Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
As the city celebrated Canada Day yesterday, a small group of Christie Pits neighbourhood residents—disgruntled by the City's policy of using parks as temporary dump sites during the city workers' strike—took their grievance to City Hall in a protest organized by Friends of Christie Pits. Residents' groups around the city have been confronting people coming to drop off their garbage at park sites.
The protesters brought bags of trash to drop at the front door of City Hall, but, in keeping with the family-friendly feel of the protest, the bags were full of fake garbage—some containing nothing but air—and none were left behind.
All photos by Miles Storey/Torontoist.
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One of those signs reads: "Democracy in the dumps"
Really? For real? You consider this tantamount to an assualt on democracy? Someone call the perspective police...
The garbage needs to go somewhere and everyone has to make sacrifices. The parks are essentially decommisioned and non-maintained for the time being, so it makes sense to keep some of the garbage there.
It sucks, but the strike sucks all-around. What is up with this town lately? Everybody screaming in protest when they have to make some minor sacrifice, even if that sacrifice is for the greater good. And it's nice to see a family-friendly protest, but it would be nicer if the kids weren't being taught that their personal comfort is more important than good citizenship--which sometimes means dealing with unpleasant situations.
(Another thought: if the city hadn't designated the Pits as a dump, lots of people would still be dumping there anyway, but it would be illegally. The garbage would then be strewn all over the lawns instead of neatly piled in the hockey rink.)
Amen, to all of that.
There are 44 wards in Toronto. 10 of them received the 19 dumps. These 10 represent the lower socio-economic areas. Democracy? More like pandering to political pressure.
It would have made more sense to use the Green P parking lots for dumps. Not many toddlers play in them.
This isn't about "personal comfort" it's about dumping toxic waste in a park.
Wow, spoken like someone for whom having a major source of greenspace used as a dump is "minor inconvenience." So I don't know who you are, really, for real, but I know who you aren't:
1. The woman who is 3 months pregnant and lives about 30 meters in front of the rink who is now exposed to daily sprayings of insecticide and rodenticide already outlawed for park use because of their health risks, as well as offgassing from the general garbage area.
2. Any person in the surrounding communities (any park near homes, not just Christie Pits) concerned with what is, by all accounts, an untested experiment on humans living beside leachate (dissolved and suspended organic material, human feces from diapers, toxins, heavy metals, estrogens, and of course, now, the pest control poison, of which there is currently 5+cm pooling in the rink). Landfills have rigorous engineering requirements to manage leachate. A hockey rink with a concrete floor in a park does not qualify, and never could. Interestingly, the city did send a sewage truck to siphon off the toxic leachate, but CUPE strikers blocked it. Perhaps you can explain how "good citizenship" and the "greater good" figures into that, because I've begun to lose track.
3. Any of the 300 kids, many on scholarship for lack of funds, who had their soccer and other activities cancelled. That may seem like a "minor inconvenience" to you, but I'm gathering you're not a little kid of limited means with 10 weeks of summer in an very cold climate who now has had your outdoor recreation shut down (and now poisoned with the stench.). Maybe some of the kids in this city can go away to private camps, but mostly, in summers past, Christie Pits has been swarming with kids in the wading pool who didn't. It isn't a minor sacrifice to them, but at least you're around to tell them they'll understand "good citizenship" in the end.
4. Any of the community gardeners who have worked since spring on a large organic garden at the bottom of the pits (the rink is on the top, think about that). I suppose the weeks and months of building a community site of engagement, and the satisfiction of working with their neighbors toward a common goal (you know, what people do when they cooperate with one another in cities) will now be replaced by the warm glow of knowing they served the greater good.
A "minor inconvenience" is finding someplace else to walk your labradoodle. This goes well beyond that. Really. For real.
"...the city did send a sewage truck to siphon off the toxic leachate, but CUPE strikers blocked it."
Wait, what? A union targeting the public at large in the name of a strike? Unheard of!
I'm all for enviro living and do my bit -- I don't own a car, my partner and I live in
1) Toronto City Hall proposes to spray for pests using Permethrin. The US National Pesticide Info Center data sheet (at Oregon State U with funding from the EPA) cites two studies involving 300 pregnant women who had permethrin physically applied to their bodies. No adverse effects were recorded. If you are worried about subsequent pesticide leachate, the half-life of permethrin in aerobic soil is 40 days, and is broken down by a wide variety of microbes.
In light of these facts, the Christie Pitters come across as sanctimonious alarmist NIMBYs. I wish they were as vocal on behalf of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Sarnia who, because of exposure from nearby chemical plants for decades, now enjoy a female:male birthrate of 2:1 and 6 year old children who vomit blood a couple of times a week from unknown causes.
So sorry about the smell over there at Christie and Bloor.
2) Most dumps are designed to manage leachate for 50-100 years under immense compression and pressure. Modern ones typically include a concrete layer. I don't know what the permeability of ice rink concrete is, but I don't imagine it is particularly high, and I don't imagine a 5cm pool of goo exerts much pressure.
3) Re the children. I like your point about "good citizenship". Also, there are lots of parks in Toronto. Exploring is fun! Certainly I had more fun exploring as a kid than I did in organized sports.
4) Maybe you guys should organize something else?
errr the comment thingy cut off my first paragraph which should read:
I'm all for enviro living and do my bit -- I don't own a car, my partner and I live in less than 250 sq. feet (for three years now) and we produce just one grocery store sized plastic bag of garbage (non-recyclable and non-compostable) between us every two weeks. But I think a lot of your concerns are founded on freaky-deaky alarmist presumption rather than proof.
Thanks, Easy Writer. I'll pass on your analysis of permethrin to the pregnant woman. If you wouldn't mind, could you also do an inventory of Difethialone as well as every consumer and industrial use chemical (there are businesses using the dumps) thrown in the garbage and the effects of aerosol evaporation and seepage therin? Because the concern isn't that the leachate is going to crack the hockey rink. The concern is that the pool of it is rising, and upon the next rain, left untreated, will flood the confines of its enclosure in a park that runs downhill.
And if she asks, I'll tell her she should listen to you for sure. After all, you live in 250 sq. ft. with another person and have the perspective of knowing about a more tragic abuse of the public trust somewhere else. Not that you've done anything about that either, mind you, but you do know about it so as to advise people who are concerned for any other locations to sit down.
No, you know what, I won't leave it there. I think it's disgusting that you'd use the Sarnia community's tragedy to...what. What are you doing exactly? To...attempt to make yourself look morally superior to other people on a message board. That is, to my eyes, the opposite of helping. It's exploiting. Good day to you.
Three cheers for rhetoric. Hip hip hooEryngo.
I raise my enviro decisions to show that I am predisposed to privilege environmental values as a matter of serious and personal concern and am not the conservative hater you would have inevitably named me in rebuttal... but I'm trying to look at the Christie Pitts situation with a bit of rationality instead of alarmism and understand what your substantive concerns are in fact and if the City is addressing them adequately.
As for Aamjiwnaang I did do some work down there thanks. Modest admittedly, just two days of local work interviewing residents to form an evidentiary record. I don't mean to sound morally superior about it either, but rather to illustrate that the coverage Christie Pitts is getting on CBC and CTV is grossly disproportionate to the danger, need or misery endured by hundreds of others.
As for the risk of rink overflow, I'd suggest the Friends of the Park let the sewage pumping trucks in to do their job and avoid this danger. Duh.
As for the adventitious presence of other chemicals, the ominous specter of which you raised subsequent to my post, I completely agree that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of legal negligence claims. These dumps need to be monitored to comply with all anti-toxic dumping laws. If your argument is that this is impossible or Toronto is not doing so, have the Friends hire a lawyer (I'd recommend enviro specialists Wills & Shier), bring the issue before a judge, and get an injunction and order for removal. If the judge disagrees, welcome to the wonderful world of environmental law as practiced at dump sites beyond the borders of our lovely urban enclave.
EasyWriting: I suspected you might have done some modest work there, actually, and that it wasn't a coincidence that they were in your moral highground toolkit by name forevermore. That's the great thing about doing community work, isn't it? Street cred. Well, sorta. Two days' worth anyhow. But hey, when you say "get those community activists off the TV NOW!" maybe someone will think that gives you the right.
While we're setting the record straight with you yet again, it is CUPE that is blocking the sanitation truck and pesticide truck, not the residents. The residents blocked the pesticide truck until they could find out what was being sprayed, and are no longer blocking it (concerned, no doubt, about infestation at this point). CUPE, not actually needing to live where they are picketing, are blocking both as a matter of their "nothing in, nothing out" policy. So we will have rats, bugs, and leachate overflowing unless Toronto's Medical Officer of Health breaks CUPE protests lines to spray and clean up. Which he has indicated he will do.
But by all means, turn the channel to something more newsworthy than the city and the union intentionally creating a chemical and infestation hazard and then duking it out figuring how to fix it. People don't need to hear about that. Better it all happened in the dark. It certainly isn't democracy in action and a just use of the press.
You do realize you are currently paying for a service that is not being delivered. (Assuming you actually pay taxes.) Furthermore you cannot withhold payment without going to jail, nor can you switch to another service, since competing services are prohibited.
Meanwhile people go bananas when Rogers charges too much for text messages. Imagine the uproar if they shut off all service for weeks on end, yet continued billing you! And that's just cellphone use - far less essential than garbage collection or daycare services.
What's strange to me, and probably pissing pepole off the most, are all the authoritarian sycophants saying it's no big deal, and everyone should just "calm down" because "there's nothing that can be done."
LOL nothing can be done my ass. This whole debacle - which we just went through a few years ago - should have everyone screaming for changes.
"LOL nothing can be done my ass. This whole debacle - which we just went through a few years ago - should have everyone screaming for changes."
What would you like to have done? The citizens being forced to lower their trash output? The union legislated back to work? The union disbanded? The city forced to accept whatever offer the union has on the table on the eve of a strike, regardless of its financial position? A spare garbage dump set up so that we have one if people go on strike? Garbage collection privatized, people put out of work or forced to accept pay cuts by private enterprises?
The union legislated back to work?
The union disbanded?
Garbage collection privatized, people put out of work or forced to accept pay cuts by private enterprises?
Those are 3 very good suggestions. Funny how so many people are completely blind to those. It's as if they've been brainwashed.
Also, here's a Яolcat for anyone who thinks like Dry Brain.
Shouldn't the fact that the city has essentially okay'ed the slow poisoning of some of its citizens be a concern for EVERYONE? Up until now, it hasn't been.
Dry Brain’s reductive comments that the strike “sucks all around” and that good citizenship means “dealing with unpleasant situations” add little to the critical debate here. They DO indicate that he/she has already rolled over to play dead as the city continues to run roughshod over the civil liberties of (all) Torontonians who have a legitimate right to enjoy uncontaminated public park spaces. These phrases are the mating calls of the unimaginative. Meaningful social change was never effected by giving up so easily.
Oh, toronto.taxpayer. I detect a hint of libertarianiasm here… (the system of political thought for those whose intellect is advanced but whose emotional and psychological development is arrested at the level of a self-absorbed 13 year-old.)
Just because you’re a taxpayer doesn’t mean you have a right to be kowtowed to by the government. It doesn’t buy you freedom from discomfort—or as you insist on calling it, an infringement on your “civil liberties”, which is a ridiculous exaggeration in this case. Is anyone preventing you from voting? Or holding certain beliefs? Or practicing your religion? Or associating with those you choose?
No. It’s insulting to equate a temporary suspension of city services, and the resulting temporary compensatory measures, (i.e. garbage in the park) with an attack on civil liberties. Or democracy.
And I’m not saying I like garbage in the park. I hope the city gets tough on picketers preventing access to sanitation vehicles, and I hope the strike ends soon. But I don’t have the gall and deranged perspective to think my rights as a citizen are in some serious jeopardy. (And yes, the spraying of pesticides serious issue. But again, do you want disease-carrying rats and cockroaches running all over the place? Put forth a more effective solution. Seriously.)
And I think easywriter has a point about there being a degree of alarmism at work here re:pesticides. I didn't want to say anything because I'm not an expert on this stuff, but he/she makes some interesting points.
Good catch, DB. Your brain is not completely dry, it seems. I did indeed use the term “civil liberties” in an exaggerated way—self consciously so, for punctuation. To the degree that you found that usage insulting is to miss the point. It was a rhetorical rejoinder to your (equally extreme) dismissal of the current garbage situation at the park(s) as nothing more than inconvenience. Fact is, the city’s actions ARE an infringement (though clearly not at the same level as freedom of religion, speech, etc.—I never made that equation).
Do you really feel that it’s the duty of the citizens to provide a solution to this debacle? I am protesting the city’s reprehensible choice to place parks at the top on their list of temporary dump sites. There were various other possibilities, and those were suggested to the city before the dumping began. But the cavalier mayor has adopted what appears to be the worst option. That is where I lodge my protest.
Your cartoonish portrayal aside, I am a far cry from what anyone might call a libertarian, but I do appreciate your vote of confidence regarding advanced intellect.
I think I have to agree with that too. I also feel like I have to add the following: I wasn't here for the last strike, so I have no idea how the city reacted last time, but I have to say that this time around, I have been pretty disappointed with the behavior of some people in this city regarding the strike. It seems to me that this is the perfect opportunity to take a step back and evaluate the amount of waste that one produces. Instead, people are producing as much waste as they usually do, and, even worse, dumping inappropriately.
While I sympathize with the residents of the parks - makeshift dumps in the park suck, they are unsightly (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauriemcgregor/3676223823/) and smell pretty rank - it's better than what is going on elsewhere in the city: dumping around garbage receptacles that clearly aren't getting emptied anytime soon, and littering anywhere, using the strike as an excuse.
Toronto! Be responsible for your trash! Take it home, or find somewhere else to put it. The other day, I passed a bench on Bloor near Ossington COVERED in trash. I was horrified. How is that different than just leaving it on the ground? I understand it's a hassle to take it home, but as "Dry Brain" said, we all need to make sacrifices in this situation.
I live at Bloor/Ossington and it's terrible. There's a war going on here between whoever is postering the place with Keep Bloorcourt Beautiful*, people dumping their garbage everywhere, and places like Pizza Pizza at Davenport sealing up their outside garbage cans with cardboard and tape so they don't have to deal with it. I'm shocked by how little local businesses care about the state of the sidewalk at their door. They can't even be bothered to sweep it to the gutter, it just blows around, fills the tree planters, and clusters around the benches and corners and edges of things.
*When was it ever?
I should also mention that I see it both ways, and the parking lot idea is a good one. But god forbid we lose parking in this city! (Jokes.) It's just unfortunate that both is happening... that is to say organized dumping as well as littering. When I went to Christie Pits the other night to check out the situation and take some photographs, I noticed that there was a lot of litter all over the park, aside from the dumping area.
This REALLY is not a matter of "comfort." I feel terrible for the residents of Crawford Street, who are exposed daily to constant traffic AND the fumes and toxins of the trash dumped by fellow Torontonians. A small group of people should NOT have to suffer and have their health jeopardized -- that IS "undemocratic." Besides that, this is really everyone's issue: there are long term environmental and health issues at stake here, as toxins from the trash, the "leachate," and the pesticides sprayed repeatedly on the dump by the City leach into the ground surrounding the rink (just take a look -- it's happening). This toxic mess could leach into our water supply (Garrison Creek runs right under the site, flowing into Lake Ontario). This is not just a question of comfort.
Traffic: bad when it's in your neighbourhood.
True enough..but I think it would be helpful if you avoided the sarcastic one-liners! To clarify my point: Crawford Street was not designed to be a high-volume street, so the traffic IS more of an issue than it would be on Yonge, or Bloor, or Dundas, or Dufferin (etc., etc.). But, again, the most important issue is NOT the traffic, but the far-reaching health, safety, and environmental issues represented by the storage and repeated chemical treatment of trash in an area that was not designed for that purpose, in extremely close proximity to residences, play spaces, a community garden, etc., etc.
Green P's? Not only are they money making for the city, they are also money making for all of the small local businesses that the drivers are parking to get to. I understand being upset about using a beautiful park as a dump, but I'd rather do that then hurt some local vendor who will loose business because there is no where for clients to park nearby.
Maybe their clients should be riding a bike or taking transit instead of driving?
Green P parking lots all drain into the lake.
If these people who live right beside Christie Pits were living a garbage-free lifestyle I'd have more sympathy for them. As it stands it is the definition of NIMBY-ism. With a dash of OMG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN. Guys you have a park in your backyard which is awesome 99.9% of the time. We all pay for it without bitching and you benefit the most so seriously lighten up.
If these people who live right beside Christie Pits were living a garbage-free lifestyle I'd have more sympathy for them. As it stands it is the definition of NIMBY-ism. With a dash of OMG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN. Guys you have a park in your backyard which is awesome 99.9% of the time. We all pay for it without bitching and you benefit the most so seriously lighten up.
It would no doubt please you to discover, then, FDGB, that a casual survey of the people picketing reveals that every one of them is still hanging on to their garbage (it being such a reasonable amount that it's not out of hand yet) AND using a community-organized vegan compost bin in the park. In addition, they've made and distributed flyers that detail how to reduce waste so that you don't need to dump anywhere. But nice try painting them otherwise. Are you used to a world where things are so ideologically dichotomized? Sorry to disappoint. Sometimes the world is complicated.
Similarly, thanks for trotting out two old canards in such a small space, the first, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?? usually used to highlight a paranoid response to a cultural-moral dilemma (video games, working parents, and the like) and the effect it will have on a developing tot's psychology (see Dry Brain's "wounded childhood" assumption). No guys, in this case, the children are simply brought in to the issue in case anyone considers them human residents too, and wondered what they're thinking and feeling while this is going on. The point was that their definition of "minor inconvenience" was different from, say, a more mobile not-living-in-the-neighborhood-but-able-to-drop-by-when-the-greenspace-mood-strikes person. This is kinda where they live and go every day. Playgrounds, splash pads... that is, in fact, their life in the summer. You've made your point that you feel the right thing for us to do is tell them stiff upper lip and remember the 416 (and 79).
On the other canard of NIMBY, if I were surprised, I'd say it grieves me that you'd comment on a matter you haven't even read about, but the protests are about eliminating dumps in the city's parks in GENERAL. That's everybody's backyard. Even people who don't choose to value it.
All this aside for a moment, where's the garbage going to go then, if not in a park or a parking lot?
re: compost at the Christie Pits garden
Can I get in on this? I don't have a plot but I live nearby, close enough I could toss my banana peels and wilted salad in on a regular basis.
Yep. They're taking vegan compost. They actually want it. Look for the garden and you'll find the compost close by.
I assume, then, that each of the adults and children would be protesting in equal force if the dumping was happening in Rouge Park. Good to know we have such civic minded citizenry.
# 1 is terrible.
#2 is terrible, but could be easily avoided if the city would send some police to back up the sewage trucks who are supposed to drain the leachate. It's pretty awful for CUPE to stand in the way of those trucks. (Of couse, the leachate would still be there in some degree because many people would be dumping in the park anyway, just like in '02. Again, they'd be dumping on the grass so the leachate would be leaching into the ground and would be much less manageable.)
#3 is an inconvenience. It’s shitty, but it is an inconvenience, nothing more. Loss of a wading pool does not constitute a wounded childhood.
#4 Also an inconvenience. Obviously. I wouldn’t like to have my precious organic garden disrupted, but best-laid plans sometimes go awry. Deal.
For the record, I don’t live in the neighbourhood, but I do live nearby, and Christie Pits is one of my most frequently used green spaces.
And yes, spacejack, I realize I’m paying for a service that isn’t being provided. I like how you call my citizenship into question (“assuming you actually pay taxes”). Also, I never said nothing can be done. Obviously many things can be done, i.e. the city can be more forceful about making sure these temporary dump sites are cleaned regularly and the leachate is drained. They can spray less often for vermin. But then there’ll be vermin, which create their own health problems.
Would it be more sanitary if the garbage was piling up in huge mounds on street corners? No it wouldn’t, and it would be a lot more unavoidable. I like the parking lot idea too, but that’s probably because I don’t drive. There’d be an enormous uproar if the city did it. And parks have more capacity.
Basically, whichever way you slice it, having that much trash in the city is unhealthy. It’s a hazard in the parks, in parking lots, or in the streets. So let’s try to work together on this rather than becoming protectors of our own little neighbourhood fiefdoms at the expense of the rest of the city.
Oh yeah, those numbers are in response to Eryngo's numbered points.
It depends on who you ask. To get through this strike, I'd feel better if they were keeping enough staff to cart the stuff from concrete areas (preferably not parks, but carefully maintained concrete park sites if needed) out to a facility nightly, and clean the site in the interim. Most people dumping garbage thought this is what was happening--they didn't realize it was being allowed to just pile up. That would eliminate the rodent problem without poisons, and most of the stench and runoff. They're already fully staffing the site with trucks and workers from 7am to 7pm anyway, and security guards after that. I only represent myself on that position, however, and I don't live on the street.
Other people have other ideas on sites, from green P lots to renting private parking lots away from people, to right in front of city hall. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that having an alternative, as a private citizen, is not a requirement for not wanting parks and neighborhoods poisoned, and no one should ever try to convince you it is. You don't need to moonlight as a city planner to have the right to demand that those for whom planning IS their job do it, and keep toxins out of our parks and neighborhoods. This isn't an act of God or Nature, it's an ill-conceived plan and there should be accountability at every level.
As for the future, I think the issue will resolve itself, for better or worse, when it's time for elections. At this point, the general mood is such that anybody running for anything could post campaign pictures of garbage in the streets and parks and win with the slogan "never again." Part of me shudders to think who will make it in on that train, which is yet another aspect of the tragedy. But I suspect, whoever it is, there won't be another garbage strike.
"To get through this strike, I'd feel better if they were keeping enough staff to cart the stuff from concrete areas (preferably not parks, but carefully maintained concrete park sites if needed) out to a facility nightly, and clean the site in the interim."
Well, and I'd feel better if there was a robot on every corner ready to take my empty Starbucks cup. Have you heard of the strike? Whatever staff is still working is working overtime and doing their best. Consult the Globe and Mail story on staffing sewage plants if in doubt.
"The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that having an alternative, as a private citizen, is not a requirement for not wanting parks and neighborhoods poisoned, and no one should ever try to convince you it is."
It's not a requirement, but it helps a lot if you don't want to be taken as a flaming NIMBY.
For every suggestion of renting private parking lots or using the municipal lots, you would have people protesting along the lines of "why are my taxes going to pay for this/cover the lost income while these parks are sitting empty, unstaffed, and unused."
Tell me, Gviri, what would be necessary in order to not be taken as a flaming apologist for the city?
Oh wait, that's right. You don't know.
I don't know, Gringo.
Racism and Xenophobia. The last appeal of the intellectually bereft.
Already? Really? I'm sorry.
Now the question is, if one isn't the right race or xeno, should one offended or amused in response? Should one be offended "as if" the slur were true, in solidarity with those for whom it would be, or would laughing be like laughing at a racist joke? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Um, I was referring to your inability to spell my nickname correctly. You know, starting it with a capital G instead of the letter that should be there?
Now, where we were before this mildly dramatic interruption full of Big Words?
I think we were in the place where I mistook an underlined lower case "q" for a "g" and insulted your internet identity.
You know, it's happened before, when you were trolling homophobes on the SFist. Here:
http://sfist.com/2009/05/26/prop_8_upheld_rules_california_stat.php
SFist. And you call ME Gringo.
Here's an idea: why don't you go to all the "ist" boards you post on (how many are there anyway?) and just capitalize your user name. Or don't, and face the wrath of your internet self for not protecting it while you still could! RRRRR!
Right. My address is on my website, please feel free to email me if you wish to continue the fascinating discussion regarding where I post and why, but I think the garbage part of the topic has ran its course.
I have the solution. How about producing less garbage? Why isn't the police ticketing all these people who are littering our streets? I don't know what are they thinking - we all live in same city - it is possible to throw my garbage just outside my doorstep and forget about it. We should have laws like in Singapore.
Finally, I would like to opt out of the garbage tax. They should have an option. I do not want to pay for all these ignorant people or people who produce enormous amounts of garbage. I have 1-2 small grocery bag in 2 weeks filled with packaging and food waste (I live in an apartment building, so no green bin for me). I like paying per usage.
Why isn't police doing anything to prevent littering? Serve and protect, my ass!
because crimes are only important when Chief Blair thinks they are.
How about another solution?
Obviously the best solution in the long term is to produce less garbage. Really, it's the only way that society will be able to progress as populations increase and viable dumping land decreases.
In the short term, why don't communities come together and take care of the trash for themselves? Despite whether we are for or against the union members, the reality is that they are on strike, and we have to deal with the fallout. None of us enjoys walking by parks filled with trash. No one really wants to return to a situation similar to the strike of '02. Why don't we do something ourselves?
A dozen or so people with a few pickups and cargo vans could make short work of the unsightly mess. Then the trash could simply be carted to facilities and sites in unaffected areas.
I don't quite see how the solution to a labour conflict is "obviously" to produce less garbage. It may be a partial solution to other stuff though.
If it was deemed essential that garbage never be forced to be stored in temporary facilities or locations that are not suited to it, it would seem to suggest that no future labour disruption be allowed to interrupt garbage collection in the future.
This could be achieved by making garbage collection an essential service (expensive for the City) or by contracting out garbage collection to a company that would have to have a contract in place with their work force and/or union (such as the case in Etobicoke).
Garbage will always be with us and democracy is working just fine - the union is striking against the unfairness, the Christie Pitters are protesting the unfairness and the government is trying to get some fairness for their budgets. Oh, and this too will pass.