We have fabulous garbage service here in my inner city. I live in an old neighborhood with alleys. Giant dumpsters sit in the alleys and I have six of them at my back door. Two for recyclables, two for landfill, two fir plant material.
@iris lily I do enjoy the shared system our city offers but I do get annoyed when someone doesn't break down the recycling boxes or puts type 6 plastic in it (only 1-5, 7 allowed). And being in an alley that I use to park our car in the garage, I never understood what would persuade someone to think it's okay to leave a glass bottle where people and dogs walk and cars drive. So once or twice a year I get out the broom for the alley but overall I like never having to roll anything or see garbage out in front.
We are the old retired people who keep the alley clean. We break down boxes. I pull Styrofoam out of the recycling been regularly, and it haunts me when I don’t get to a stack of Styrofoam in time and I know it was carted off in the recycling load.
I don’t understand why everyone who puts garbage in the recycling bin don’t understand basics. Wasn’t everyone educated about saving the earth and etc.? Seems like I’ve heard nothing but save the earth save the earth save the earth for decades. Kids these days. Get off my lawn.
We are the unretired people who keep the alley clean! Also stay off my weed-infested lawn, there are bees pollinating clover in there! :-)
Polystyrene is a listed recyclable material here in Toronto.
I think that part of the confusion about recycling is that every city seems to follow different rules.
Toronto is a great city, no doubt! That's true about different places having different rules but if you LIVE there, the bin should have the information on it or at worst one phone call is made to ascertain the rules. I forget where I was exactly for a leisure trip but I recall while out and about the recycling containers that you see at city parks and museums didn't accept type 3 or 4 so a lot of the food wrapping sold at the nearby vendors had to go to the trash. There was still a lot of type 4 plastic going into the recycling. Maybe they were tourists and didn't read but I would think the locals would know this.
Our hh has been using the Lunch Skins brand of bags to cut down on our plastic use. They are made of paper, are sealable (like a Ziploc), toxin-free, recyclable, and compostable. I'm more okay with using trees than plastic when possible.
