“Let’s talk garbage!” Howard Tam exclaims, and this crowd of about 60 Torontonians actually looks jazzed.Over the next four and a half hours, he guides the multicultural mix of volunteers — of all ages and genders — as they work through their feelings about recycling, obstacles to doing it right and possible solutions to the complex system’s acknowledged problems.The “design sprint” Friday, co-hosted by the city and a non-profit at Civic Hall Toronto, was a first attempt to tackle Toronto’s vexing, expensive recycling woes through the eyes of the residents who actually use — and sometimes abuse — the resident-funded garbage, blue-box and green-bin system.“We normally deal with the waste management industry or packaging companies or the manufacturers,” to fight problems including “contamination” of blue bins via food waste that stains paper or addition of non-recyclables, such as old clothes, says the city’s Vincent Sferrazza.“This is a great opportunity for us now to engage with residents, community groups, social groups and others to ask, ‘What are we doing — and not doing — right?’,” he says, with recycling as well as a multi-pronged public education campaign to tell people what needs to go in which bin.His solid waste division last spring warned city councillors of a potential 2018 budget shortfall — now forecast at about $10 million — triggered by factors including Chinese recyclers turning away non-pristine paper fibre and, at home, increased bin contamination that boosts processing costs. About one-quarter of everything put in Toronto blue bins shouldn’t be there. The city still manages to divert about 53 per cent of waste away from landfill, but the long-standing goal is 70 per cent.Ten people are gathered around a table in a former warehouse in The Junction looking at a clear plastic lid, an empty air fresh ...
|
