Let's be bold on waste tomorrow

I won’t sugar-coat it - I’m discouraged this evening ahead of a key Council vote on putting limits on curbside waste collection. Though I’m encouraged by the notes many of you have been sending me in favour of meaningful action on waste, it seems we’re set on a compromise that favours the status quo versus addressing a key environmental issue in order to mollify a constituency that is far smaller than we think it is.

You’ve likely seen the proposal: the Mayor’s office appears to have stickhandled a compromise on curbside waste that would allow residents to throw out a firm three items each collection day. This is a fractious issue, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that some kind of compromise would need to be crafted. I’m not blaming the Mayor, and I will even congratulate him on a fresh approach to Council politics that I fundamentally like. I do think, though, that we have to be blunt about what this says about residents’ and politicians’ willingness to do even the bare minimum to at least play our part in mitigating the climate crisis.

I will support the trade-off if it means introducing firm limits on how much waste we can throw out at the curb. But I will also support measures tomorrow that place even stricter limits on waste. Capping the number of items that can be put at the curb to three will mean very little change in the amount of waste we’re sending to the landfill: a majority of residents already throw out less. There will be no incentive for residents to be more thoughtful about their production of waste. We’ll stop shy of meaningful change in order to achieve a compromise that mollifies a vocal but ultimately small number of residents. We can be bolder.

There is no magic solution to waste other than to produce less of it. By the time waste hits the curb, most of the environmental damage associated with it - resource extraction, processing, manufacturing, packaging and shipping - has already been done. Whether landfilled or incinerated, that waste then damages the environment even further. Reducing and diverting waste is the only sustainable path forward for our planet, and changing our approach to curbside collection to reflect that is critical.

I believe that most residents want us to do better, or at least don’t object to reasonable changes to curbside pickup that dovetail with their desire to do better by their kids and kids’ kids. My urging to colleagues tomorrow will be to be pragmatic if they must and support the Mayor’s compromise (like I will if that’s what it comes to), but to be open-minded to bolder action that I believe most residents will ultimately support.