It was almost two weeks into the city workers strike when I trundled three weeks worth of garbage down to the temporary dump on the on the other side of the tracks this past sunday. I'm not a fan of the strike -- don't think they should be striking to keep benefits that those of us who're paying them would never get in a million years; ah, I digress -- but it started me to thinking that perhaps we should always have to take our garbage to some central place rather than having it picked up. It has definitely made me very conscious of what I throw out knowing sooner or later I'm going to have to load it into my buggy and cart it away myself.
It would be far cheaper to have permanent locations with big underground bins similar to the recycling bins in Amsterdam. There would have to be a lot of them spread throughout the city but a truck with a crane could swap these out lickety split with only a single operator. We, like most Torontonians apparently, opted for the smallest size garbage container and it's not even close to full when garbage day comes every two weeks. If the bin had slightly bigger wheels I'd be willing to make a garbage trundle every three weeks or so.