A Little Of This - A Little Of That

These were my recycling bins until this spring. They worked just fine and any excess recyclable material went into a clear plastic bag. Why fix what's not broke? Seems the City of Toronto just loves spending money, so...

They gave us these... They come in four different sizes and this one is one down from the largest one. Looks pretty nice right, there's only one problem. Whenever I need to take it down the driveway on recycling day, I have to move the cars to the street. It is so bulky it won't fit and I wonder how I will manage that in winter when there is nowhere on the street to put the cars. Snow removal as I might have mentioned before doesn't usually happen here, they just plow down the middle of the road creating huge snowbanks. After a winter like the one past our road was turned into a one way street with no parking. Lest you think I'm whining, let me assure you I'm not. These bins have created dissent all over town. A large majority of homes in the inner city don't have driveways, just a small walkway and the bins don't fit down those either. So they get parked on the front lawns for a really cool look, so much for curb appeal.

These bins cost the city about $80 per household and in my view were an unnecessary expense. Do you suppose the fact that the garbage collectors (whose union heavily supported the current Mayor) and no longer have to lift them might have something to do with it? The new bins are picked up automatically with a lever system.

And that's not all. Today I got my notice about the new garbage cans, again at a cost. But this time the cost is being passed on to homeowners. Guess apartment dwellers get a freebie on this.
These little bins comes in four sizes with the smallest being free. It holds one green garbage bag and gets picked up bi weekly. If you need a larger one say one and a half green garbage bag then it will cost you $39 per year and the largest one that holds four and a half green garbage bags will cost you $190 a year.

Now considering that our property taxes have been raised again to just under four percent I guess the city fathers might be feeling a little guilty and are giving us free, no charge, five free bag tags a year and if you need more you can buy them for $3.10 each.


I am incredibly vigilant about recycling and compost like mad so I'm getting the smallest bin. But what gets me in this deal is that our property tax money is being spent in ways not intended.

For example, homelessness and begging has become an industry in this city sucking almost 14 million dollars out of city coffers. Why not just make pan handling illegal? Nope, too easy, lets just hire a bunch more social workers to do what exactly? Sue-Ann Levy writes about this issue and explains it all. And then there are all the other city handouts that should not come from the tax base.

One of the more conservative councillors Doug Holyday commented...

"Holyday reckoned that if city officials are targeting just the 408 panhandlers they found last summer with an investment of up to $14 million, that works out to almost $35,000 a head."

Meanwhile, the dandelions take over the city, the garbage doesn't get picked up on time and potholes are just multiplying as I type... All chemicals have been banned in the Province of Ontario which doesn't bother me overmuch, but where are all the city workers digging them out. As soon as they go to seed my head clogs up and I sneeze continuously. Our city looks like crap. Pools in schools are being closed because the city says it can't afford to fund them. I wonder if some of the panhandlers might like digging up dandelions? There is something wrong here in T-Dot. Does anybody still want to visit or live here?

An I thought I had nothing to write about...I think I'm going to update my knitting blog, it's less stressful...