City of Toronto CUPE 79 and 416 Strike – Day 30 – ‘Glad to the Rescue’ – Seriously?

by John Laforet
posted on July 21st, 2009 at 07:47:30 am

That is the name Glad Canada has chosen for their self promotion campaign during the City of Toronto garbage strike. ‘Glad – helping you get through the strike one bag at a time’ seems to be a pretty shameless attempt to increase market share. My favourite was their reminder to double bag… At least George Smitherman’s attempt at self promotion results in a community good happening in the process.

I found it almost offensive that any company, especially a supplier of garbage bags, could somehow think making their product available for free in the streets of Toronto, would some how help remedy the impact the strike is having city wide. If they were handing out daycare subsidies or offering private garbage collection at home – they would have a point, but handing out free garbage bags and calling it rescuing the city from a thirty day municipal strike is laughable.

I am not in the loop on the supply chain management of garbage bag demand, but I highly doubt there has been a run on the stores, and unless the folks at Glad who make the bags are planning a strike, I don’t see how supplying bags for free in the streets does anything for anyone.

There never has been an issue in accessing garbage bags. The issue is getting people to pick them up and properly store our waste. This strike will certainly become more annoying to me if other companies follow suit, missing the impact and seriousness completely in the name of self promotion of their product.

What’s more Glad seems to have decided the six hundred thousand people in Scarborough don’t need free garbage bags and don’t seem to go east of Broadview in their distribution. As someone who is proud of his Scarborough roots, I find that to be awfully lame as well.

City of Toronto CUPE 79 and 416 Strike – Day 28 – Centennial Arena Temporary Dump Site in Scarborough

by John Laforet
posted on July 19th, 2009 at 20:28:33 pm

Below is a video and pictures I took at the Centennial Arena/Confederation Park temporary dump site in Scarborough. As you will hear in the video, I think this dump site is miles ahead of Moss Park situation simply through better planning and recognition of the importance of good site selection.

You will also see solar panels on the roof of Centennial Arena – this is something I will talk about more later, as I am generally a fan of the Centennial Rec complex and the use of solar energy to offset the need of traditional fuel sources for water heating. 

Confederation Park is home to Centennial Arena and Rec Centre and is located at 1967 Ellesmere Avenue. – Anyone notice the planning that took place in the old City of Scarborough as it relates to this site? 

This is the view of the Centennial dump site from the access point drivers would approach. 

This is a view of one of the rows of garbage currently in place at Centennial.

It’s a very long line of garbage, but has been well placed within the parking lot. 

Here is another picture of the dump site with an impressive solar installation in the background and some of the larger condo projects in Scarborough. 

A better perspective of the extent of current garbage at the site. 

Hey look! It’s a basketball court not filled with garbage, and there are kids who don’t have access to municipal recreation programming playing on it! Too bad the kids in Moss Park can’t as well. 

Scarborough the Green. This is a great example of the potential of solar installations to help limit the use of carbon emitting sources of energy when it comes to water heating. This project alone results in 28 fewer tonnes of carbon being emitted by this building. This is something I will talk more about later.  

City of Toronto CUPE 79 and 416 Strike – Day 25 – Moss Park Temporary Dump Site

by John Laforet
posted on July 18th, 2009 at 01:01:51 am

Below is a video, photos and written commentary from my visit to Moss Park’s temporary dump site today. This is one of the closest dump sites to the downtown Toronto core, and one that in my opinion was probably the very worst idea. The City decided to turn two basketball courts into a dump, rendering them unusable by the tens of thousands of children who are without any summer programming. Through poor site selection, the City also made the use of a baseball diamond impossible, and provided for an angle that allows one to take a photo of the City’s skyline with a ten foot wall of garbage below. 

‘A city within a park’ has become ‘dump sites within our parks’.

As you can tell – someone REALLY wasn’t thinking when they located this temporary dump site. What an image of our city – a ten foot tall mountain of garbage, surrounded by grass – and the skyline in the background. 

This is not the image Toronto needs to be presenting to the world. 

It’d be difficult to play a game of basketball when garbage is stacked in two eight foot tall walls from net to net. This was such an inappropriate decision for whomever made it.

This is such a waste of a viable youth activity that could have been enjoyed during a municipal strike. There was absolutely no justification to use a basketball court as a temporary dump site for household garbage. It deprives youth, who already are unable to use indoor municipal services the ability to use this outdoor equipment. 

Especially when the Armoury right next door to the park has a paved, empty space that would be far better suited, if a temporary dump site was necessary in Moss Park. 

It seems to me like using this location, especially with the armoury having another driveway entrance would have made far more sense, if a dump site was necessary at this park at all. Using this long, publicly owned, lightly used lane way would have had a far smaller impact on the host community, who it appears were not considered at all in site selection.