Toronto the Smelly
Toronto City workers are currently on strike and among the many city services affected is garbage pickup. The mercury is going to hit 30C (86F) today, the ideal temperature for breeding rotting, smelly garbage. People have taken to illegally dumping garbage in our city parks, streets, lane ways etc. Not very neighbourly, T.dot.
I'm lucky enough to live in a condo so I know that I can't completely empathize with house dwellers (especially house dwellers with no garage or shed). However, there are a few things one can do before resorting to illegally dumping or crossing picket lines to designated dump sites:
* Freeze food waste (when the strike ends, you can just dump the frozen blocks)
* Use a composter
* Take a break from your gardening duties
* Practice your sorting skills - store recyclables at home as long as possible, separate from organic waste
* Minimize leftovers (i.e. eat everything off your plate!)
* Eat less meat (Not sure I can do this....I'll make sure I only buy/make what I can eat)
Toronto the Dry
For those of you non-Canucks, the sale of alcohol in Canada is heavily controlled by the government. Each province has its own liquor board and it is usually the first importer of alcohol into the province. There are very few private alcohol retailers. In my province, Ontario, we mostly rely on the good ol' LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) for our non-beer libations....i.e. they're my wine supplier. Anyways, long story short, LCBO employees are essentially government workers and thus unionized. They too had threaten to go on strike over their collective agreement. The news of LCBO workers poised to strike last night at midnight sent thousands on Monday and Tuesday to their local LCBO stores to stock up. I was one of them! I actually bought out the store's supply (well, what was on the shelves) of our favourite Chilean wine. The lines went to the back of the stores and people were leaving the store with dollies, carts, boxes. It was INSANE. Apparently, the LCBO made $17M in sales on Monday, compared to $7M on a normal June day. Crazy! The kicker, the strike is on hold due to the union and the LCBO making progress on negotiations. Hmmm...was it all a ploy? Regardless, I'm glad Toronto isn't going dry....at least for now.
Toronto the Smelly 1, Toronto the Dry 0
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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4 comments:
Yikes! At least you have a good glass of Chilean wine to cope with the accumulating trash around the city.
I've never even thought about freezing trash, how interesting. What does frozen trash look like?
OMG I feel for u!!!! I hope the liquor board employees & the union work something out and I hope the garbage situation gets taken care of soon! btw, i'd be lined up right next to u at the store ;)
As a T.dot house dweller I'm not too worried yet about the garbage strike, although I'm miffed about it! (Seriously in this economy?!?)but when the threat of an LCBO strike loomed I hauled my butt down to the nearest one and bought an obscene amount of booze. Heck I might not need to buy any for the rest of summer!
@ Brandy - I'm miffed as well about the garbage strike.....and I was the same, as soon as there was word about a possible strike at the LCBO....I grabbed my liquor bags and stocked up! Oh priorities. ;)
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