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Newsstand: December 30, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
As the week goes on: Rob Ford thinks Scarborough is too far away, our garbage is about to stay closer to home, council’s getting a pay hike whether they want it or not, and smoking is 25% more bad for you.
Christmas is over, but the gravy’s still a-flowin’. Okay, it’s not gravy so much as a pretty standard cost of living increase on city councillors’ salaries, but still! Whether they want it or not, City staff confirmed councillors will get a slight pay raise in 2011. Last year’s slight raise of 0.47% put salaries up to $99,619.52. Of course councillors can opt to donate the increase back to the city, as deputy mayor Doug Holyday has done for two years. Or council can put forth a motion to freeze council salaries, as Holyday hopes they will.
Rob Ford answers some questions about his plans for 2011, how the power trip is going, and whether he actually seriously really needs to keep pretending to coach high school football. Oh, and even he admits Scarborough is too far away.
It’s time for Toronto’s garbage to say goodbye to the rolling hills of Michigan and the breathtaking vistas at the Carlton Farms Landfill. The City’s contract with the detritus dump just southwest of Detroit has expired, so starting January 1 the City will no longer ship its refuse out of the country. Instead our trash will take a short jaunt down the 401 to settle at the majestic Green Lane Landfill near London, and our garbage won’t have to search all over for its passport before heading out. The London landfill is predicted to fill up by 2025 if waste diversion initiatives—like green bins—don’t work out, and by 2033 if they do.
More rubbish news: one of the city’s digesters for processing green bin gunk is in need of repair. After seven years of faithful service, the machine that eats up our once-edibles and spits them out as compost needs some cleaning and a bit of work done, so a contract for a back-up digester was signed in August. Eventually the back-up digester will become a fully operational alternate and the city’s green bin processing capacity will double, which will accommodate increased demand as the green bin program is expanded to high-rise apartments.
Smokers be even more aware: sucking on those things might not be such a good idea, in case you didn’t know. The Ministry of Health will be unveiling newer, bigger graphic warning labels on cigarette packs that will cover 75% of the pack. The current warning labels take up 50% of the pack and were released ten years ago, so it’s nice of the government to spend $4 million updating obvious warnings that smokers will ignore and/or giggle at.