{"id":112,"date":"2008-08-26T07:59:16","date_gmt":"2008-08-26T14:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/?p=112"},"modified":"2008-08-27T07:47:32","modified_gmt":"2008-08-27T14:47:32","slug":"toronto-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"Toronto garbage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto is phasing out garbage bags.\u00c2\u00a0 Every household is being provided with a garbage bin, and we pay an annual fee based on the size of our bin.\u00c2\u00a0 Garbage is collected every two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>The annual fees depends on the size of your bin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Small Garbage Bin: size of one garbage bag, $10 rebate<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Medium Garbage Bin = 1 \u00c2\u00bd bags  ($39\/yr.*)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Large Garbage Bin = 3 bags ($133\/yr.*)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Extra-Large Garbage Bin =4 \u00c2\u00bd bags ($190\/yr.*)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The bins have an awkward shape, some of the space is unusable, especially the small bins which have a raised floor.\u00c2\u00a0 Good luck stuffing a garbage bag in the small bin.<\/p>\n<p>Tagged garbage bags may be placed next to the bin for collection.\u00c2\u00a0 The city will give every household 5 free tags, additional tags will cost $3.10 and can be purchased at Home Hardware stores.\u00c2\u00a0 Extra garbage may also be brought to a transfer station, for a fee, and you&#8217;d definitely need a car.<\/p>\n<p>We have a small bin.\u00c2\u00a0 Moving to a medium-sized bin would cost $49\/year ($39 + losing the $10 credit) which is equivalent to the price of 16 tags.\u00c2\u00a0 The medium bin holds an additional&nbsp;<span>&frac12;<\/span> bag, which amounts to 13 bags per year. The additional bags would be used for garbage that can&#8217;t fit in the medium bin anyway, so we&#8217;ll keep the small bin.<\/p>\n<p>Bulky items will continue to be collected separately at no cost.\u00c2\u00a0 I can already imagine sneaky people cutting their old spring mattresses open, stuffing them full of garbage and then stitching them back shut.<\/p>\n<p>Product packaging will definitely become an issue.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe this is the beginning of the end for bulky packaging &#8211; hopefully companies will move to reusable packaging that will be removed at the store and sent back.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I think it is a good move that will significantly reduce the amount of garbage we produce.\u00c2\u00a0 Waste is now separated in 3 categories: biodegradable, recyclable and garbage.\u00c2\u00a0 The size limits provide strong incentives for us to properly separate our waste so that it can be composted or recycled, with very little waste sent to a landfill site.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this will require additional law enforcement.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think about it, the $3.10 fee for additional bags is fairly low, it&#8217;s not worth it to sneak around in the middle of the night to dump garbage in a park.<\/p>\n<p>This should begin on November 1st.<\/p>\n<p>Lots of info here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/target70\/qa.htm\">http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/target70\/qa.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto is phasing out garbage bags.\u00c2\u00a0 Every household is being provided with a garbage bin, and we pay an annual fee based on the size of our bin.\u00c2\u00a0 Garbage is collected every two weeks. The annual fees depends on the size of your bin: Small Garbage Bin: size of one garbage bag, $10 rebate Medium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toronto","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamsterinawheel.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}