The campaign is over and it’s time to recycle my election signs. 

I am at York Region’s Waste Transfer Station at Warden Avenue in Georgina.

As I heave bundles of metal H frames into a huge skip I ask the guys working there where it all ends up.

“Don Mills Steel and Metal in Gormley”

“That’s good. I want to see this stuff recycled.”

Now I wander over to another huge container reserved for election signs. It is an astonishing sight. It’s like an elephant’s graveyard. The old signs go there when they know it's the end.

Amazing!

I turn to the waste transfer guys, pointing to bundles of Tom Vegh signs. I am just about to throw my signs of top of Vegh’s.

“That’s amazing! I ran against this guy.”

“He’s been here twice today.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And he is not going to run again. It’s his last time.”

“Really? You were told that?”

“Yeah.”

I ask if it is OK to take photos of all the signs.

“This is such a phenomenal sight. All these election signs.”

“Go ahead.”

Click. Click. Click. Click.

End-of-life

There is a wire trolley basket full of Vegh signs and many, many more in the container behind.

I look at the huge piles of Vegh lawn signs with the re-elect stickers in the top left corner.

Yup. He’s not going to be re-using these in 2026.

Gordon Prentice 29 October 2022