Here in our part of Ontario we are quite a ways from Canada’s biggest and most densely populated city, but anytime there’s new technology put into use for waste collection and recycling we’re going to take note no matter where in Canada that’s happening. Our specialty may be with dumpster rentals for Trenton and Colborne areas of the Province, but we always take interest in waste management trends of any type.
With Toronto being the Canadian city with the highest number of people residing there means a whole lot of trash is produced there, and like any big city some of it is going to end up where it shouldn’t be. No one is going to select disposal bin rentals and have them set up along the harbor front on Lake Ontario there, and even if the city would allow it a lot of trash would still end up in the water.
That has been a problem in the city going back all the way to the 1960s, although with detrimental population boom seen in Toronto over the past 20 years the problem has become magnified a thousand times over.
Well over a year ago now we wrote a blog here about an invention that was patrolling the harbor and collecting trash in Baltimore, MD, USA and it may be that engineers up here in Ontario took note. The reason we say that is Toronto has had its own floating trash collectors doing the same type of admirable work over the last year and some. For jobsite waste disposal in Colborne we’ve got you covered, but our roll off bins don’t float and our trucks don’t either.
Enough about that though, and let’s take the rest of this blog entry to talk about this impressive new civic-minded initiative that has been put into use and it making for a cleaner and much more inviting harbor for Toronto.
Skim and Collect
From May through October 2023 residents in Toronto may have seen the eight Seabins and two WasteSharks at work over that time removing 43 kg of litter from the Toronto Harbour. This included 62,996 pieces of small plastic pollution and there’s been a lot of information in the news recently about how microplastics are the absolute worst with the way they are started to get into nearly everything – including the bodies of fish and other water life and even into us humans through a number of different means.
All of this was part of the 2023 Trash Trapping Program, and we’ll admit it certainly is a lot more newsworthy than trash removal for Belleville or jobsite bin rentals for Ameliasburg. But staying on topic the official review of the project included the conclusion that while floating debris and plastic pollution in the water is a problem in Toronto, there are plenty of other bodies of water in or alongside major metro regions in other parts of Canada where this is an ongoing problem too.
Further, the unfortunate truth is that it is prevalent in urban waterways all over the world. We agree that Toronto has been fortunate to have a coalition of like-minded organizations that have collectively offered innovative solutions that leverage new technology and local research and trades to help make a difference in addressing the problem. And quite the problem it with the floating trash collected including bottle caps, plastic pellets, food container remnants, cigarette butts, and fatbergs.
If the last term there is foreign to you then allow us to explain. It’s not something used to refer to your neighbour, even though it might be appropriate. Instead fatbergs are huge, congealed clumps of fat and other mucky stuff that are built in large part from quicky-wipes and similar products that are flushed down the toilet when they really shouldn’t be. Furthest thing from dumpster rentals for Castleton or Cherry Valley, but this is the kind of the stuff that can end up floating in Lake Ontario near the Toronto shoreline.
It is tiny debris including microplastics that are the most problematic, and fortunately this is where the Seabins have excelled at collecting trash that would otherwise find its way to more remote areas of the Lake over time. Plastic items in the environment eventually break down into microplastics and it becomes difficult to determine their origins. This year the 2023 Trash Trapping Program team has seen decreases in the amount of microplastics collected in the ports. Again you may have seen Seabins deployed at four locations on the Toronto waterfront and at the Outer Harbour Marina.
If you want to rent a dumpster in Trenton you should call us, but if the trash you’d like to see gone is of the unsightly type and marring the waterfront you enjoy so much then it’s definitely a job for a Seabin.
Sharks at Work
The WasteSharks have been just as much a part of the efforts as the Seabins, and a lot of people seem to think they have much cooler names. These sharks don’t get excited with blood in the water, and instead what gets them fired up is any manmade trash that is unwelcomingly floating on the Lake near Toronto. The WasteSharks are equipped with a large catch basin and in comparison to the Seabins they capture mostly large plastic fragments.
They’re great for grabbing large pieces of foam from construction and food containers, hard plastic fragments, and ready to gobble up water bottles, caps, cups, lids and straws too. Even the biggest and most voracious sharks might need to take a doggy bag with your neighbor, but these sharks also had fatbergs as top ten most commonly found items inside them when they returned from a day’s work.
Over the course of three expeditions in October 2023, the Toronto WasteSharks collected 19.2 kilograms of floating trash, including nearly 600 pieces of microplastics, as part of the ‘ebb and flow’ program that began once the technology was proven and the Sharks were deemed ready to start working to clean up the harbour.
With a larger capacity and remote controlled agility, these guys are able to collect a higher volume of debris in a shorter period compared to the Seabins. They collected nearly the same amount as all the Seabins combined over the entire field season, and another big advantage with them is they can be piloted into problem areas such as the corners of slips/ These are areas where we debris and other material accumulate in volume more naturally.
Cleanup on Land
Interesting stuff for anyone who’s like us and attuned to the need to have waste disposed of properly. If that’s a need for you at your home, a jobsite, or anywhere else where you’ve got too much trash and other materials that need to go to the dump it makes so much sense to rent a dumpster from us and have it delivered anywhere in the Marmora area or elsewhere near here.
We can usually have our mini-bin system delivered the same day, and once it’s filled we’ll pick it up and dispose of the waste properly and directing it to the right facilities based on accordance to Provincial bylaws that regulate waste disposal. If we’ve had the pleasure of providing you bins for the first time and you’re happy with the service we encourage you to leave us positive feedback here at the website.
Need waste gone and with a disposal bin rental? One call does it all and we can have your bins at your site just as soon as you need them when you call on weekday mornings. We’ll see you soon, and you can expect the very best service.