and the magic 8 ball says

have a recycled title for a post about recycling*.
One of the things that impressed us when we moved here is Toronto's recycling policies.
The rubbish bins(trash cans) in the streets have 3 different sections, for general rubbish one for paper and one for cans. Even the subway stations have recycling containers.
And each house has a range of waste recepticles.
We have blue boxes for, well pretty much everything, plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, bottles, cans and all that sort of stuff.
Then there is the green bin, which is for all organics - fruit and vegetables scraps, paper towels, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, the carrots that have been in the vegetable drawer of the fridge for about a month now, you get the idea.
The contents of the green bin are collected every week and go to make garden compost, which is given away on Environment Days.
All great ideas, except.... most of the time the contents of our green bin are all over the back deck because Ronnie, our racoon can open the latch. Usually he does this by very noisily knocking the bin over and sometimes the contents of the blue box too,( late at night because that is when he dines, very sophisticated)
So. I decided to see what the official line was on the racoon problem and if there is something we should be doing differently (our latest thing is a very large rock on top of the bin, seems to have worked last night, I'll keep you posted)
From the City of Toronto Waste Management program website:
which is here
City audit indicates racoons not an issue for Green Bin participants

After the Green Bin Program became established in Etobicoke, the City conducted an audit of 900 homes that bordered either golf courses or ravines to see if animals, such as racoons, were opening the bins and causing a problem. During the four weeks that curbside set-out was observed, only seven bins out of 900 were opened. While one can’t be sure exactly how they were opened or by whom, it appears that racoons were not a problem. The City followed up these findings with a further inquiry to Toronto’s Customer Service staff, who verified that from January to July, there had not been one complaint about racoons getting into green bins from those homes audited.

Either someone is being economical with the truth or we have a special racoon, some sort of Mensa racoon.



*not a real magic 8 ball answer. it wouldn't all fit in that little window. and there wouldn't be too many times it would be a good answer.