Toronto Garbage Strike Leaves City With Waste Management Mess

Posted in Press, Weird Finds on July 30th, 2009

Canada’s largest city has had a garbage strike for the last 5 weeks resulting in garbage piling up on streets, in dumpsters, in front of stores, everywhere. Labor unions requested wage increases for garbage workers to match the increases of other municipal workers, but were denied. 24,000 out of 30,000 workers have been off the job since June 22, 2009, but the garbage collectors’ absense has made cause the largest notice.

The city of Toronto held out for longer than anyone thought, designating parks and lots as temporary “landfills” for the garbage. The city and labor union have finally come to an agreement and the garbage pickups will resume July 31, 2009.

Toronto Garbage Strike – Week 3

Danvers, MA ‘trash rage’ over weight rules

Posted in Press, Weird Finds on July 22nd, 2009

According to a WBZ4 story, a Danvers man was upset with trash collectors after they wouldn’t take one of his trash containers since it was overweight. After some verbal abuse, he followed the trash collectors in his minivan around their route and tried to run them down. He was finally arrested after the trash collectors called the Danvers Police. 50 pounds is the maximum weight for a trash container in the town of Danvers, MA. See below for Danvers’ trash and recycling rules.

Putting weight on the amount of trash residents put out is nothing new. There are similar trash restrictions in Salem, MA.

Download the Danvers Trash and Recycling Rules (PDF)

Danvers' Trash and Recycling

Dumpster Swimming Pool, Lo-Fi Country Club

Posted in Weird Finds on July 19th, 2009

Dumpster Swimming Pool

Can’t say we’ve used our dumpster rental service for these types of things. It’s lined with plastic and uses a filtering system – so it actually isn’t gross. Macro-Sea, a design firm in New York, made a dumpster swimming pool along with other “lo-fi” country club items. They found a developer who’d let them use the space, had dumpsters donated from a construction company (thanks to the economic downturn), and created a space that’s been promoted through art organizations in the area. It’s an invite-only deal at this point, but it’s a great way to think about reusing materials.

There were finer details involved, link filing down sharp edges in the dumpster and lining the bottom with sand to create a smooth bottom. The dumpster pools are insured and the “country club” has hosted photo shoots and lectures among other events.

Dumpster Swimming Pool

Source: New York Times

Roll-Off Container Full of Watermelons

Posted in Weird Finds on July 9th, 2009

So it looks like someone else found more food in a roll-off container. This time instead of fortune cookies it’s watermelons. What a waste of food. The roll-off container looks pretty rusted too. That’s too bad.

roll off container with watermelons

Source: Boing Boing

Dumpsters full of…fortune cookies?

Posted in Commercial Dumpster Rental, Weird Finds on June 30th, 2009

In all our time providing dumpster rental service to the North Shore, we can’t say we’ve ever seen anything like this. Hal Bergman was driving around Los Angeles looking to shoot some photo and video when he came across dumpsters in a dead-end alley filled to the top with fortune cookies! Check out the rest of the photos on his flickr photoset. Maybe we should start documenting weird finds in our dumpsters and roll-off containers.

Dumpster Fortune Cookie

Source: Boing Boing