Toronto Garbage Strike — Day 22
As Toronto slithers its way into the third week of a garbage strike, things are starting to look downright bleak. Disease is spreading across the City of Light, with reports of murine typhus and rat-bite fever rampant in many parts of the metropolis. Dead bodies are now being stacked like cord wood in many of Toronto’s skating rinks, parks, and industrial warehouses.
As garbage transfer stations become nothing more than rat infested disease portals, many residents of Toronto have emailed me, asking for advice and tips as to where they can dump their trash without the fear of being bit by Wilbur the killer vermin.
I may be able to help.
The first thing every denizen should do is buy a paper shredder. If you are going to rid your garbage in an unconventional way, you do not want your name or address on any correspondence in your garbage bag. The garbage police are looking — they are sifting through your refuge, taking names and addresses, and they will find you. And when they find you they will drag you from your home and throw you into a gulag where you will rot like the filthy trash you tried to illegally dump.
Here are some of the best ways to get rid of your trash without the inconvenience of visiting a garbage transfer station:
1) Dig a giant hole in your backyard and simply toss it in. Better yet, if you live near a graveyard, there are plenty of convenient holes popping up every day. Once the garbage bag is out of your hands, it is no longer your problem. I believe I can back that statement up through a fact of law.
2) Build a trebuchet. Simple plans for an effective trebuchet can be found online. You will want to build one that can launch 200 feet. You will want to double bag your garbage if you go this route, and I would also advise you to place a few 10 lb rocks in the bag for maximum distance.
3) A hot air balloon is also a very effective way of getting rid of many bags of garbage at once. You’ll never be sure where your garbage will end up, but wait until the wind is heading towards Scarborough. Trust me when I say they will never notice a few hundred thousand extra bags of smelly trash in their backyards.
4) Mayor Miller and the CUPE workers’ don’t seem to mind the few extra million rats, raccoons, and skunks that now infest Toronto, and so you shouldn’t either. It’s time to make our newest neighbours feel welcome: start feeding the Vermin-Canadians! Feed them your old banana peels, orange rinds, peanut shells, meat fat, hell, the vermin-Canadian will eat just about anything, it doesn’t even have to be actual food!
The Vermin-Canadian you feed today will be the taxspender of tomorrow.
5) Burn it. Burn every last piece of it. And the pieces that don’t burn, throw them down the sewer. Nothing is your fault, and nothing is your problem. Nothing. Let’s face facts here: CUPE has been on strike for 22 days now, and yet you’re still paying a garbage tax. You are paying a tax for a service you are not receiving. So why should you feel guilty when you dump a few measly cans of Libby’s soup down the sewer?
Those are just 5 ways to dispose of your trash, I’m sure the good constituents of Mitchieville — who are not in the middle of a summer garbage strike — will have more suggestions.
You’re welcome.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Nice picture of the rats.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Mr. Miller should site the CUPE for public health endangerment, and set a precedent for future union behavior.
Eighteen days of banked six leave does not justify strangling a metropolis with waste they were hired on to dispose.
Get some backbone and stand up for your the health and welfare of the citizens, kick their asses to the curb, then get some scabs.
I’m sure it’s not as simple as all that, but the demands seem exorbitant. I get six days w/ a Masters.
Are you allowed to burn?
If one was to think as a rotten capitalist, I would invest in metal refuge cans and sell them for burning garbage, until the crisis is over.
Some wouldn’t consider burning, but many others would.
k-ching
During the years of our construction boom, we invested in construction debris removal. We earned a percentage because we provided the trucks.
It’s all about providing a service someone else needs.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Wait a minute, I forgot something important…purchase those cans in small quantities…I’ll tell you why.
Back in the day, a friend, who had several shrimp boats, caught the “Mariel Boat Lift” fever a little too late.
Cuban families in Miami were paying tens of thousands of dollars for the retrieval of family and friends. So George, not Stuttering George, but, Big Daddy George, got primed up for the action.
Unfortunately, it was over as fast as it started, and he never made one trip, but was left holding 300 life vests.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I like the trebuchet idea. Imagine several hundred (or thousand) people launching their garbage all over the city. I think it would be exciting.
My idea, how about paying human garbage mules. I’ll let your mind wander on that one.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I don’t know the ins and outs of Toronto garbage collection…but do Commercial establishments pay for private service…like Waste Management, Western Waste, etc.?
If so, you can do what “this friend of mine” did when he lived in a rural area. I waited until the dark of night, and he chunked his junk in commercial dumpsters.
But I do like the catapult concept. I will file that in the brain for future reference.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:33 am
“The garbage police are looking — they are sifting through your refuge, taking names and addresses …”
So spike your garbage with a couple of envelopes addressed to Mayor Miller, or a local Council-critter, or even the CUPE capo.
Won’t do any good, of course. They’re protected from the rules that apply to the proles.
Mind you, stinging some of their family members might get a response. Does Miller have a particularly bad-tempered sister?
July 13th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Isn’t “Rat Bite Fever” a Ted Nugent song?
Eat em.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Go_Fish, I think that was Ozzie Osbourne, not Uncle Ted. No, Ozzie bit the heads off of bats, doves…stuff with wings.
It must be an urban legend that he ate rats on stage. But y’all might want to contact Ozzie anyway…I imagine that he didn’t just stop with winged creatures.
I grew up eating rats myself. Well, we call them squirrels down here. The hardest part was getting them skinned completely. No matter how hard you worked at it, a few hairs and nails would end up in your Mulligan.
But when you’re hungry, you can just close your eyes and pretend it isn’t happening.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Let’s fire them all and employ private contractors.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I think there should be a class action lawsuit against the civil servants and the unions VS the Taxpayers. Taxpayers should be suing for the garbage tax money they pay, endangering the health of a mass population, assisting the spreading of disease. They should also be sued for Child abuse, as because of them children are left to play in disease and filth, also child endangerment, as there are many rats, raccoons and other forms of pestilance that could seriously harm a child ( anyone remember learning about the black plague?)
Anyone who has become sick since the garbage strike as a result of the unsanitary conditions of the streets should sue for life endangerment. Then the union and civil servants should be sued and forced to pay the taxpayers the amount of money lost on tourisim due to their greed-if they cant pay, give them jobs at Mcdonalds or put them in prison for life. I would rather have my taxmoney spent on their lifetime stay in prison, then their salaries for doing nothing
July 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
And this is why it’s important next November when electing a Mayor, to remember who gave the unions everything they wanted if they in turn delivered the union vote.
Miller gave the unions everything they asked for, for years and years. Now that Toronto is bancrupt and Miller’s popularity is in the tubes, he’s decided to make a stand. I wonder why?
You have the right idea, Michelle, we just need more Michelles and maybe this crap will stop once and for all.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:07 am
Enter week #5! I don’t care how they portray Miller, the fact is Miller cannot give in to these clowns. It is the Union Leadership who decides on a direction for the new contract & for them to think that the status quo remain, just because of the police/fire, is unthinkably arrogant.
The Union members, most of them peons, follow what their leaders say. Sick days to be banked? Come on I had to use my sick days as holidays if I didn’t use them in the year & these dummies think that they can bank them.
We all know Miller is a weak leader but he must remain firm on this one. Time for the union to come back to reality. You don’t save lives, nor do you rescue them.
Unions, sleep with the fishes!!!