Canada Has Cleaner Garbage

A recent announcement by John Kerry that he would ban Canadian garbage from being dumped in Michigan has caused outrage by residents and officials in Toronto. Columnist Don Martin of the National Post wrote that John Kerry is "the front-runner to be the most anti-Canadian candidate" and that he "is generating new hostilities from Americans."

It's not clear how this sentiment can be reconciled with major media reports that the whole world outside the U.S. loves John Kerry. Nevertheless, Torontonians are incensed partly because they believe their garbage is cleaner than American garbage and it shouldn't be criticized.

"The material we are sending there is as safe or safer than the stuff local people there are putting in their landfills," said the chief of solid waste for the city, Angelos Bacopoulos.

Well, if it's so clean, why doesn't Toronto keep their garbage? As stated in a previous post, they don't currently have any other place to put it since they shut down their landfills.

Regarding the purported cleanliness level of Toronto's garbage, there are some people who strongly disagree.

"You should listen to the noise and smell the stench and see the dangerous road conditions that we have to deal with every day," said Lynette Guzman, who lives with her husband and two children in Wayne County, Mich.

Maybe once you get past the stench, the stuff from Toronto is pretty clean.