There is no nice way to say this: Toronto residents’ waste disposal is ABYSMAL. People simply are not disposing of waste properly, and that does not just add to our increasing amount of contamination of recyclables, it is costing us millions of dollars. Not to mention, in general, we just create an incredible amount of waste, being hands down and, by a large margin, the highest per capita generators of waste in the world. We are running out of places to put our waste, even our recycling is getting rejected by the nations we ship it to, and if we do not start making reforms fast, we are going to find ourselves literally neck deep in our refuse.
Waste Disposal
Just like idling, there seems to be two general attitudes that waste disposal does not matter: either people simply do not care, or they think their individual actions do not matter. Regarding recycling, there are people who say that it does not matter because it all ends up in the garbage anyway. Well sure it does, it is a self-fulfilling prophesy when we keep contaminating our recyclables so badly that even park staff just throw them all together in the trash.
Behaviour
More public education is not likely to work. The city has run ad campaigns, they have put better more overt signage on public garbage and recycling bins, and mainstream media have repeatedly reported on the issue, yet the problem persists. Waste Wizard is an excellent tool to discern what goes where, but it does not seem like many people utilize it.
Enforcement
Which means, just like idling, the main solution is stronger enforcement. Watching the city’s waste enforcers checking bins is quite disappointing. They only scan the top surface of the bin, and then if there’s a problem, they leave a little note on the bin to do better next week.
From my experience living with fellow tenants at buildings around the neighbourhood, it is safe to say that a large percentage of recycling bins are contaminated across the city. We need STRONG enforcement, with better checks and more willingness to hand out sufficiently punitive fines.
Buildings
The other issue is multi-residential and commercial buildings, in particular the fact many do not have organic waste disposal. This should be mandatory, and the city should help with the costs to transition them into doing it, like offering a small property tax break that winds down over a few years after establishing it.
If we are ever to transition into an actual sustainable circular economy we also must be fully processing our waste right here. Relying on faraway places to ship our waste to is not sustainable, and by definition a circular economy means what we produce we also reabsorb.
Banning Materials
The city has been reluctant to ban destructive and wasteful materials over the last two decades. In 2012 Toronto got progressive by banning plastic bags, then backed off, just so we could do it again a decade later. Toronto’s single use and takeaway measures are voluntary, no help there, all while waiting for the feds to actually ban items, which has been delayed. This transition will take so long that it is possible a new Conservative government might come in and reverse the ban before it has truly taken hold and people and businesses have adapted. And the items being banned are a drop in the bucket; bags, takeout containers, straws, stir sticks and cutlery are not going to make much difference.
Non-recyclables
It’s also mind boggling how many recyclable materials we allow that we do not accept for recycling. Why do we allow black plastic containers that we do not recycle? There are many more highly recyclable alternatives, like foil, but businesses are allowed to choose materials that only increase our waste. There are many other types of plastic we also do not recycle and yet allow these products to continue adding to our waste. Worse is that most plastic ends up as garbage regardless of its recyclability.
Convenience
The core issue here is society has collectively become addicted to convenience, people have become used to everything and anything packaged to go. Once upon a time this would not have been an issue, 100 years ago people did not expect to be able to have disposable containers for everything imaginable. You sat down in a café to drink your coffee, there were no drive-thru restaurants, water came out of fountains, and fruit and vegetables at the grocery sat in the open air.
Banning Materials
It is tough convincing people to give up certain luxuries and conveniences, even when they are provably destroying the planet. This does not just require a change in preferences and culture, it requires behavioural change. People will have to think ahead before leaving their house and likely will have to always carry a bag with certain items in it, like reusable bags, a reusable water bottle, and a reusable container or two. In addition to the upcoming federal ban we need to consider banning the following items:
- election lawn signs (yes I said it, eliminating them will significantly reduce waste during election times)
- junk mail (we all know 99.999% of it ends up in the trash)
- disposable coffee cups (everyone should have a travel mug, most have one in their cupboard)
- single-use coffee pods (reusable pods already exist)
- bottled water less than 10L (however, that means the city needs to have more fountains and public sources of drinking water year round)
- single-use batteries (rechargeables only, even then we should be transitioning to products that plug in to avoid the hazardous waste batteries create)
- disposable diapers (it can be done and, having used them with my son, it is not as bad as you might think)
- paper towels/napkins (reusable alternatives have existed for centuries)
- anything and everything plastic (there are alternatives for all day-to-day uses, plastics need to be reserved for medical or industrial uses)
A Zero-Waste Society
It’s going to take a serious behaviour and culture change for the most waste-creating people in the world to transition into a zero-waste society. We are so accustomed to being able to just throw everything away. The hardest part of the culture change is there is already a very prevalent attitude that if it can go into recycling or the organic bin it is somehow not waste, that somehow anything that goes into those two bins absolves the consumer of any responsibility for the amount of waste they dispose of.
Attitudes
Some people mistakenly think that, because disposable diapers can go in the organic bin, all the emissions and environmental impacts of the materials, production, shipping and then disposal of those diapers have been erased. Others make the argument that the water usage for washing those diapers, over and over, is comparable to the waste created from disposable diapers. These ways of thinking have to change.
Zero-waste markets
Zero-waste markets like the Bare Market on Danforth need to become the norm, not the exception. The Toronto Environmental Alliance has many great suggestions on how to go zero-waste. I was just lamenting at the deli counter at Foodland this week that I wish I could bring my own container to weigh food in. I rarely buy deli meat, but when I do I have convinced them to put all the meats and cheeses into one deli bag with multiple price stickers on it, so as to cut down on the plastic bags necessary.
Waste from businesses
Changing a culture of convenience is the biggest hurdle to transitioning to zero-waste, but a close second is the business mentality of big corporations. Grocery stores and restaurants throw out untold amounts of perfectly edible food, but it is not in the interest of their bottom line to give it away. France on the other hand made throwing that food away illegal.
Restaurants and markets need to consider sturdy reusable and returnable containers that they charge a deposit for. We used to have a robust collection mechanism for reusable pop bottles, not to mention the stellar history of the Beer Store when it comes to retrieving waste, and yet we are not applying these principles elsewhere.
Yes, living in a zero-waste society will not be as easy and convenient as we currently have it. But you know what’s even more inconvenient? No longer having a planet able to absorb our waste. We need to take a serious look at our collective behaviour and its impacts and ask ourselves what responsibility we need to take to ensure our children and grandchildren have a future as good as what we have it now.