Especially on the TTC, where they're not at track level (except at Bloor, for some reason).
I don't care what your intentions are, papers should not be left on the seat, as they end up on the floor in the end. In order to share papers, a paper-sharing bin should be installed on subway cars. They can put it right next to the garbage can.
I'm not sure about other stations, but I noticed this week they have place bins at track level at Islington as well.
It used to drive me nuts when I would buy a beef patty upstairs, eat it while waiting for the train and either have to run back up stairs to throw out the bag or take it home with me. No wonder there was so much garbage on the tracks.
I probably should have just littered and encouraged others to do the same. It seems to be the only way for the TTC to realize what seems so obvious to everyone else.
Great discussion. I agree that design is a major problem -- bigger, easily identifiable logos and consistent use of different colours for each type of waste bin (not just on the TTC but throughout the city) would go a long way to taking the guessing game out of people in a rush. The other issue is the clear plastic bags that make it easy to say "well this bag has paper so it must go here." I know I've inadvertently placed paper in the litter bag because it was so full of paper already that's where I thought it belonged. (Also, I don't think it's just an issue of dumping into the adjacent bin when the appropriate bin is full as the photo clearly shows a recyclable pop can at the very bottom of the litter bag.)
Placing a recycling bin inside the subway cars is intriguing, but realistically that takes away from standing room in already overcrowded trains. And inevitably, people will dump other garbage into them and then we have a stinky garbage bin in a crowded subway train. No thanks. It also means paying somebody to clean them out and we all know how much money the TTC doesn't have.
Newspapers do appear to be the biggest contributor and it would be nice if **especially** the freebies thought more about this in the same way that McDonald's added garbage bins outside their restaurants years ago due to public complaints of litter.
Ultimately, however, I think it comes down to human behaviour and so the less complicated the process is, well, the less complicated it will be.
The bins shown above a full and not emptied.
Somebody didn't empty the bins.
As a rider, I feel no guilt.
You wouldn't believe how many people think recyclables should go in the garbage if they're dirty.
Marion: Being on the subway, I'm sure every rider is headed somewhere with a garbage can. When I mean a walk, I mean after exiting the station and going wherever you're going. It's an extra effort, but hey, that happens. I'm not sure how much garbage the average transit rider is dragging around on them, but holding onto an empty coffee cup or a newspaper is not so ridiculously difficult, is it? What's so hard about stuffing a wrapper into your pocket? No, ideally we shouldn't have to do it, but ideally we're adult citizens who can suck it up and pick up the slack when someone else doesn't do their job.
A deeper layer to the prolelm is the disposable items themselves. Why have them? I can carry a cup! The city used to be very clean before disposable food containers appeared, let's ban them and get back to that. Less waste, less cost. I've lived in Asia and you carry your own bowls too. Very efficient, very civilized.
It doesn't really matter what these things look like. The images were obviously used to aid people who may not be able to read "paper", "bottles", etc, either by learning disability or it not being their language.
As a TTC employee, we are aware that all these bags are taken to the same processing centre and sorted there. It doesn't matter which bag you might throw your Starbucks cup into, what does matter is that you throw your Starbucks cup into that bag. Too many delays are brought about by newspapers and paper cups drifting down the tunnels getting caught and drying out becoming fire hazzards which then cause the system to be shut down. It's at this point that several people have to be dispatched to investigate the fire. Track workers, Supervisors & even quite possibly the actual fire dept.
So for all of you that complain and think that you know something about what actually goes on and why they are there, please feel free to think things through once in a while. About the only design flaw in the new system is the thickness of the bags that are used. The thickness should be increased in order to prevent the bags from splitting or tearing due to the weight of your newspaper & Starbucks cups!
View More Events
Suggest an Event
Join the blogTO Flickr group
Join the blogTO YouTube Group
RSS