The debate in Toronto has been raging for years. In a city that’s trying to stop shipping garbage to Michigan by boosting its recycling and composting programs, the hundreds of thousands of apartment buildings in the city present a difficult obstacle. How do you convince apartment residents who live on higher floors to cart their recycling downstairs to a dumpster or a garbage room? Toronto Green Community, a non-profit organization, is tackling the issue. With their encouragement, the property manager of a Deerford Road apartment building was willing to take on the challenge of improving the waste diversion of the high rise, and bought recycling bins for each apartment.
Toronto Green Community will also conduct meetings at which residents can learn more about recycling, composting, and energy and water conservation, and help to build a community garden. In the future, the city plans to charge high rise owners a higher garbage collection fee according to the amount of garbage they produce—in the hopes of giving landlords a financial incentive to cut back on waste. Perhaps someone can teach these two how to take the recycling out properly—that, or make it easier for them. Poor boys.