5 Creative Ways Toronto wants to Reduce Waste and Increase Recycling
The City of Toronto has launched five programs targeting waste reduction in the GTA. These creative new initiatives seek to help grow the city’s existing eco-friendly community partnerships. Among them are initiatives to repair and repurpose abandoned bicycles, a program to repair ripped clothing, and a program that allows one to share the extra food they grow in their garden.
These five initiatives fall under Toronto’s Community Reduce and Reuse program which oversees a number of priority neighborhoods in Toronto. Several bicycle repair hubs are being established across nearly a dozen Toronto neighborhoods, hoping to provide citizens from all over the city something within walking distance. Toronto already collects thousands of bicycles every year, seeing these abandoned on the streets and thereby creating unnecessary waste. By refurbishing them, a bicycle can be given back to the community without creating any additional waste.
Though the bicycle reuse initiative is one of the more exciting, there’s also composting, clothing repair, and others. This all falls under the Long Term Waste Management Strategy and Tower Renewal Program. As a city, building sustainable communities is a huge concern going forward. As we continue to expand, develop, and re-develop, Toronto’s lack of sustainability is creating waste that doesn’t need to be created. Provincial landfills are filling up and efforts being made from the City are no doubt going to make a difference while educating newcomers on reuse.
The community composing program is going to be a strong one moving forward. This has some real potential to limit food waste and cross-contamination in recycling. The composting initiative hopes to develop a skills training program for designated communities across Toronto. These hubs will also be places where one can come to repair clothing, can and preserve produce, and more. These initiatives have the potential to transform the way we do recycling and reuse here in the City. The months to come will hopefully show some evidence as to their merit. The City of Toronto site has further details about these programs and where a resident can find a hub local to them.
Waste management and recycling are both passionate subjects to us. Toronto has so many opportunities to integrate environmentally friendly programs across its many neighborhoods. As we move forward, we hope to see more community initiatives like these to assist neighborhoods in reducing their waste. As we continue to work with hundreds of Torontonians in reducing their waste – providing junk removal services, dumpster rentals, and more – we hope to continue to play a role in redesigning how we all think about, process, and ultimately manage waste.
Every year, the City of Toronto on its own manages approximately 900,000 tonnes of waste. This takes money away from the City budget that could be used elsewhere, uses up energy that may not have to be used up, and uses resources that may not necessarily need to be expended. Every year we do not produce significant change in our waste management, we only serve to contribute all this to our landfills. It’s integral that we get creative in solving Toronto’s waste problem.
For more information on the waste management and recycling opportunities that may be out there, contact Core Mini Bins to speak with a representative. We would be happy to recommend ways to minimize waste, manage removal and disposal, and more.
