Trash Talk: From rogue blue box to cigarette butts
July 12, 2011
Ellen Moorhouse
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
There’s been something of a standoff at the end of our street, a little game of who’s going to empty an abandoned blue box.
Adorned with rock group decals, the box appeared last winter on the median between sidewalk and street in front of a big house on a corner lot. The homeowners put their garbage out on the other street, so abandoned blue is never associated with other bins of trash.
Garbage, like trespass, is such a flashpoint for resentment. No doubt the homeowner’s attitude is that it’s not ours, we pay a lot of taxes, city employees are lazy, it’s their job to pick it up and we’re not going to touch it. The garbage collectors probably see contaminated material unacceptable for recycling and the wrong receptacle.
And so that blue box has remained through snow, rain and now warm weather. As the months have passed, it has served as a handy dumping ground for dog owners (who do they think is going to clean up those bags of poo, anyway, and why would they put it in a blue box?), Starbucks coffee cups and other bits and pieces from passersby.
Such a sad little symbol — one sticker ironically proclaims “Life is Peachy” — of the declining sense of community and mutual responsibility, and the narcissistic habit of people, for their own convenience, to leave litter for others to deal with.
So what to do? I emailed the city’s solid waste department and was told this is a litter problem. Just call Toronto’s 311 service and report the rogue box.
I’ve called 311, launched almost two years ago, about garbage pickup before and found the system easy and the response good. It’s also the place to call if, for whatever reason, you want to exchange your garbage bins.
Kicking Butts
I’ve written before about Bruce Winnacott’s handy little self-extinguishing ashtray, which he calls a KippiPak. Now in his 80s, he has poured all of the assets earned from his successful printing businesses into this little paper pouch that miraculously puts out cigarette butts in a few seconds.
Winnacott is one of those people who turns outrage into positive action, and he has a long list of affronts to the environment, from butt litter to ocean dumping of garbage by cruise lines, that he regularly speaks out about.
His KippiPaks are now being handed out in Pittsburgh as part of a campaign to make the downtown a model of cleanliness and change littering behaviour.
Pittsburgh’s Downtown Partnership, a non-profit organization of businesses, civic organizations, property owners and foundations, is behind the initiative that comes complete with a superhero, armed with cleaning equipment and provided with a Batman-like back story. The partnership bought 80,000 of Winnacott’s envelopes, custom printed with the caped crusader.
With the help of foundation funding, the partnership is hiring Clean Team staff, buying equipment, and is “detailing” Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. Part of the program is to educate people that butts are in fact a litter problem and distribute Winnacott’s KippiPaks.
Early feedback has been positive. According to the Downtown Partnership’s Patti Burke, when Clean Team members clad in yellow shirts approached people in the street, women were the most receptive to the product. Those who were reluctant to listen became interested when they learned they could extinguish a half-finished cigarette in the little envelope and save it for later.
It’s so typical that a Canadian invention wins acceptance first south of the border. It’s been a tough sell for Winnacott in Canada, but maybe Pittsburgh’s creative approach might bring in more U.S. customers and help change attitudes here.
Ironically, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s family business, Deco Labels, does the printing.
Send comments to e_moorhouse@sympatico.ca.
Read previous Trash Talks
- Bin there, done that
- Entrepreneurs explore the green niches
- How to downsize your home
- Advice from the downsizing trenches
- Passing on the burden of cultural custodian
- Readers vent garbage pet peeves
- Student pet peeves
- What irks you about garbage?
- Contracting out garbage service would create upheaval
- It's a stinky business
- Too much of a sound bite
- Forsaken chairs find virtual home
- Behind the eco-tempest
- Furniture
that's blue bin friendly
- Organics
key in York region success
- These
kids really know how to talk trash
- The
scoop on poop
- Going
green in the garden
- Earning
EcoSchool status
- Garbage
issues are on their minds
- All
of that gum gives city workers something to chew on
- Recycling
your closet hang-ups
- Not
your average food processor
- A
green dream: three bin bathrooms
- Winter
composting
- Reusable
bag a lesson in stewardship
- Signs
of the times and what they mean
- Campaign
targets takeout trash
- Consider
coming clean in 2010
- Eco-paint
container isn't that green
- Stewardship
program to drive tire recycling
- Loft
reno represents extreme recycling
- Hitting
the dead mattress problem
- Modest
proposals for Waste Reduction Week
- Battery
recycling doesn't always make sense
- This
PET's a big problem
- Sorting
through the blue box conundrum
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Got
the blue bin blues? Don't overstuff
- The
not-so-green side of gardening waste
- Overcoming the blips
of electronic waste
- Pet
food, aluminum
foil and another twist on caps
- Don't chuck it, use
it
- Don't
flip your lid over cap conundrum
- From
milk cartons to
toilet tissue
- Bin there? Hidden
radio frequency tags know all
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Answers for all
those 'irritating garbage questions'