Toronto trash full of recyclables

Residential trash 80 percent full of recyclables Town Crier audit shows
That’s prior to summer 2009 garbage strike
By Sandie Benitah, Kris Scheuer and Eric McMillan
(Originally published in Town Crier Feb. 07 as a follow-up to a Dec/05 story)

Eric McMillan sorts thru 40 bags of residential trash. Pile on right is recyclables.

A year later, nothing has changed.
At the end of 2005, a Town Crier analysis of household garbage showed about 80 percent of what we were throwing out as trash could easily have been recycled in blue boxes and green bins.
In the year since then the disposal of Toronto’s million tonnes of garbage has been a major issue, with fights over whether to incinerate it, ship it to Michigan or bury it near London.
Here’s a suggestion: Just recycle it.
Twelve months after our original survey, the Town Crier has found that — still — most of our so-called garbage is recyclable.
For two weeks reporters collected garbage bags left at residential curbsides in Toronto: 40 bags in total, five selected randomly from each of our eight coverage areas.

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Toronto-residents-not-recycling-enough

The shocking truth about what many of us are throwing out — and shouldn’t be

By Kris Scheuer and Sandie Benitah
(Originally written for Town Crier Jan 19/06)

Toronto has too much garbage and we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves.
That’s if a Town Crier sampling of garbage bags taken from many neighbourhoods across the city is typical of what’s out there. 
The results are shocking. 
About 80 percent of what we found in the 14 bags (we dug through over 100 bags for a series of stories) was waste that could have easily been recycled if people used their green and blue bins as they’re supposed to.  
We’re talking scrap paper, pop cans, food, diapers — you name it — and with each bag we opened, the city’s garbage situation seemed to get more and more dire. 
According to city statistics, Toronto sends about 975,000 tons of waste each year to Michigan landfills — that’s enough garbage to fill the Roger’s Centre to the top of its retractable roof.  
The city is making an effort to crack down. Come this April, residents across the city will only be allowed to put out five bags of garbage every two weeks. But from the looks of it, some of us won’t be ready.