For months now, ever since the City of London started accepting paper cups for recycling, I’ve been tossing empty Tim Hortons cups into our blue box.
Boy, they must be annoyed down at the depot when they have to fish out those cups because they apparently violate the terms. You see, the cups are made of paper but they have a waxy inner coating that makes them ineligible for whatever the recycling fairies decide they can work with. The plastic lids are fine but the cups are garbage.
When I think of all of the times I’ve gingerly plucked a carelessly tossed cup from the trash and put it in the blue box, well, I feel I must turn in my crown as Recycling Queen and make room for someone else to occupy the throne.
We still don’t have green bins for organic waste and now, apparently, we can’t deal with waxy-coated paper. A green bin system for London was recently considered again – twice – and voted down because the cost of starting it up and running it keeps going higher. Our city of 350,000 puts its peelings and scrapings into the general trash. It’s a little bit archaic but so is allowing so many companies to put out thousands and thousands of non-recyclable containers to consumers. It’s not the biggest issue we’re facing at the moment but it seems like such a simple one to fix, if only there was a will to fix it.
We had a similar issue in Toronto several years ago and it was discovered that the problem wasn’t the cups, but the limitations of our recycling program, however that has since been resolved. So London, get with the program, and while you’re at it, get your green bin program going.
I agree – the longer the city waits, the more expensive it will be to start. They did a green bin pilot project and people loved it. But you know what? It doesn’t have the glamour of redoing the waterfront or any of the other “legacy” projects they’re planning. It’s too bad.