disposable cups aren't recyclable

Here's some insight. Disposable hot drink cups can't be recycled using current technology. They're two types of materials fused together - polycoat and paper. Check out what happens to a "harmless" coffee cup after a year in a backyard composter. Not promising, given how hot composters get in the summer. Looks like a big, nasty used condom.

I'm on to you...

Now I get why Tim Horton's cups are so ugly. Brown lids and brown cups blend into brown dirt. Worked I guess when fewer people who drink that swill threw their cups on the ground. Works less now, huh, given that Tim's cups and lids account for over 1/2 of all the consumer litter swirling around our landscape, urban and rural. Not so smart, stamping your name on the lids you dumb fucks. Pick up your crap. Charge your lazy customers 50 cents extra to use one of your ugly cups. And take responsibility for the damage you're doing to our environment.

Coffee Cups and South Korea

Oh, I know I know, I've been VERY bad. But here I am, finally, with a 2009 enviro-rant.

The City of Toronto recently released its packaging report in which it targeted a number of items that clog our parks, streams, rivers and even landfills, for taxation. Plastic bags, plastic water bottles, and the venerated roll up the rim coffee cup. All were slated to be slapped with a levy.

Hail Loblaws, I can't believe I'm saying that, for having the stones to be the first retailer to flip the bird to plastic bags, and start charging people to use them. The other big boxes are set to roll over on this too.

So what about paper coffee cups? Seems Tim Horton's et al think the cups should be recyclable (currently, they are kind of, except too many people leave the plastic lids on them when they pitch them in the blue box, and consequently 'contaminate' the resulting recycled material... nobody wants that, especially packaging manufacturers). They believe the City should spend 5 million bucks to update their machinery to accept these blights on society into their recycling stream.

Here's the thing Tim Horton's. Your customers are using paper cups rather than reusable cups... they should pay, not me, the lowly tax payer who only touches a Tim Horton's cup when I pick it up on Earth Day from my local park or stream. But instead, Tim Horton's is stonewalling and likely threatening to sue the City if they proceed with a plan to slap a 5 cent levy on every disposable cup sold.

Bastards. And to boot, seems the only market for recycled paper cups is South Korea. Now that's brilliant. We pay $5 million bucks to update machinery to accept something that could be eliminated from the stream completely if lazy people would just start carrying a reusable mug. And then we process said thing, and ship the resulting pulp 1/2 way around the world to South Korea, so they can fashion it into more junk we don't need and sell it back to us. WTF? The whole world has lost its head...

Nice choice dickhead

Putting aside John McCain's obvious pandering to the religious right and stupid, gullible women who voted for Hillary because she has a vajayjay (vs because of her experience or policy direction), the GOP's newly minted proposed commander in chief waiting is a doozy. Not only does she support drilling for natural gas in Alaska's wildlife reserve, she also sued the Bush government for placing polar bears on the endangered species list, denies climate change, if it exists at all, has anything to do with humans, and she 'hunts' wolves by chasing after them in an airplane to wear them out, then shoots them after they're exhausted. Hail Jebus. That's the kind of gal many Americans would love to have as their next president, given that McCain is a cranky old man a hair away from a massive fatal coronary. Can we sever the 49th parallel and float as far away from these freaks as possible? I'm afraid...

I did it - BFD

Much to the embarrassment of my long-suffering but loving mate Stevo, I walked my talk. Yesterday, on a joint jaunt through our local hood, we noticed that yet again the evil polluters on Station Street put their garbage out way too early and way too public. This time, in the form of a busted up old vacuum cleaner on the sidewalk, in advance of today's recycling pick up. Recycling pick up, not garbage pick up. So, in broad daylight, I huffed said vacuum onto their front lawn. Steve suggests I may have an anger management issue. I personally think I demonstrated serious restraint by not throwing the GD thing through the super's window. Regardless, I didn't experience any retaliation today - only because my protest fell on silent ears. This morning - garbage, EVERYWHERE in front of the offending shit hole. I can't believe I touched that thing - probably full of roach chrysalis (do roaches even have a chrysalis ? dunno, but I like the word...) - and got nothing but a go-fuck-yourself in return. I hate them.

Golf Greens Suck

Our governments - federal and provincial - have a lot of nerve suggesting we take short showers and turn off the tap while brushing our teeth, when they continue to make side deals with mining and gas companies to dump tailings in ponds, and give 10 golf clubs enough water to hydrate 25,000 households. Fuckers. If I were childish, I'd run around my house turning on all my taps, laughing maniacally. But I'm not. I'm concerned. And I think golf sucks, and is just an excuse for bad fashion. And water wasting. I repeat. Fuckers. See what you make me do?

WTF People Throw Out

I've been walking recently. A lot. I don't stop for rainy days, and unfortunately, I don't stop for garbage days either. Poor me. In high July, it reeks. 

A couple of months ago I was appointed to a city committee charged with the duty of helping Toronto get to 70% waste diversion by 2010. That is, educate, berate, prod Torontonians through whatever (legal) means necessary to reduce, reuse and recycle vs buy and toss. Before being appointed I was moderately aware of what people pitched. Now, combined with my new morning walk routine, I'm hyper aware. It floors me every week. Especially when the generous citizens of Station Street in South Etobicoke put their garbage out a week in advance. I affectionately call it "garbage alley" and I navigate its resulting jumbo maggots by walking down the middle of the street pretty much daily. Thanks.

On any given day, people are throwing out so many things that can be recycled - boxes (and they don't break them down either), cans, bottles, paper, etc. They're pitching the stuff of compost gold - like rotting fruit and veggies, moldy bread, kitty litter, you name it - into (and more often in the general vicinity of) their garbage pails rather than their green bins. Most are unaware and can hopefully be enlightened. Unfortunately for us, and the planet, many others simply don't care.

So I'm on a mission. Though I haven't resorted to sorting garbage from recyclables on my morning rambles, I have spoken with people on said walks about what is recyclable and what isn't. It's staggering how many people think they should throw milk cartons in the garbage.

I've also secretly (so don't tell anybody) committed to relocating the garbage put out WAY TOO EARLY (we're talking several days here) by the local library and church to their respective front steps. For institutions so permanently attached to the public teat, they have a lot of nerve polluting my morning walk with their smelly shit. As Yosemite Sam used to say, "that'll learn 'em."