Comment 74668

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted February 22, 2012 at 21:22:48

Ya know what we need? A garbage strike. Every time it happens in Toronto I find a reason to visit, if only to remind myself what a modern city looks (and smells) like without garbage collection for even a few weeks. The amount of trash we pile up is atrocious, and it has to go somewhere. We've developed a costly and toxic way of putting the problem "out of sight and mind", but it really isn't any kind of solution.

What we need are some community-based waste diversion programs. Freecycle, Craigslist, Etsy and others are now showing that large amounts of this waste can be put immediately back into use, but that there's often a market for them and for those who'd work to repair and transform them. Between salvaging appliances/clothes/furniture, reclaiming useful materials (wood, textiles, plastics etc) and community-based composting, we could seriously reduce the load on all kinds of municipal collection while returning value straight to communities. Of course, no initiatives we start up could solve the entire waste problem, but that's not the point. As with the "Garbage Crawl", the best way to make a statement on an issue (trash) is to start doing something about it and hope others join in.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds