Recently, I finished a great book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler called Nudge. It argues that people are subject to a series of biases that produce bad decisions, particularly when the decision in question is complex, provides little feedback or imposes delayed costs. To correct for these biases, Thaler and Sunstein recommend “nudges”, or improved choice architecture that helps people make better decisions about health, money, and the environment. It’s a nifty idea.

As I rode my bike through downtown this morning in a garbage-tinged breeze, a funny thought occured to me: the garbage strike is creating a big, foul-smelling and difficult-to-ignore  “nudge” for Torontonians. Waste is a classic example of a human activity subject to routine biases. People are wasteful because, when all is working as it should, they are not confronted with the consequences of their wastefulness. Trash doesn’t pile up and things don’t start to smell. Most importantly, you aren’t required to haul the remnants of your daily activities away in your family car.

The trash strike turns this all around. Every day, all over the city, people are coping with the rather urgent problem of an increasing quantity of garbage and dwindling space to store it. And no one wants to put bags of waste in their new Nissan. There are a variety of responses to this situation. Impotent rage seems to be a popular choice. Neighbourhood garbage collectives and for-profit trash removal are another. I suspect – and I have no empirical evidence to support this, but it seems reasonable – another response is behavioural change. People may begin to change their consumption patterns and opt for products that produce less waste. Perhaps they will be more conscientious and waste less food in the kitchen. Whatever the new behaviour might be, the outcome is reduced garbage output. That’s good for the city (as it takes some pressure off our overburdened waste infrastructure) and it’s good for the environment (less trash in landfills). We’ve been nudged into a (slightly) more responsible way of living.

Obviously, a garbage strike is not a sustainable or desirable form of nudge. But it does hint at the possibilities of employing more nudging strategies to reduce waste and promote more responsible consumption. In fact, pre-strike Toronto employed a very mild nudgewith its garbage bin program. Requiring homeowners to purchase a garbage bin of a specific size does two important things: it visually demarcates the available space for garbage, and imposes a direct cost on over-cosumption (more garbage = a bigger bin = more money). In other words, garbage bins increase feedback and may help encourage better choices.

No question, waste is always a significant problem and more expansive solutions may be needed. What other nudges might be employed in this area? I’m no expert on waste removal, but a few spring to mind:

1. Even more infrequent trash collection (say every three weeks);
2. Private or user-pay (with an appropriate reduction in property tax) trash removal, where fees are levied on a per-bag or even per-pound basis; and
3. Increased social sanction. The technology exists for garbage collectors to collect real-time data on garbage output by house and neighbourhood. Perhaps each house could have a curbside “garbage flag”. Dwellings that are under the neighbourhood average would have their flag set to green, those at the average to orange, and those over the average to red. That way, everyone knows who produces too much garbage. And that kind of recognition can drive significant changes in behaviour.

All of these ideas provide more direct feedback to consumers, making it easier for people to recongnize their performance and adjust their behaviour accordingly. And, they all avoid direct regulation that limits personal choice.

Do you have any ideas for garbage nudges? Or do you think I’m full of garbage? Let me know in the comments.

We humans are an arrogant lot. We go about our daily lives, content in our apparent biological superiority and totally unaware of the seething insectoid threat lurking beneath our feet.

Scientists have discovered that the Argentine Ant rivals mankind with the size and reach of their colonies. They’re found on every continent except Antarctica, and rather than forming hundreds of thousands of individual communities, they actually belong to a single, face-meltingly scary SUPER-COLLOSAL MEGA COLONY. According the BBC:

…whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends.

These ants rubbed antennae with one another and never became aggressive or tried to avoid one another.

In short, they acted as if they all belonged to the same colony, despite living on different continents separated by vast oceans.

The most plausible explanation is that ants from these three super-colonies are indeed family, and are all genetically related, say the researchers. When they come into contact, they recognise each other by the chemical composition of their cuticles.

“The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society,” the researchers write in the journal Insect Sociaux, in which they report their findings.

It’s very clear what has happened here. Content with our position at the top of the food chain, humans have grown complacent and lazy. This has given the ants time to organize in the shadows, breeding a parallel super society poised to wrench the Earth from its human masters. Well, I say this ant menace must be stopped! We must (quite literally) stamp out their insidious plot wherever it might appear, from the deepest jungle to the most unassuming suburban lawn. Ant sympathizers in our Government and civic institutions must be rounded up and imprisoned. The musician Adam Ant must be summarily executed. Two legs good, six legs (and antennae) bad!

Thanks to EM for the link.

It’s amazing we’re only now getting this feature. But now that we have it, there are all kinds if fun implications for social marketers, politicians, and third-sectorites. You can post up a high-impact video and ad a link to a campaign or fundraising website. And if your video happens to get posted on a variety of sites, or even goes viral, that’s some traffic payola right there.

It took them long enough, but this small change will make a big difference to YouTube’s efficacy as an advocacy and marketing tool.

If you’re in Toronto tonigh and looking for a cheap-yet-highly-entertaining evening, may I suggest the Bad Dog Theatre’s neweset all-improvised parody show WEIRDOS? It’s a spoof of Heroes, and features some on Toronto’s finest improvisers. I’m also in it, but don’t worry- I mostly stand at the back.

Best of all, it’s only $10. That’s cheaper than a movie! And the theatre is air-conditioned! Failure to attend can only be construed as a form of mental illness.

See you there! Well, I mean, it’s hard to see people when you’ve got stage lights in your face. But I will sense your presence. I can do that. I have powers.

WEIRDOS!

So, the city just announced 19 temporary dumping sites across the city. I’m pleased to note one will be located in my neighbourhood, right in the middle of Sunnyside Park.

After at least seven minutes of feverish brainstorming, I have come up wit the perfect name for what I can only assume will be a majestic pile of garbage:

MOUNT ST. SMELLINS

I think the comparison between a festering pile of trash and a smouldering volcano is entirely appropriate. Plus, the catastrophic 1980 eruption of MSH is nice little metaphor for the state of labour relations in Toronto.

If you think you’ve got a more clever name than mine, leave it in the comments. And we’ll get people to vote on the best one, because Web 2.0 rules! Spread the word!

First: for the love of God, don’t panic. It has been three and a half days and people have gone bonkers. When the streets run thick with garbage and we bow before the gilded throne of a new Rat King, by all means go bat-shazbot insane. But in the meantime, perhaps we should just suck it up. After all, it could be worse. You could’ve had this guy’s week.

There are lots of other things you can do to mitigate the effects of what promises to be a long and highly irritating strike. Reduce the amount of garbage you produce. Organize neighbourhood trash trips to the nearest transfer station, complete with themed snacks (Mmm. Barbecue flavoured detritus mix!) and obnoxious road games. Pay an exhorbitant fee to grey market profiteers to haul your stinkables away. Or, dedicate a week’s worth of writing on your slightly popular blog to the vagaries of trash removal in this fine city.

But, as a wise man once said, “leave no crisis unused.” Perhaps the best way to survive this crisis is to clear a small patch of open ground of banana peels and coffee grounds and used tissues, and consider what has led us to this unfortunate juncture. In a rare insightful and clear-headed column, Christie Blatchford provides some helpful advice: “you have to know who to be mad at.”

In no particular order, then:

1. The Mayor. Look, there’s no questions David Miller is a good guy. But with every passing day, you’ve got to wonder if he’s a good mayor. The man has been in power since 2003, and for someone who campaigned with the timeless “a new broom sweeps clean” imagery, precious little has changed. The city is still broke. The waterfront remains undeveloped. The bike plan languishes.  And Miller has been singularly ineffective in lobbying for a “new deal” for Toronto. The city is still abused and neglected by the Federal government, and when Miller tries to pressure Ottawa into coughing up some cash – as he did with the $1.2 billion streetcar deal – the results are often catastrophic. And people are getting fed up with Miller’s bent political calculus. An Ipsos-Reid poll released today shows a veritable collapse in the Mayor’s support. True, the survey was commissioned by The National Post for glaringly obvious political reasons, and the article announcing is almost embarassingly partisan. But the numbers are still there.
2. City Council. If ever there was a case study in how self-interest and narrow-thinking can corrupt the public service motivation, it’s Toronto’s City Council. Kissinger once said that student politics was so savage precisely because the stakes were so small. Our 44 councillors somehow manage to retain the petulance of a student union despite being the administrative body of city of 4.5 million. These folks play a penny-ante game, despite the fact they’re in charge of frontline services for North Americ’s fifth largest metropolis. High stakes, indeed.
3. 19th Century Political Structures. It has often been said that municipalities in Canada “are children of the provinces.” That kind of folksy epithet made a lot of sense in 1867, when even the largest cities were relatively small in size and regional in reach. But today, Toronto is a global behemoth, with cultural and economic links that stretch around the world. Toronto is not the child of Ontario. Toronto is a hulking longshoreman that carries Ontario – and Canada, to some extent – on its back. And yet, we’re forced to labour under a political financial arrangement that is woefully out-of-date. Why are we perpetually broke? Because Queen’s Park and Ottawa pillage the proceeds of our economy to feed less dynamic regions, and give us too little back. The modern iterations of cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary are unprecedented in the history of Canada, and require unprecedented revenue and political control to be successful. We desperately need a new kind of political status for our super-cities, something that allows us to maintain a high level of municipal services and infrastructure while simultaneously investing in our social, cultural and economic vitality.
4. A Distinct Lack of Imagination. To some extent, these problems – a mediocre mayor, an inept council, and a raw political deal – are our own fault. We don’t demand better, so we’re forced to settle for less. This city is chockablock with innovators. So why does so little of that innovation find its way into our municipal government? A city – even a large city – is an ideal place for piloting “open governance”, “e-governance”, and other forms of technology-driven direct democracy. Where are the innovative public-private partnerships? The out-of-the-box public works projects? Toronto can be a truly world-class leader in commerce and creativity. But we’ve got to work for it, and not leave this project in the hands of ineffectual leaders.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve been thinking about in the first days of the Strike. I find the excitement of possibilities a worthy distraction from slow-building piles of trash.

What have you been thinking about?

Photo by KateDW.

What, is the veneer of civilization so thin that the moment our precious amenities are removed, we begin to fling our trash gleefully into the street? It’s probably worth remembering that for the vast majority of human history, people have done without curbside garbage removal, enclosed sewers or even a proper understanding of the germ theory of disease. These folks managed to come up with a bunch of keen things like, you know, the Renaissance, science, and industy. So I think we can probably deal with a garbage strike without devolving into shrieking, trash-covered chimps.

There are probably a few folks out there that think illegal dumping is some sort of political statement, a way to say “screw you for screwing up my municipal services.” Trouble is, the only people you screw over by dumping your trash are your fellow citizens. They’re in the same boat you are, so why are you making their Garbage Strike even more inconvenient and disgusting?

Grow up. Hang on to your trash as long as you can, then drive it to a transfer station. It ain’t convenient, but it’s a nice way to demonstrate that supposed evolutionary superiority we’re always on about.

As always, I’m thinking out loud here. I’m sure you’ll disagree, and I hope you’ll tell me why in the comments.

Now, I don’t really agree with 416 and 79’s position. With a recession in full swing and Toronto in the midst of a seemingly interminable  budget crisis, some concessions probably need to be made. But that’s an outside view. I can understand the frustration of the city workers who are being asked to give up pieces of their collective agreement. That’s just human nature. It’s also important to remember that unions are only accountable to their members, not the public. We shouldn’t be surprised when a union goes on strike, even when we can’t rationalize their bargaining demands. They are simply obeying their own internal logic, and while we don’t agree with it, it’s hard to justify calling it a capricious or malicious plot against the citizens of Toronto.

We should also recognize that both the City of Toronto and CUPE are being penalized for deep systemic problems in the structue of municipal finance. The city is on the hook for a substantial portion of welfare costs, which (surprise!) always increase in times of economic trouble. But unlike the provincial or federal government, Toronto does not have sufficient taxation power to increase revenue in the face of these growing costs. And the taxes the City can charge – property, automobile, etc. – tend to also decrease during a recession. Rising costs and declining revenue puts Toronto in a bad financial situation, and forces it to seek concessions from its employees. Conflict, angst and a general gnashing of teeth ensures.

As annoying as it is, the strike is also an opportunity to reconsider how we provide municipal services. I’m a firm believer in the right to strike. Unfortunately, in the context of a union of public employees with a monopoly on a variety of essential services, a strike constitutes a disruptive burden on Toronto. We literally have no other options if these workers choose to withdraw their labour. This actually distorts the bargaining proces, as CUPE has disproportionate power at the bargaining table and in bindind arbirtration. It also forces the City into a settlements that slowly but inexorably increase the cost of public services. This is an unaccpetable outcome for taxpayers, and is ultimately unsustainable.

So what is to be done? One possible solution would be to increase the amount of privatization in city services.  The City of Toronto would contract with multiple private service providers for contracts in a region-by-region or ward-by-ward scheme. People living in these areas would have input into bidding process, and could even make important decisions about the level of service – and associated cost – they desired. Employees of these private entities would be free to join a union, just like anyone else. And, if one service provider goes on strike, the whole city isn’t affected. What’s more, the City could arrange for another company to provide emergency coverage in a given area. This insulates the city from lengthy and expensive collective bargaining, introduces an element of cost-controlling competition, and helps guard against crippling city-wide work stoppages.

That’s just one solution. But I’m sure we can all agree a cash-strapped city, a striking union and citizens without services is an outcome that we need to prevent.

In the short-term, I hope everyone can manage their rage and keep the anti-union rhetoric to a minimum. Strikes are no fun. But this one will end. And if we use it as an opportunity to think about improving the current system, then maybe it won’t be a total wash.

If you don’t already love Pixar for their groundbreaking animation and beautifully sweet-hearted films, then you should probably read this:

Pixar Grants Girl’s Dying Wish to See ‘Up’

And if you did love Pixar prior to reading that article, then you’re probably now ready to marry Pixar and have it’s children, which I can only assume will be made of pure light and goodness.