Guerilla ‘gangs’ refused to let strikers foul their ‘hoods

By E.D. Cauchi —

No, Toronto doesn’t have a team of Cinderella’s mice. Nor does it have a group of elves. But for a strike that had left the city without garbage pickup for over a month, Downtown is operating remarkably unfazed.

This is no happenstance; it is due to vigilante grassroots efforts of neighbours teaming up and taking responsibility for keeping the city beautiful and usable during the peak tourist season. “It’s lots of people doing little things,” explained Shaun Pearen, makeshift cleanup guy for his local St. Lawrence Berczy Park. The efforts of neighbourhood camaraderie range from people like Pearen heading to the street at 6:30 in the morning, picking up stray trash before work, to organizing cleanup crews.

Twenty Queen’s Quay residents tackled roughly two kilometres of the street during one such cleanup on July 18. The group cleared in and around half of the 44 overflowing waste bins. “Some of our neighbours thanked us when they realized what we were doing, including one person who donated a box of garbage bags!” a volunteer named Brian told The Bulletin.

Organizer James Russell says they would have hit every bin in their next clearing round they slated for the middle of August.

These acts could not be completed by residents alone, since they need a place to put the trash once it is collected. Russell found the solution in arranging for fifteen local businesses to each take on a couple extra garbage bags for their private collection.

Though the Queen’s Quay volunteers were turning to private waste removal and planned splitting $500 cost of a privately collected dumpster for their August roundup, there was a notable trend in resident-business collaboration. Hotels, corporate offices and food establishments alike all teamed up to help the Good Samaritans in their quest to keep the streets as clean as possible.

Residents had also encouraged property managers to clean to the curb instead of simply their property line. But Pearen’s had mixed success with businesses and wants them to do more.

“It’s a quality of life issue,” he said, explaining unwillingness to “shop or eat at businesses where they’re not taking care of the garbage in front.” Despite cleanup efforts, numerous areas remained marred by waste.

Though lessening the impact of the garbage could have been construed as a move against the strikers, volunteers in every area affirmed those were apolitical acts motivated solely by the desire to maintain the neighbourhoods.

Municipal representatives had shown similar sentiments.

In his press release during the strike, Ward 20’s Adam Vaughan expressed “disgust” for the illegal dumping of waste in the city’s parks—places he deems have become increasingly important with the cancellation of city daycares.

Vaughan’s office had also helped nearby residents arrange for the skeleton crews of non-unionized city employees pick up garbage bags from the parks. Those efforts had helped keep dumping sites like Christie Pitts and Trinity Bellwoods to a minimum.

Neighbourhood associations had been on the same mission. St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Assouciation was so active they nicknamed themselves the Guerrilla Garbage Gang. Organized by mass emails and fliers, they typically gathered in groups of 10 and had been progressively moving across the neighbourhood in hopes of making as wide an impact as possible in their small community.

“We have known for a long time in Ward 20 how much people care about their parks—now the rest of the city knows,” said Vaughan on residents getting involved in small-scale as well as Guerrilla Gang cleanups.

“We can sit back and complain or we can all do something,” Pearen explained, joining Councillor Vaughan in encouraging more people to take ownership for maintaining the city.

He added: “Whether there’s a strike or all year round, you can make a difference.”