Environment

Garbage and Waste

The city of Toronto currently relies on access to Michigan for disposal of all of the city's garbage. This is not a sustainable solution. Neither is the alternative of sending our waste to Kirkland Lake's abandoned Adams Mine in the event of restricted access to Michigan landfills. Only those who directly profit from the contracts can justify these options. There are other solutions to the city's garbage problems.

City Council must take the leadership and turn Toronto into a healthier place to live, setting an environmental example for the rest of the province to follow. Currently, the city has a plan to divert 60 per cent of household waste from landfill and to divert 100 per cent of waste by 2010. Last year, residents of Etobicoke started sorting their garbage into wet and dry piles and Scarborough, North York and the rest of the City of Toronto will be included in the new system by 2005. At this time, Canada dumps about 80 per cent in landfills, compared to 20 per cent in Japan and 12 per cent in Switzerland. We are years behind other developed countries in the quick implementation of environmentally sensible policies.

Humanize Toronto proposes an aggressive recycling and reduction programme, expanding such services and focusing on increasing recycling and composting facilities in apartment buildings. Given the option, Torontonians will choose to recycle, to separate their garbage into wet and dry, to compost, to do their part. The least the City can do is allow them to do it. However, there is more to the city's garbage problems than the amount collected from households. The city must also be strict about recycling and reducing commercial and industrial waste.

Humanize Toronto additionally proposes that businesses be held accountable for their waste, shifting financial responsibility from the taxpayer to the producer. This programme is already practiced in other parts of Canada. When responsible for environmental costs, producers will have the economic incentive to create products that are less wasteful and will help in keeping waste from being dumped.

Transportation

The Greater Toronto Region (GTA) is experiencing a rapid and continuous boost in population and motor vehicles. Thousands of people move to Toronto and the GTA every year, increasing urban sprawl as well as the number of people entering the Toronto area from the GTA every day. As a consequence of this rapid increase, gridlock has become a problem in our city. It is a serious threat not only to our environment but also to our health and our economy.

In our Real Budget work, Toronto residents put public transit as their number one budgetary priority for three years running.

And meanwhile, City Council has repeatedly demonstrated a serious lack of vision regarding transportation in Toronto. Unlike the Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver regions, there is no coordinated transportation and land use plan between the city of Toronto and the GTA. There is not even a clear action plan, nor any officially endorsed strategy that explains how Toronto will deal with transportation issues in the next two decades, when its population is expected to increase by 40 per cent.

We are proposing instead a step-by-step plan to humanize Toronto's public transportation system. This plan is important for our city and includes a commitment to:

• A community-oriented, fully funded, accessible and efficient public transportation system.


• The development of seamless public transportation that would allow for door to door service within Toronto and throughout the GTA.


• New subway and LRT lines, and more surface transit vehicles-buses, streetcars, and minibuses for rush-hour neighbourhood shuttle service.


• A seriously reworked funding model for the TTC, with participation from all levels of government.


• A commitment to cyclists, increasing cycle-only lanes as well as safe and adequately lit bicycle trails.

After the province removed its funding, the TTC became the only public transit system in North America that receives no direct federal or provincial funding, giving the TTC the dubious distinction of being the least-subsidized transit system in the continent.

This situation has important environmental and health-related consequences. Transportation activities are the biggest cause of air pollution in Canada's urban areas and there is a common scientific consensus that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, are causing increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses and rising global temperatures, putting our health and our futures at risk.

Air Pollution

In the summer of 2002 and 2003, Humanize Toronto ran a campaign to make the TTC free on smog days. We collected over 2000 signatures and got the proposal put to a vote at City Hall. As we write this, a feasibility study is being done by the TTC on the matter.

People want something serious done about the smoggy air they're breathing - and rightly so. Currently, the Ontario Medical Association estimates that annually 9,800 people are admitted to hospitals, 13,000 people make emergency room visits, and 1,900 die prematurely in our province because of air pollution - 1000 of them in Toronto alone. Crop and forest damage also occurs with increased air pollution and even water pollution results from run-off from roads.

City Council must take seriously our proposals for a humanized, greatly expanded and improved public transit system. Transportation is the leading source of greenhouse air emissions; therefore, public transit can and should be one of the basic strategies for cleaner air and reducing the risk of climate change from greenhouse gas emissions. Car pooling should also be encouraged through incentives and clear goals should be set to reduce the number of cars entering the city each day.

Humanize Toronto proposes replacing our outdated dependence on energy generated though coal burning with energy conservation campaigns and clean alternative energy sources.

We also propose developing clear and enforceable Health Standards on Indoor Air Quality because on average, people spend 80 per cent of their time indoors. An occupational health concern, Indoor Air Quality Standards need to be set, since we may be exposed to a variety of pollutants detrimental to our health originating from human activities, presence in the home or at work.

Urban Sprawl

The city needs a clear, coordinated plan with the GTA in order to curb this phenomenon. Urban sprawl results in increased auto use, causing environmental degradation as land for agriculture, natural habitats or other public purposes is lost. It also raises more barriers to the viability of mass transit. Less public transportation means more cars on the road, which in turn means more congestion, more smog, and more respiratory diseases such as asthma.

Energy

The city of Toronto is far behind other cities in the developed world in energy conservation and alternative energy production. Torontonians constantly suffer because of it, as the air quality diminishes when coal burning plants are used to meet peak energy demands.

The unreliability of our current system was proven during the Big Blackout of 2003. Besides energy conservation campaigns, the city must encourage the construction of new buildings, and the retrofitting of old ones, with environmentally-friendly, energy and heat efficient materials and insulators. Landlords and homeowners should be encouraged to continue to reduce air conditioning and electrical use. Additionally, tree planting, rooftop gardens, windmills and solar panels can all reduce heating and cooling costs and pollution.

Humanize Toronto proposes programmes that support the installation of solar panels or, where suitable, windmills in homes and businesses. We also fully endorse the recommendations of the Toronto Environmental Task Force. Their complete implementation should be a main concern for the new city Council.