TORONTO – Toronto produces 900,000 tonnes of waste per year.  But it is unclear whether this figure is pre-pandemic.  Trash is not a Toronto-centric problem.  It was recently reported in the New York Times that 193 countries have produced 8 million tonnes of pandemic-related plastic waste. 1.5 billion face masks are projected to end up in your oceans. 

The article goes on to describe birds weaving face masks into their nests; seals and puffins getting tangled in face masks; sea turtles with face masks in their stomachs. We could go on and on about the tangled web we have weaved with PPE, but if we look at this story from a distance, in terms of oceans and exotic animals on the other side of the hemisphere, then we will continue to feel distanced from this problem.  In Toronto, we do not have cute puffins.  We have Lake Ontario.

One single surgical mask, if left by the shoreline, has the ability to release 16 million microplastics. How about one Tim Hortons coffee cup?  A dozen?  Two dozen?  As I stand beneath a bridge in Etobicoke in front of what looks like a hundred Tim Hortons cups at minimum, I shudder at what something like this could mean for our future generations.  To clarify, I tell this story not with the intention of calling out Tim Hortons, but rather it is just one example of the sorry mess that Torontonians have been creating for themselves, well before this pandemic hit.  The common coffee cup discarded at will.  This is not a “Pandemic Problem”.  This is a “People Problem”.  That is, people who are just too lazy, just too indifferent and just couldn’t be bothered with micro-litter that causes macro-problems.

The truth is, our garbage no longer gets dumped in Michigan. In fact, it get sent to “Green Lane Landfill”.  What a cruel joke, to name it after verdant pastures.  Green Lane Landfill is situated 200 km west of Toronto and a mere 25 minutes south of London, Ontario.  I do not plan on going to Green Lane Landfill any time in the near future, although I know it will be easier to get there without having to show my vaccination passport and fill up the ArriveCAN app.  This is not a journey I wish to take.  And yet, inhabitants in the nearby area have to continue to put up with this filthy staycation, knowing that we Torontonians continue to generate and perpetuate mass heaps of trash even in the height of a pandemic.

It does not end there.  Did you know that Canada tried to get away with illegally shipping its garbage to the Philippines in 2013-2014?  This all got settled in June 2019 when we had to pay the price of $1.14 million to bring back these 69 shipping containers filled with Canadian crap. How embarrassing.  Should we even wonder why Third World countries are not able to pull themselves out of this pandemic?

Garbage – the breeding ground for many more Omicrons to come. 

Image (generic) by Sergei Tokmakov Terms.Law from Pixabay