A CYCLIST against A MOTORIST

Kensington street fight highlights local littering problem (Posted Date: Thursday, February 16, 2006) By Kris Scheuer LACK OF WASTE BINS is said to contribute to litter in the Kensington Market area. Anyone who frequents Kensington Market knows the area has its fair share of litter. Because the popular food and clothing market attracts a lot of people walking about, there’s a higher probability of litter than say the Lakeshore where people just drive by in their cars. So it may come as no surprise that two people got into a confrontation over discarded litter in this urban marketplace. On Jan. 26, bicycle courier Leah Hollinsworth saw a motorist toss a half-eaten meat patty out his car window. When she picked it up and tossed it back into his car, things got a bit out of hand. The male driver got out of his car and stomped on her bike, after he said she keyed his vehicle, and then some onlookers held the motorist until the police came. Photographer Adam Krawesky, who was in the market at the time, caught all of this with his lens. Visit http://www.citynoise.org/article/2770 to see the photos for yourself. Hollinsworth said she often stops people who litter to tell them they’ve dropped something. They rarely pick up the trash they have just tossed and usually just throw her a dirty look. The Kensington Market incident was the first time things escalated to this extent. "I just assumed that a grown man wouldn’t attack me in broad daylight with people looking on and his fiancée in the car," she said. In the end, police did come but laid no charges, because if they charged the man, they would also have had to charge Hollinsworth with assault for throwing the litter at him. Her friends call her the "anti-litter Nazi," but it’s important to stand up for what you believe in, she said. The confrontation between the motorist and the cyclist does highlight the issue of waste and the environment on a larger scale, said Matt Blackett, publisher of Spacing, a magazine on Toronto's urban landscape and public spaces. "There is something to do with cars being wasteful with oil and a bike being environmentally friendly and the cyclist picking up the litter and throwing it back at him," he said. Even without considering the greater implications to the environment between driving versus biking, seeing someone litter does set off a reaction in some people. Blackett has stopped everyone from a little old lady, who threw her used tissue of the ground, to teens who had thrown half-eaten pizza on the street, and asked them to pick up their trash. Blackett said having more waste bins in Kensington Market would make it easier for people to properly dispose of their trash. "It’s inexcusable. Where there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic downtown we need more waste bins," he said. He said the large Eucan bins, currently being tested by the city, are not the answer. "Our monster garbage bins aren’t encouraging people to recycle. They encourage people to buy more," he said, referring to the large billboard ads on the sides of the bins. The city is not sitting still on this issue, said Richard Butts, general manager of Solid Waste Management. "We have enhanced services in downtown Toronto. We enhanced it last year to include cleaning public laneways," he said. "The only way we can get the city cleaner is to share responsibility. We have to get residents, businesses, tourists and the city engaged in changing behaviour patterns to improve the litter situation in Toronto."