Talking Trash: Baltimore & Toronto
You just never know who you might run into at a Trash Wheel Dumpster Dive! After some inspiring words from Adam Lindquist of the Baltimore Waterfront Partnership and Noah Smock of the Baltimore Community ToolBank, I settled in at a table dedicated to separating small loads of dumpster contents into streams for counting: food packaging, tobacco products, plastic bottles … you get the picture. Once you get into your sorting groove, you can look up and see what’s happening around you.
Imagine my delight when I realized I was at a table with Toronto trash stars and founding members of the University of Toronto Trash Team who are well into a long-term plan to bring trash wheels to Toronto. Chelsea Rochman, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and Hannah De Frond, coordinator of their International Trash Trap Network, were in Baltimore to learn more about Mr. Trash Wheel and his colleagues, the inspiration for their work in Toronto.
They explained the hold up to installing their first trash wheel: the major river feeding into the Toronto Harbor, artificially straightened in the 1800s to accommodate industrial development, is being relocated to try to recreate a more natural flow and all of the ecological benefits that go along with that. Wow! That’s an undertaking.
It was particularly interesting because a few months before I visited Toronto for the first time. A couple of notable things: Toronto bucks the trend of residents moving from the City to the suburbs. There, it is just the opposite. People are moving from the suburbs downtown and the number of high-rise residential buildings going up is proof positive of that.
Even more amazing, bucolic Wards island that lies just off of the Toronto waterfront. A short 15 minute ferry ride puts the gleaming high rise towers behind and a car free island of cottages, marinas and parks ahead. Best explored by foot or bike, Ward’s Island has been an amusement park in the 1800s, a camping site and now a year-round community. Two very different worlds – separated by a pleasant ferry ride. The Maryland connection? Hanlan Point stadium on Ward Island was where Baltimore’s Babe Ruth hit his very first home run at the age of 19!
What does all of this have to do with trash? Well, Toronto, as Ontario’s Capital, lies at the heart of efforts to reduce litter through a relatively new producer responsibility program. Ontario passed a producer responsibility law for paper and packaging in 2016. Walking the streets and riding busses and trams, there just did not seem to be as much trash on the streets of the downtown and suburbs as we have. An anecdotal snapshot for sure. So, I wanted to ask the Professors what they could tell me. Is there less trash? Do they credit a producer responsibility law for that?
As we have been talking a lot about over the past year, implementing producer responsibility is a complex endeavor. Ontario passed regulations in 2021 to implement the 2016 law and, this year, is set to roll-out their “blue box” program, the first full effort for producers to manage their packaging and paper waste from production to end-of-life. They also aim to harmonize across the country. The goal will sound very familiar, reducing plastic and litter.
Those questions are still to be answered in Ontario and we are delighted to have made new friends who can keep us posted. Here in Maryland, efforts are underway to begin to get the needs assessment underway, the first step in creating a full producer responsibility program.
Talking trash can be a good thing! We look forward to the advent of the Toronto Trash Wheel too!
