In a press conference at City Hall a few moments ago, Rob Ford announced that he has formally notified Local 416 of his "intention to recommend a competitive bid process" for three service areas: residential garbage collection from Yonge Street west to the Etobicoke border, litter and recycling collection in City parks, and litter vacuum operations. The union contends that this will end up costing the City money: since the current union contract has job protection clauses, any worker taken off garbage collection duty would need to be given another job at the City. The mayor's team argues that as union workers retire, they will not need to be replaced, thereby generating savings.

After the protracted strike last year, garbage workers were held in low esteem by a lot of people in Toronto. This wasn't surprising, since for most people the most important regular interaction they have with municipal service is garbage collection. (Well, actually, the most important service city dwellers get is probably water, since without water we would die. However, there is no municipal water boy who comes around each morning with a pail of water for us, so garbage workers are more visible and therefore they're more important to us.)

Photo by Joel Charlebois/Torontoist. Each year, on the first Sunday in May, the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation holds its annual Ceremony of Remembrance, to honour officers killed in the line of duty. The Ceremony consists of a procession, to bagpipe music, south along Queen’s Park Crescent, to the lawn in front of the Provincial Legislature. [...]

Ask Torontoist features questions posed by you and answered by our elite team of specially trained investigative experts (also known as our staff). Send your questions to ask@torontoist.com. Reader Ira Kates asks: Do you guys know why garbage cans were removed all along Front Street? Photo by Marc Lostracco/Torontoist. Torontoist answers: The City of Toronto [...]

Walking down Spadina Avenue between College and Dundas streets, you might completely miss them, so well do they blend in with the street scene. But stop by one of Chinatown’s many municipal trash bins, let your eyes wander up slightly, and you might see one, attached to a utility pole, doing its best imitation of [...]

The city workers’ strike has been a hardship, for sure. Toronto’s parks are starting to look like garbage barges run aground, non-union city employees and private citizens alike are dirtying their hands and straining their muscles to keep our streets somewhat presentable, and the striking workers themselves have had to go all this time without [...]

Island garbage collection hand trucks, September 16, 1929. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 70, Item 315. As the current municipal strike nears the end of its first week, garbage remains the talk of the town. As Torontonians break through the plastic wrap placed around bins and protest sites chosen as temporary [...]

Photo by Martin Reis from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Well, that didn’t take long: with the municipal workers’ strike barely a day old, garbage is already piling up across the city, including in local parks. The above photo, taken early yesterday afternoon, shows a heap of refuse at Christie Pits; trash cans across Toronto are [...]

Original illustration by Matt Hammill and Emily Tu for the Toronto Public Space Committee, poshed up by Jonathan Goldsbie. Earlier this afternoon, Torontoist was explaining to an American friend the quirks of the process by which Torontonians are supposed to dispose of our coffee cups: pop the plastic lid off the paper cup and throw [...]