Raise the Hammer

The reason Councillors are balking is that they're afraid some residents will see this as a service reduction.

And because of this, their re-election prospects might suffer.

Interesting comment by Ron Corsini on Laura Babcock's 'Laircast' recently: within his first week of serving on Council, he was advised (by another councillor) that he should be tailoring his behaviour towards getting re-elected.

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2012-02-21 10:20:51

I'm not sure how this threatens election prospects when solid analysis shows that the vast majority of Hamiltonians have no problem complying with the current waste limits and wouldn't have any trouble meeting the proposed bi-weekly plan.
What's missing are councilours with the jewels to explain why the bi-weekly plan makes sense and how the money saved thru it could be applied to improving other things. Sadly, we seem to have bobbled another one here.

Solid analysis may show the vast majority CAN comply but solid feedback from those very same people is that they are having a lot of trouble complying and further cuts are not feasible in their opinion. To simply ignore voters wishes when they don't line up to what the facts are is very often threatening to re-election. What hasn't happened is an effective sales pitch of the idea to change peoples opinions and thus minimize the effect on re-election

Well, honestly, this could be a good intermediate step. The 26 free tags will get Hamiltonians used to the tag system and will get it running on the garbage trucks.

They can claw back the number of tags and start selling them by mail or at local convenience stores at a later date.

Our last "garbage" day, a nice standard family of four was able to put out:

• 1.5 cu ft compostable waste in our giant green bin
• 2.5 standard blue bins of divided (paper / glass-steel-plastic) recycling
• 1 "grocery bag" of other waste

The funny part is that the other waste was sitting very lonely at the bottom of the garbage can which meets the city's definition of "one bag" -- something that is really forgotten in this discussion - the standard is one bag/container and the container can be up to 135L or 30gal as long as it doesn't weigh more than 50 lbs.

If you can't keep your household waste per week beneath 30gal/50lbs, it's not me that has the problem - it's clearly you. Figure out how to change your lifestyle or suck it up and pay the ~$8 to drop off your garbage at the transfer station.

Thanks for pointing that out. 50lb of garbage a week - yikes, that's one hell of a 'bag'. If you're throwing out 50lb of garbage a week, how much junk are you buying in a week?

I've got a baby and two dogs. Apparently people like me are the reason that a one-container limit is unreasonable, yet my output in a week is still about the same as yours. I don't understand how this is so hard for some people.

Yeah, I've got two kids and a cat, and that means a litter-box and diapers.

I'm perfectly okay with bi-weekly collection as long as there's a way to buy tags so I can go over the limit during spring cleaning and the like.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2012-02-22 10:41:51

76% approval for the plan on the Spec poll last I checked.

Our councillors seem to understand who ensures they keep getting paid… and newsflash, it is not the most progressive among us.

So if the current "resolution" is lacking whose fault is that exactly? Council's or the citizens' of Hamilton? Sometimes in a democracy if what the majority (or sometimes just a very vocal minority) wants is shit, we all get shit. You can blame the system, the politicians who represent us or the people they're representing... take your pick, but it's probably a bit of all 3. I guess as a politician you could mandate a resolution that may result in a reversal of the poll results but you will not be a successful politician flying in the face of a 76% majority for your (short) political career.

I thought this whole issue was making a landfill out of a "grocery bag" of garbage from the very beginning... but what do I know???

Maybe a little more history on how all this came about might help a bit Ryan? We hear the catalyst for all of this was illegal dumping, okay sure, but how bad is the problem? Where is it happening? Is it even household waste? How many complaints about illegal dumping did it take for council to rewrite our garbage collection rules? I guess at this point that is all moot… but to me this whole things stinks as bad as the subject matter.

You know what they say about statistics, right Kiely? So if you are a ward councillor of long-standing in, say, Ward 6, where I happen to live, and 5 or 6 chronic moaners whose lawns you employ for your election signs every 4 years get wound up about garbage bags, here's what you tell them: Call in to the bylaw office and register a complaint every time you see some indication of dumping in your travels. With no knowledge of the baseline of complaints prior to this year or last, I'm thinking that in very short order you can make it look like a catastrophic increase. Anecdotally, though, based on my personal observations made walking along the brow and trail most days, there has been no noticeable increase at all. We need a Council with the stones to lead and educate, but we keep electing ward-heeling ciphers like Councillor Jackson. As you note, though, it's absolutely on us. Remember when Hamilton called itself 'Ambitious'?

With no knowledge of the baseline of complaints prior to this year or last, I'm thinking that in very short order you can make it look like a catastrophic increase.

Exactly, this is what I'm wondering theOther, all of a sudden this issue got propelled on to some sort of crisis-fast-track and I have no clue what the real issue even is. Is it really the rampant dumping of household garbage? How many complaints were there?

And I do understand what you are saying about councillors who lead and educate but in this city a lot of them would be one and done just like our last mayor... hard to fault savvy politicians for knowing what sort of ground they're standing on. In Hamilton we may call them Ward heelers but that is not the definition of a politician that works on part of his constituents,(even to the detriment of the city at large), so that is becoming a bit of a misleading term. Some of them most definitely are ward-heelers but it is not for putting the concerns of their ward residents above the city's. This is "democracy" and most people that vote probably expect their elected officials to represent their wishes.

I am a believer that in general people get the politicians they deserve, this city is no different. Maybe it is simply too much to expect our elected officials to give much of a damn about anything that happens outside their ward when the people who elected them don't?

There's been quite a bit of illegal dumping in my area on the central mountain - but oddly enough it's been bulk waste (sofas, mattresses, etc.) and not household waste.

Hopefully the revised bulk pickup rules will put an end to that. I hadn't looked at them in a while, but last time I did it seemed unnecessarily complicated.

Some excellent questions have been posed here in this portion of the discussion. They deserve to be answered.

I don't understand where the 50% undiverted waste is coming from? Is it a matter of Hamiltonians not recycling properly? (i.e. Throwing food waste into the garbage)

Or is it something else, like commercial premises choosing not to recycle, or mutli-resident buildings which don't support recycling?