recycling

Wednesday May 2, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 2, 2018

Hamilton’s blue box blues: recycling ban looms for coffee lids, Styrofoam

The city no longer wants you to put coffee cup lids, black plastic or Styrofoam in the blue box — despite spending years encouraging residents to recycle those items.

April 24, 2018

The low-grade plastics are technically recyclable, but virtually no one wants to buy the collected material anymore — especially since market giant China cracked down on imported plastics in January, said city recycling manager Emil Prpic.

The city is increasingly forced to trash those lids and containers, or risk having would-be buyers reject entire loads of “contaminated” plastic sorted at its Burlington Street recycling facility.

It’s a “market-driven” eco-dilemma, said Prpic. “Two years ago there was still a market for black plastic … it’s here today, gone tomorrow.”

For now, that means it may be better for the environment for you to directly trash those lids, meat trays and takeout containers, said Prpic, after updating councillors Monday on the blue box blues.

He said such recycling rejects have contributed to a spike in the blue box “contamination rate” from seven to 14 per cent over the last five years. Contamination includes nonrecyclable items like coffee pods, bread tabs and bottle caps, but also ruined recyclables covered in food waste, for example.

On the up side, it could be worse — Toronto is struggling with a contamination rate closer to 25 per cent. Coun. Sam Merulla asked staff to bring back a comparison report on how Hamilton stacks up against other cities in keeping compost and recyclables out of the dump. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8579370-hamilton-s-blue-box-blues-recycling-ban-looms-for-coffee-lids-styrofoam/

 

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Tuesday April 24, 2018

 

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 24, 2018

‘We need to rethink the entire plastics industry’: Why banning plastic straws isn’t enough

Britain announced this week that it plans to ban the sale of single-use plastic straws, as support for similar bans grows in Canada and around the world.

March 6, 2015

Advocates say such straw bans should help reduce plastic pollution that harms wildlife and ecosystems, but we need to monitor the effects of such policies. And they say bans may not be feasible for most of the plastics in our lives, so broader changes to the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastics are needed to make a real difference.

Jennifer Provencher, a postdoctoral researcher at Acadia University who studies the ingestion of plastic pollution by wildlife, said Britain’s ban is “an incredibly important step towards minimizing and using plastics more responsibly.”

She noted that single-use plastic items like straws and stir sticks are generally used only for a few minutes before they’re discarded, but can persist in the environment for centuries because plastics don’t typically decompose within a human lifetime.

Scientists estimate we’ve made 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and 6.3 billion tonnes have already become waste.

More than 330,000 pieces of plastic and foam waste were picked off 2,800 kilometres of Canada’s shoreline by volunteers during beach cleanup events last year, including 17,654 straws — the ninth most common item found during cleanups supported by Ocean Wise and WWF-Canada. Worldwide, 409,087 straws and stirrers were picked up in beach cleanups around the world in 2017, the Ocean Conservancy reports.

Because of their small size, disposable straws are rarely recycled and often end up in the environment.

There, they can cause serious injuries to animals, as shown in a 2015 video that shows a straw being pulled out of a sea turtle’s nostril — the graphic, viral video has been viewed more than 21 million times. (Source: CBC) 

 

Friday, March 28, 2014

Friday, March 28, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, March 28, 2014

Waste collection: Part-time work for full-time pay

Many of the city’s unionized waste collectors appear to be routinely working about five hours a day while being paid for eight. In some cases, the total amount of time actually spent collecting trash is as little as three hours in a shift. The Spectator investigation, which took place over three months this winter, also discovered that some trucks were routinely gathered on a private road leading to Pier 22 in the east end and sat idling for up to half an hour in the late morning before moving next door to the city’s waste facility on Burlington Street East to clock out for the day. On some days, as many as six trucks sat idling on the little-used road, and some of them parked well back from the Burlington Street intersection. On several occasions during the investigation, the trucks idling on the obscure Pier 22 road had arrived less than four and a half hours after leaving the Burlington Street facility to start the day. In other cases, city garbage trucks lined up in the entrance of the Kenora Avenue transfer station and sat idle for periods of up to 45 minutes in the late morning before returning to the Burlington Street facility to finish their shifts. The investigation showed that for some employees, the total amount of time that elapsed from the moment they drove on to the Burlington Street East property to the moment they left was as little as five hours and six minutes. The findings of the Spectator investigation also suggest that the daily finishing times appear to be closely co-ordinated between trucks. On many of the observed days, as many as a dozen trucks would assemble in a line just prior to noon in the entrance of the Burlington Street facility, ready to pass through the weigh scales as soon as the clock struck noon. The investigation again shines a light on the question of part-time performance for full-time pay in the public works department. “It’s certainly alarming, it’s disappointing and it’s discouraging,” said Ward 8 Councillor Terry Whitehead, chair of city council’s public works committee. “It’s very concerning that taxpayers in this community don’t appear to be getting value for dollars. “I really want to focus on how high this goes up in regard to responsibility, because at some point at the high level, heads have to roll,” Whitehead added. It was just over a year ago that the city’s public works department faced a similar black eye involving front-line workers in the roads division. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday February 23, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday February 23, 2012

Council dumps biweekly garbage

Hamilton city councillors have officially disposes of the idea of biweekly garbage pickup in favour of a new program that’s both more expensive and less effective at diverting waste from landfill.

After hours of debate Tuesday, councillors approved weekly garbage pickup with a one-bag limit, but introduced 26 free tags to put out extra bags. That system, brokered by councillors Russ Powers and Chad Collins behind closed doors before Tuesday’s meeting, will be implemented in April 2013 when the city’s existing waste collection contracts run out.

However, the councillors’ chosen option will cost $1.4 million more each year than the biweekly alternative staff suggested. And, staff warned that unlike biweekly garbage collection — which would force people to increase their diversion — the new one-bag plus tags option will drag down the city’s 49 per cent waste diversion rate.

“As an environmentalist, I want to see long-term thinking about sustainability and doing the right thing for future generations,” said Lynda Lukasik, president of Environment Hamilton. “As a taxpayer, I want to see councillors stepping back, weighing it out and saying, ‘What’s the most fiscally responsible thing to do for the municipality — not just now, but into the future?’ Sadly, I think the numbers suggest that a different decision was made.”

Tuesday’s debate was the fourth time council dealt with garbage pickup this year. In the three previous debates, councillors couldn’t come to an agreement about whether to adopt a biweekly option.

Before Tuesday’s meeting, half of council was prepared to move ahead with biweekly pickup, while the other half wanted to increase the weekly bag limit to two bags. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Tuesday January 8, 2008

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 8, 2008

Southern Canada basks in near-springtime temperatures

From British Columbia to much of the Maritimes, people in southern Canada are basking in unseasonably warm temperatures that have raised wistful but assuredly premature hopes for an early spring. 

Across the country’s southern tier in the past two days, temperatures have soared into the double digits in many places, with Windsor, Ont., the nation’s hot spot, hitting a relatively balmy 14.2 C at midday Monday. 

“We’ve seen more than a few records tumble today across southern Ontario,” said Geoff Coulson, a senior forecaster at Environment Canada. “We had single-day high-temperature records in places like Windsor, Toronto, Welland down in the Niagara Peninsula, London and Ottawa, just to name a few. 

“If we look across the province, we’re probably looking at most places being between 10 and 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. ” 

He said Tuesday would be another mild day. 

Temperatures in Toronto hit a drizzly 12, which was still a far cry from the record 16.7 on Jan. 25, 1950, the day Windsor hit 17.8 (Source: Hamilton Spectator)