Has Toronto No Bigger Problems?
Toronto plans crackdown on blue-box scavengers
Starting the evening before recycling day and often working all night in neighbourhoods throughout Toronto, scruffy-looking scavengers armed with dilapidated shopping carts sift through the city’s blue bins, grabbing beer and liquor bottles to return for refunds.
It’s a trade that city officials are planning to stamp out.
Seriously now, are there no bigger issues that Toronto City Council needs to deal with than the poor making a few dollars off someone else’s garbage?
Damn city! Hell, what do they care who takes care of the bottles? The less they have to process the better, and then somebody who may be homeless or disadvantaged can make a couple extra cents. Hell, I normally can’t be asked to take my empties to the bear store, so I leave ‘em on my porch, to encourage a “scavenger” to make some much-needed money off of it.
Better to spend the money clamping down on these people than on affordable housing or beds in shelters?
The odd thing is the sense of grievance City Hall seems to carry against the ’scavengers’. City residents pay for garbage removal so the city gets paid whether it is taken away or not – so why aren’t we encouraging this kind of work ethic? Of course, if I see anyone get ticketed for going through my bin I will not hesitate to tell suggest I leave the bottles for the bottle collection people and it is the city who are the real scavengers.
A city like Toronto has way bigger things to worry about than what poor person is getting a few bucks from collecting bottle & cans – this is
(a) a distraction to move focus away from something else, and
(b) another way of keeping those who are already down right where they are.
Anybody willing to take bets that at least one of the talking points they come out with in the fall won’t mention it as a way of controlling homeless people and panhandlers?
Doesn’t the business model of the recycle program rely on the income from money back bottles and cans in order to supplement the cost of the program? I suppose that you could raise property taxes a little more from those arrogant hard working citizens to cover the costs of the lost revenue, in effect, raising taxes to supplement the income of a few desperate homeless “scavengers”.
And jonZor, you must have very respectful and honest homeless people where you live, inviting them onto your porch to take things. Personally, I prefer to help out the unfortunate and down and out by making financial contributions to shelters and food banks instead of putting MY money towards booze, dope and ciggs for the “scavengers”. I also like to save my bottles for the local kid’s sports teams and the boy scouts that come around every so often.
Stageleft, I think you may be onto something with your two points. A. For sure this is just a ruse to take away from the conservative’s plot to blow up buildings and such to keep everybody living in fear.
B. I’m pretty sure that the Cons just really enjoy kicking people when they are down. Like, I mean, doesn’t everybody? You are for sure onto something big there. Maybe you should follow these conspiracy theories up with some more good posts.
VR
Sorry, I’ll just meakly leave you up there on your high horse. You seem to enjoy it. I actually know who the person is who takes my bottles and it is an elderly lady, and perhaps her husband, who I have seen at various places around the city. When I discovered it was her goign through my blue bin, I thought I’d make it easier on her. She probably needs the $1-2 more than I do.
SL
From the city’s perspective, I don’t think they are actually explicitly trying to keep the poor people down. I think many municiapal politicians would like to do something like provide more affordable housing and beds, but a lot of that money comes from the province and feds (or, more realisitically, deosn’t come) so there’s little they can do. Seems more like a busted system, since apparently the recycling program is bleeding money because of the lost revenue, so the politicians make a choice… wrong choice, right choice, who knows, follow the money.
Toronto recently (Feb. ‘08) eliminated 300 shelter beds downtown and almost no affordable housing is being built.
Toronto just bought landfill site in my neck of the woods. Purchase price $265 million. That’s what the aluminum is needed for.
Most cities are able to make money on garbage and recycling because of the price for newsprint and aluminum now.
I live in the greater GTA region, and if I have to say one thing about Toronto it is this: what the hell happened?
What used to be a clean, prosperous city is now overrun by thugs and gangs. Retired police officers are being called back into service because noone else wants to work the streets of Toronto (can’t blame them).
Mediocre policies like the handgun ban which waste millions of my taxpaying dollars have been going on for too long now.
Garbage ladies are a huge problem here in Vancouver. The thing is that it provides a kind of horrible subsistence living that should be discouraged. We need to find better financial solutions for these trash-pickers. I hate it when I see so many people rifling through the trash of the city. It makes our society look run-down and dilapidated, which is strange when you consider how filthy rich people here are. The contrast between the dumpster divers and the luxury car crowd is beginning to look like Sao Paolo.
Our society is fast becoming run-down and dilapidated Raphael, the growing numbers of the poor and the homeless walking our streets are one sign of that, attempting to make it illegal for them to eek out a little financial relief is another.