Dmitri Kaminiar

Jesse Archibald-Barber

Sunday, November 05, 2006

The matter of Torontos trash

One of the many questions that bother Torontonians even at this day and age is the matter of trash: do we produce too much of it or not? An average family of five can produce on average 6 to 7 bags of trash each week; since Toronto has thousands of people living in it, this transforms into 90 tractor trailers full of waste.(1)

This creates a question: why not just deal with the trash problem by switching to biodegradable materials completely? That supposedly would completely solve, in a radical way, the problem with trash. After all, people suggest everything from burning it to raising tax levels to deal with the trash.(2) Sadly, it appears that nothing is working, and it seems that Torontos trash problems just would not go away. Nevertheless, the idea of destroying all non-biodegradable materials has a number of weak spots.

First, switching everything to biodegradable materials just may not be possible. Metals like steel, iron, aluminum, copper, as well as bricks and concrete are not biodegradable analogues in modern world, as they are the backbone of the architecture of our society. Other materials, like gypsum and drywall, may be biodegradable from time to time, but that status is dubious. If we turn to those materials that are biodegradable, we discover that we will thus be limited to biodegradable materials like straw, wood, linoleum, certain polyesters, and earthen materials. In other words, the materials that are almost never used today in businesses like building construction. In addition, will they be as hardy and durable as the old, non-biodegradable products? Biodegradable materials break down faster than non-biodegradable ones, (3) and thus they will need to be replaced or repaired more quickly - will that compensate the lack of trash that will occur if the amount of non-biodegradable materials decreases?

Admittedly, we can import other materials for a while as we gradually shift along with the transfer. This, however, raises the question of manufacture connected tightly to foreign import. The student who suggested using biodegradable materials only, also suggested the idea of trade embargo against non-biodegradable materials. Considering that in the course of modern history no trade embargo amounted to much usefulness, this idea is not very sound either, as proved by the oil embargo of Middle East by the US.(4)

Then there is the question of the employment and economy. One may argue that that redistribution will lead to a more effective economy, but just as easily, it may lead to some sort of a social revolution, which will be undoubtedly counterproductive to the "cause" of biodegradable materials. Besides, wouldnt a switch from a culture based on non-biodegradable materials to a culture based on biodegradable materials lead to some serious re-distribution of the employment among the working classes of Canada, and that will lead, as usual, to civil unrest? (5)

To make things worse, there are the external political problems, spurred on by the embargo, brought on by the sudden shift in demands - other countries economic programs depend on exporting non-biodegradable materials such as oil to other countries, including ours, and the sudden stop in Canadian demands for oil and such will cause problems for them too. Alternatively, Canada exports materials as well, including biodegradable ones as wood, but the increasing internal demands for those materials will cause more changes to our trade as well. (Of course biodegradable materials include other materials than wood and straw; however unlike the former, they are usually man-made, and have to be manufactured, which brings back the problem of factories and industrial plants - what are we going to do about them?)

Now, it is obvious that something people must do something with the trash problem of Toronto and other cities. Just look at the Internet - there are many sites and online articles talking about Torontos trash problem and the possible solutions for it. The problem is that people were not concerned with the trash problem of Toronto and the rest of Canada for too long, and built their society and industry accordingly over a span of centuries. Now, not considering that fact, we want to solve this problem in several years or even months! Considering that even Hercules was unable to clean the Augean stables (he had to clean away 30 years worth of animal filth that had accumulated from thousands of cattle day after day for years) straight away without thinking first of a little strategy, our ideas may seem to come a little short and untested. If the analogy with Hercules seems a bit inadequate, people should remember that the ancient hero merely washed the waste out of the stables and did not deal with the immediate problem. Thus, most of the ideas found on the Internet in concern with the trash problem seem to deal with the immediate problem as well. At any rate, replacing the non-biodegradable materials with biodegradable ones to reduce trash is a radical idea as far as such go, and as radical ideas tend to do, it will probably cause more problems than it solves, as written above. However, the problem of the trash of Toronto must be solved one way or another... just hopefully not by such radical methods. Perhaps incinerating or recycling our trash is not such a bad idea after all? (6) Yet, this one thing is certain - the current situation with trash in Toronto cannot remain as it is now.

Bibliography

(1) Cbsnews.com. 2 Aug. 2006. The Christian Science Monitor. 2 Aug. 2006.

(2) Thestar.com. 1 Nov. 2006. Burning trash costly: Miller. 1 Nov. 2006.

(3) University of Oregon. Factoid home page. Campus recycling program. Copyright 2006 University of Oregon. < http:/darkwing.uoregon.edu/~recycle/factoids_text.htm>

(4) Wikipedia.org. 31 Oct. 2006. 1973 oil crisis. 31 Oct. 2006

(5) Wikipedia.org. 30 Oct. 2006. Luddite. 30 Oct. 2006

(6) Thestar.com. 1 Nov. 2006. Editorial: Candidates split on garbage issues. 1 Nov. 2006