Thursday, August 07, 2008

Argh

The kind of story that makes my mostly-vestigial libertarians bones ache:
TORONTO -- 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.
I know it's been a crazy summer, but I must have missed the press conference when Toronto City Council announced that all murder, robbery and violent crime had been stopped and would no longer trouble us, allowing the city to refocus its efforts on the imminent conversion to a 100% renewable economy. That's the only plausible explanation for the city spending any kind of time or energy on this "problem".

What? That never happened? Shit, that must mean we're governed by morons then.

The city is caught in a real dilemma, though: the Blue Box program -- mandated by the province -- sucks balls. The reason scavengers are going through people's blue boxes is the same reason deposit programs universally work way, way better than curbside recycling: what gets rewarded, gets done. It's a feature, not a bug, people.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard about this on CBC radio. Apparently there's Gold in dem der blue boxes. ie, thousands of dollars worth of recyclable metals.

And they don't want no stinkin' bums finding that gold.

When the city starts wrestling with low income people for the value of scrap metal, you know you've hit rock bottom.

Devin Johnston said...

Just disgusting. It really troubles me that this is the best thing the city can think to do when there are so many actual issues in dire need of some attention.

Anonymous said...

Well John,
there are definitely bigger problems than this one. You know, as everyone, that there wasn't such press conference announcing all criminal problems had been solved. Maybe they're trying to draw people's attention on this trifle and have them focused on it, instead of real problems.
But for realtors in Toronto it may be more important than for you - imagine, how you can offer a house to the client, when there is a "scruffy-looking scavenger" searching in a bin?
Every problem has few ways how to think about it, and we can't judge which way is the best.
Take care,
Julie

That guy said...

Well, there you go, John. The real estate industry is suffering far, far more than those lazy people who need to scavenge bottles to scrape together a few bucks to get a burger.

*wipes away tear*

That guy said...

Seriously, though, it's always fascinating to see representatives of industries being so open about that sort of thing.

Anonymous said...

Won't somebody please think about the REALTORS?!?

Pale said...

Realtors?

Holy Ca ca.
Yes. We shall hold a concert to support all the realtors of the world, suffering because of right wing capitalist policies. Ill write a song...

.....I mean....A Realtor has to make a few thousand a week. Those people on the streets....tsk tsk. They aren't customers or anything.....