Celebration of Litter
byI’ve been through garbage strikes in this town before, and they’re not pretty as no one would expect they would be. I’ve also been to Toronto during a heat wave AND a garbage strike in the middle of August and well, I think it actually made the town smell a little better.
All joking aside city workers in Vancouver, who are an integral part of the maintenance and upkeep of our tourist-attracting streets and dispose of our household waste, could be going on strike very soon.
Take full advantage if it’s your day to drag those garbage cans to the curb because it could be your last chance for a long time… Last-ditch talks aimed at averting a strike by outside workers in Vancouver have broken off, and there’s still no deal in sight. They started hopefully, but ended abruptly yesterday, with what is being described as a “significant distance” between the two sides. [News1130]
Vancouver’s 1,800 outside workers, including garbage collectors, will refuse to work overtime as of 11 a.m. Thursday, while 375 district and recreational staff in North Vancouver will ban overtime and will work to rule… Mike Jackson, President of CUPE Local 1004, said garbage collection likely wouldn’t be affected by an overtime ban. “It’s only if pickets go up, that’s when garbage is affected.” [Vancouver Sun]
That isn’t very good news, which only makes me think of the upcoming fireworks, the Celebration of Light, that attract millions of spectators to the downtown core and surrounding beaches over several nights. I see how the trash cans along Robson get stuffed just by the end of the day (side note: the tray in front of the trash cans is for recyclables, not frappucinno and slurpee cups).
If the photo above is any indication it can get really messy, and with no one to clean it up do you suppose they’ll just find volunteers? Cancel the event altogether? We’ll find out more tomorrow as negotiations are still underway.
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NOT AGAIN!!! i still remember the HUGE rats from the FIRST one. eww.
if this all goes down during the fire works we’re screwed.
just on my run i saw them putting the barge out and Global was there filming it.
Rats? I don’t remember seeing rats last time. Regardless, I’m really hoping this strike doesn’t come to fruition…
The first rat I ever saw in the city was on Main St near Science World. John and I spotted one crossing our path near Joyce Skytain station a few weeks ago too…. eeek.
the other day we ran into a turtle on the way to the golf course, for serious. and i have been mere inches from a coyote because it was dark and i never saw it thought it was a dog when i did realized it wasn’t and was super happy it never attacked me. my point is that we sure have a nice array of some nice some not nice creatures in the city…normally golfing we only see the skunks and the raccoons there are families of both on the course and so you get to see the new babies every year it is really cool actually.
its funny how it takes something extreme like this to make us more aware of our consumption behaviour (like when there was stinky water in the fall- people pushing eachother over at costco for bottled water)..
here’s some fun flicks on garbage if you’re interested: http://citizen.nfb.ca
[…] that hundreds of thousands of people would come streaming past my building 4-5 nights a year (even during a garbage strike). When I lived in Surrey it was a treat when the family would pile into the car and head out to the […]