Environment
What's Recyclable and What's Not in Toronto?
Recycling, composting, and landfilling is a complicated process in Toronto. Some egg cartons are recyclable and go in the blue bin, but others are not. Batteries shouldn't go in the grey bin garbage. But human hair should.
Between blue bins, green bins, grey bins, and special pickups and drop-off depots, there have been many times when I've been less than completely certain about how to dispose of something. Until now.
There's a new online, search-enabled, City of Toronto garbage and recycling web site that sets disposal straight. And it's rather smart.
Entering "fish" for example, gives us results for proper disposal of both food and aquariums. Entering "carpet" points us to both vacuum and shag flooring disposal.
And I suppose fittingly so, entering "pesky neighbour" or "ttc fare hike" or "rogers bill" yields no results.
Hat tip to Councilor Joe Mihevc for the tip on Twitter.
Discussion
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-Vic De Zen
@Hotdoggable: i wouldn't go that far. It's more about the public taking more responsibility over our trash to help increase effective waste diversion. The less they have to try and divert on site, the more effective the recycling.
That's what I do at home and it works!
Marion: Did your garbage day switch? I live in The Annex and receive Night Pickup. As of Nov. 1 our pickup day switched to Tuesday Nights, no longer Wednesday nights. We were notified of this by new calendars being issued with stickers on them telling us of the change. Never the street has been a mess of people who have left their stuff out all week. Some of those people still have their recycling out now, even though it's a garbage night tonight, meaning they are going to be 2 weeks behind schedule.
If this ever happens don't just leave it out for a week, call 311 and arrange a pickup or explanation. The most a pickup should be delayed is 24 hours, 48 if there's a storm. If it's been close to a week, something is wrong.
We'd be much more environmentally friendly simply by landfilling all of it - on a net basis of course (greenies tend to be horrible at math and accurately tracking things). Focus on not producing waste in the first place and then on removing waste as fast and efficiently as possible for public health reasons - eliminating rats, etc.
One has to wonder whether the whole point of reduced garbage collection is to engender a revival of plague to combat the Gaian scourge that is homo sapiens. The stated objectives are laughable and all of the actions go against the goals claimed.