TORONTO CITY STRIKE

For those who don't know "At 12:20 a.m. on Monday, June 22, 2009, the City of Toronto's unionized employees represented by the Toronto Civic Employees' Union Local 416 (CUPE) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79 began a legal strike". The strike has affected many services in the city, including garbage pick-up. As a downtown dweller, I have seen the deterioration of the city streets over the last few weeks. I am writing this to talk about what this strike has highlighted about many people who live in the city of Toronto.

As I walked the length of Queen Street running from Dufferin to Church ( approx 45 min walk), my sense of smell was assaulted with a mixture of discarded foods left in overflowing garbage bins, alleyways and in places, right on the sidewalk. I was stepping over shopping bags full of take-out packaging, plastic bottles, plastic bags and other random garbage that didn't have a home. It highlighted two things:

1. People clearly don't feel that they have to take responsibility over their own waste
2. Most of the waste littering the streets doesn't have to exist. The items have been created over time to make our lives more convenient and to make the cost of doing business lower. Gone are the days of glass milk cartons and ONLY tupperware for lunches..We have been conditioned to think that single use items that are not recyclable and end up taking up much needed living space are ok to use. Only recently has the buy local and sustainable mantra become hip. There are not enough environmentally conscious people yet to make that a financially viable option for businesses, so it will remain a cottage industry until the education and empowerment spreads.

To help create awareness about the problem and try and help empower the community to effect change, I thought about creating a facebook group for people who want to volunteer their time to do neighborhood garbage clean up. I was embarrassed by the way my city looked and wanted to help clean it up. Then I thought that would be too easy..The ones who would volunteer would probably be the people bringing their garbage home, trying to reduce their impact on the waste issue and also looking for solutions. Those are not the ones who should be cleaning up after others....It should be the ones who have removed themselves from the responsibility of taking care of their own space, their city.

The strike has caused the situation, but it's not an excuse for relinquishing personal accountability. At the end of the day there is nobody to pick up our garbage right now. We need to take care of it and we are not. It is sad and I wish I could say that people took what their parents taught them as young ones to heart and CLEANED UP AFTER THEMSELVES, but they aren't. It doesn't mean they can't...But right now, they aren't and people's attitudes need to change about the city their live in or we will continue to fall apart even after the strike ends...What to do? Suggestions anyone?