News Flash
Does the City of Toronto have a sense of humour or just bad taste?
Apparently the City of Toronto has a sense of humour after all. Well, maybe.
In an effort to foster awareness of the City's e-waste recycling program, 'Chuck' and 'Vince' have taken to YouTube to tell Torontonians they want your unused electronics. The video, which clearly has designs on going viral, is a little reminiscent of the "cash for gold" commercials that plague television. Chuck and Vince hop around the screen reminding us that they want our old electronics, be that pre-internet computers, stereo speakers or rotary phones.
Dare I say...it's actually pretty amusing. (Well, how can it not be with gorilla masks and robot sound effects?) Can't wait for the "keep garbage collection public" clip.
What do you think of the video?
Discussion
29 Comments
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Toronto, rethink what you're throwing away. Some of those things are treasures, not trash. If you must get rid of them, bring them to Goodwill or Value Village. I'd take all that stuff off your hands AND give you money for it. That's a better deal than free, eh?
To Cait, while you may value these items, not everyone does. The problem is the number of people throwing out e-waste because they don't know how to properly dispose of it.
Good for Toronto making changes to the status quo in more ways than one.
Also, your response was unnecessarily aggressive. While you may find the video amusing, I found it irritating. You and I are both entitled to our opinions, and if you disagree you need only say so rather than making assumptions about my social life.
The things they're calling "trash" have a lot of value to a lot of people. However, the majority want things bigger, better, and newer. There's really nothing wrong with that, so why demonize the fact that I value the quality of these older items?
I do agree that Toronto is making a good effort at getting information out there about disposal, but I think the distinction needs to be made as to what is trash and what is potentially useful to someone else.
To Cait, most people aren't going to use a 'cute retro TV' for decoration. That's very hipster.
The "bad taste" in the headlines refers to the fact that the video would indicate that the city of toronto's video producers have bad taste if they weren't trying to be funny. Which they are. ANYBODY HOME MCFLY??
ttyn
-pat
I know so many people (including myself) that have a stack of old electronics sitting in their basements, collecting dust because nobody knew what to do with it before. Now I know I can just put it out with the garbage and the City will collect and recycle it, so that's what is happening next garbage day.
And I don't understand all the carping about this new initiative. The City of Toronto is piggy-backing electronics pick-up onto a service it ALREADY provides --'bulky item pick-up', i.e. couches, mattresses, furniture, etc.), so basically they're diverting MORE things from landfill for only a SMALL increase in operating costs.
To all those folks leaving negative comments, why all the hate?? It might not be the funniest thing you've ever seen, but it's fun, effective enough for its target demographic, and it was probably dirt cheap to produce.
You say you can do better? Good...SHOW US. I'm sure local comedians will step up and volunteer their services. That is, of course, if you even have the BALLS to step up and produce a script for a killer 30 or 60 sec. spot.
(BLOGTO...sponsor this contest!)
The video was good
And since when is recycling a bad thing??
All you nay sayers out there. Relax. If you want to keep a hold of your junky old electronics go ahead.
If the commercial annoys you, that's one thing, but you're twisting the message.
While there are valid arguements to be made about the re-use/re-sale value of some used electronics depending on their age and condition, I think it is helpful to know what I can do with the stuff that is broken, obsolete, or not worth my time to put up for sale/trade or have to sit around waiting for some junkhound to come pick up.
Better to have the public know they can put this stuff on the curb rather than have them dump it in parks, ravines, empty lots or put it in their garbage bags where it ends up contaminating the land fills. Recycling electronics can be barely economic at times due to the high costs of material handling, sorting and disassembly so helping at the front end by having the city collect this stuff already separated enables a lot more of it not to end up in the environment and rather back in a new product.
Now only if the city can buy some cheap airtime on local channels to run this video alongside the other ones of the same genre...