It may not smell pretty, but the strike has made us look our trash in the eye. It’s also turned Toronto into a scavenger’s paradise chock full of used furniture, clothes and toys free for the taking.[rssbreak]
All we have to do now is freshen up the image of those who sort through it for treasures.
Anneli Rufus, co-author of The Scavengers’ Manifesto, thinks it’s time to ditch the term “garbage-picking” in favour of something like “repurposing.”
The stigma means that although people have been trading items at the curb for as long as anyone can remember, few own up to it. Hanging out with friends last week, I get the conversation rolling by showing off the sneakers I found two days before.
My bud admits he recently found a paper cutter but assures everyone he wouldn’t have touched it if it were lying in a pile of garbage.
Even a proud scavenger like me succumbs to societal pressure. I have no qualms about searching through a pile of shoes to find the match, but I wimp out at opening the new monster bins. It’s psychological. In a society bombarded by messages to buy new stuff, waste is cool and reuse taboo.
And City Hall isn’t helping. The grassroots habit of leaving curbside gifts for others continues without official bolstering by an admin whose reuse efforts are limited to annual Environment Days.
But we’ve learned a lot in the last three weeks, the junk overflow highlighting the weakness of limiting waste management to recycling and trash. It might be hard to imagine a public campaign telling people not to buy so much, but we need a city-sponsored info blitz boosting reuse and showing people how to display usable goods next to their garbage bins for a second life.
Instead, the city assumes anything left on the sidewalk is recycling or trash, and then spends public money hauling and burying still useful goods. During the current walkout, things are even worse: placing reusables at the curb equals illegal dumping and can result in a minimum $380 fine.
It’s not something I worried about last week when I moved. I probably could have made some money holding a lawn sale for the stuff I didn’t want in my new place, but what comes around goes around, so I displayed my cast-off furniture in front of the Dovercourt co-op I was leaving.
It disappeared the same day.
And that’s how it goes: junk dealers scan the streets with open trucks, locals cart away couches in vans, and those on foot use shopping carts, dollies and friends to lug heavy valuables.
In return, I easily found a chest of drawers, mirror, ironing board, clothing and hangers for my new digs on my bike ride to work.
There’s a legal issue on this side of the giveaway system, too. You can be fined $360 for removing articles from people’s private property on trash day. But this is a technical illegality, and if you’re positive the article is being discarded, the odds of getting charged are minuscule.
Once you realize how much free stuff is out there, half-price sales will no longer seem attractive. And the next time someone brags about a cheap purchase, come out of the closet and boast. Nothing tops free.
Bottom line: if you have to part with your stuff, don’t let it become household waste.
