Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Garbage strike blues


Recycle me
London, ON, February 2009 [Click to embiggen]


Shout out to Toronto, 200-ish kms to the east, as it settles in to a strike by 30,000 public service workers that has shut down rec centres, daycare, sports fields, pools and, sadly, garbage collection.

London endured a lengthy garbage strike a few years back, and our kids still remember having to drive the garbage in the back of our minivan to a nearby park, where friendly city managers helped us remove it from the vehicle before it began to leak. Good times.

As if this isn't enough, workers at Ontario's booze stores, known as the LCBO, are on the verge of striking as well. It's a double whammy of badness:
  • Canada's largest city festering in hot, humid weather with fetid garbage stinking up the already-choked urban atmosphere.
  • A complete lack of alcoholic escape from the misery.
I'm gonna guess Toronto's about to become a not very happy place to be. Y'all Torontonians have my empathy.

Your turn: This photo supports this week's Thematic Photographic theme, green. I invite you to share your own green vision by clicking here. New theme goes up tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7:00 p.m. EDT. What will it be? Cloudy.

(But if I were a betting person, I'd say there may be an extra green entry before then. Just because...)

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Carmi!
Sometimes a strike like in Torono isn't a bad thing. It makes people realize just how much they rely upon those services, especially the garbage collection. The strike may help people in Toronto rethink what they discard in the garbage and recycle more. They put it in the garbage and it magically disappears!
When London's garbage collection services went on strike it made us rethink how wastefull we can be. We recycled well prior to the strike but increased the amount we recycle during and since the strike.
Terri

awareness said...

Maybe it will increase the tourism traffic to the Maritimes....! We've got garbage collection AND Moosehead. WWWOOOOOHHHHOOOO!

Mojo said...

This must surely be a sign of the Apocalypse. TO without beer??

We've endured a (thankfully short lived) garbage strike here too, but at least I had a pickup truck to drive to the dump. I shudder to think what it would have been like to be left with only the family minivan to do the job.

So the order of the week next week is "Cloudy", eh? I think I can work with that. Of course, it may mean pilfering from my stash of SkyWatch Friday shots, but hey. TP was my first photo meme, and as such it has seniority. In fact, it just now occurred to me to look and it seems my 1-year anniversary with TP was on the 19th. And I missed it. Bummer. And since I came in two weeks post launch, Thematic's anniversary came and went without fanfare too. If I've counted them right, the 52nd edition was two (three now) weeks ago with the "Dusk" theme. So strictly speaking, this next theme - #55 -- will represent my anniversary, since I came in on theme #3 ("Glass" in case anyone was wondering). I should probably figure out a way to work both of those into the opening salvo for the upcoming theme as a ... celebration or whatever. Lemme think about that one.

Anyway, to close out TP 54 I've got a bit of the exotic.

Thematic Photographic 54: "Green" v.6.0

The Social Frog said...

Wow, very interesting post.

Jean said...

You prescribed exactly what the patient wanted, Carmi - I have been long waiting for the Clouds theme. If you saw one earlier comment from me, I had tried to squeeze in my cloud snaps in one of your dusk-themed entries :D

This time I will post it again, but under the correct theme :D

Anya said...

Lovely words,
great shot :)

Anonymous said...

interesting entry, even more striking shot:)

Sara Elizabeth said...

What a neat post. I can always count on you to post something beautiful and cerebral.

Happy WW from Sara @ The Mostly Wordless Wednesday H.Q.!

Melissa aka Equidae said...

yikes not nice i mean the problem in toronto

Sweet Kitchen said...

I had to laugh when I saw your WW post. I live in Toronto and it's supposed to be about 30 degrees today - if this keeps up the city will start smelling very ripe very soon and we won't have any booze to dull the pain!

Wish I could say that this was our first rodeo but unfortunately we seem to have a garbage strike on a fairly regular schedule. C'est la vie!

Drahdrah said...

Yeah, I think Torontonians are having a bit of a rough time these days. Hopefully the strikes won't last too long.
Great Pic!

katherine said...

Oh my brother is in Toronto but he never mention to us about garbage problem. Thanks for posting. Happy WW.

Carleen said...

Holy stink bomb, Batman! A garbage strike in the summer? Glad that I'm down wind!

Happy WW to you. :)

Tammy said...

Yuck! Garbage Strike + Summer = not a good combination.

I don't know if Canadians get re-runs of the show Monk on any station - but they had an episode of a garbage strike on that show. Monk boxed his garbage up and sent it to his therapist by UPS! LOL!