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| Typical garbage day |
I did not learn this new habit recently, but I do have a
deeper understanding of it since becoming a homeowner myself last month. The
pressure of learning is certainly on.
As opposed to the one big, gigantic green bin allotted to
each property owner that we got accustomed to in South Africa, here in Canada,
it’s almost some kind of street celebration when it’s garbage day on your
neighbourhood block. The multi-coloured bins line up the street curbs like they
were Christmas lights on a pine tree.
The green bins in South Africa were not too choosy and held every kind
of waste imaginable. Be it organic, plastic, garbage, recyclable anything, non-recyclable
junk, etc., whatever it can carry, as long as the weight is manageable and you
can still wheel the bin out to the street, it’s all good.
Shortly after landing here in Canada, we learnt that this
bad habit of ours, mixing everything up with no care in the world, was about to
go. We were warned that our discarded items would not be collected if we erred
on putting the correct garbage in the right bin. And since I do hate unfinished
business with a vengeance (and I count uncollected trash as one of them), I decided
to brush up on our city’s waste management programs.
Here’s a crash course of what I’ve learnt:
The green bins held the organics, the blue the recycling
papers and container items, and the black box was for everything else that were
not allowed to be inside the green or blue bins. On occasion, like every 2
weeks or so, there’s a collection for compost which goes into a brown bag. You
are only allowed 2 black bags every week unless you can buy tags for additional
ones. There are some weeks (very rare) that you can have endless black bags. I
have no idea why...yet. You are allowed endless blue bins unless you ran out of
blue bins, in which case you’d have to start putting your recyclables in a blue
(or white), clear, plastic bag. The green bins here are mini versions of the
ones in South Africa. You can throw out appliances and they are either
collected or taken by other people. If you are not particular, you can drive
around on garbage day. It’s almost like going through a thrift store. Sometimes
you get lucky and sometimes you don’t.
Now that I got that all off my chest, the whole thing felt
like a brief rap of information. It overwhelms me at the moment, all these do’s
and don’ts, and heaven forbid I eventually put something out that is in the
wrong bin, but I am happier to be learning to help the environment in some sort
of way.
For the Peel Region’s waste management programs, see
here.
4 comments:
My youngest daughter and husband started a recycling business, but didn't survive because the city mandated it. But, I learned a lot from them when they were doing it. The more we can recycle, the less we trash our world. It's amazing how much garbage we live in and on!
Everyone should read your post. Great information!
Wow, go Canada. Here in Florida we have regular trash in one big giant bin the garbage truck robot arms can grab & dump (& that's supposed anything except what can be recycled) and a small square bin for recyclables like paper, glass, plastic, etc. Then a once weekly yard trash pick-up that can be in any kind of bag (because they empty the bags into the truck.) However, it's not mandatory. Lots of people don't bother with the separate recycles crate---despite the fact there's a fee they pay for the service in their monthly bill. Nor does every state in the US have a recycle curbside pick-up, though most have places you can take recycleables to and sort yourself.
There's no penalities in Florida for what you put in the trash.
We got these totally cool recycling bins that you can put paper, plastic, glass or aluminum in. I am so easily amused. Now if I could just get my husband to use it on a regular basis I wouldn't have to fish stuff out of the trash compactor. Yuck!
We've actually gotten phone calls from waste management when our items were allocated to the wrong bins. They don't mess around!
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