Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The End of Toronto's Garbage Strike

Several weeks ago, the Toronto garbage strike finally ended. After more than a month of garbage piling up outside, a deal was reached between City of Toronto and the union responsible for civic workers collecting waste. Prior to this, there were hundreds of stinky mountains of garbage sitting wherever there was public space available, such as basketball courts in public parks.

While the Garbage Strike of '09 created major havoc and inconvenience for the citizens of Toronto, any casual pedestrian walking down Yonge Street could and should have learned something from seeing the ugly heaps of garbage everywhere.

The lessons learned are:
1. Humans produce a huge amount of waste. Quickly.
2. If civic workers don't collect the garbage, it is clearly visible and accumulates quickly.
3. No one likes garbage. Who wants to eat, sleep, work, and play beside a garbage dump?
4. It is a health hazard. There's a reason why it smells bad.

5. When no one collects your garbage for a month, you learn to REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE!

I'll leave you with this question.

Imagine if landfills didn't exist. Where would all our garbage go?

(Photo Credit: Christian Lapid. Source: link)

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