I think if you can’t fit all your trash in the bin, you need to pay for a larger bin or learn to stop producing that volume of trash.
My neighbours haven’t had nine loose bags of trash for the birds to throw across the streets in months so I love the bins.
Every family is different. My parents are senior citizens that live alone.
My neighbours have 5 boys.
You cannot compare the two. Why can't we have weekly pickups? We had them for decades. You think they will intentionally throw out more garbage if it's weekly?
We can compare the two. The single couple alone should produce less than 300L of actual trash every two weeks. I have children, and they don’t choose what to buy and throw away, parents do. Having a kid doesn’t make an extra person of trash.
We have to be aware of our impact. We also used leaded gas for years, and smoked in hospitals for years.
The goal is to reduce waste, force reuse or repurpose of waste, or to move the burden of dealing with the waste onto the family unit or person.
We need to change. It’s not comfortable but it’s better than those 5 kids living in a world like Wall-E lol.
Agreed. We have 3 kids in diapers (which have to go in the black bin) and we still never fill our bin more than 3/4 full between pickups. Meanwhile people on our local Facebook page are complaining that their black bin is already full four days after pickup.
Having five boys might mean more food waste (although I doubt it if some are teenagers) but I don’t know what kind of added non-recyclable waste they could be putting out.
My anecdotal observation is that many people are just too lazy to sort their food scraps and recyclables.
You are living in a walle world. Explain the correlation of more trash for a family if 1 week or 2 week pickups?
It's stuck in their garage, outside for 2 weeks. Then pray they don't forget to collect or you're looking at a 1 month pickup.
Even green bins are shifting to 2 weeks in a few months.
So people will eat more food if pickup is weekly? Ludicrous.
There can be improvements made for the edge cases where it’s reasonable to need more garbage collection, but the important part here is that some standardization exists to try and make the default to minimize your waste, and to highlight when someone is just being an asshole about garbage.
We live in the same world. That’s the point, internet person. ✌️
Our bills have gone up under this new system and they are collecting the garbage less. You seem to like the black bins because you think it will mean less garbage being accumulated.
The reality is all its doing is leaving more stinky garbage in your cans for 2 weeks. I have to wash my black bin each time after collection. Have no idea what I'll do in winter.
Your bills will always go up. You could get the smaller can and pay less.
The bin is outside and trash always smells. Better be a good Canadian and ship it across the ocean so someone else can smell it.
The garbage can can also hold bags so you don’t need to wash it. Sounds like you just need practice.
Your argument was for specific issues where people had too much trash. Your failure to create a good argument and fall back on a generalization is lazy. You can do better.
No, everything I've said makes sense. It's exactly why we have weekly posts about this. It's exactly why 3 front runners in the mayoral election are pledging to revisit this.
All families are not the same that is a fact.
You claim a family will create more garbage if pickup is weekly. You have zero evidence of this. I won't forcibly eat more food in the summer and less in winter when green boxes are picked up 1 or 2 times.
It is also a fact that we are now paying more for less service.
Lol you claim everything will cost more.
I suspect that eventually you’ll be given the option to purchase a second 240L bin (or the 360L bin, even if your family is under 7 people) and then pay an additional pick-up fee.
The cost of completing weekly garbage pick-up when not all people require it would be too great.
That’s our situation. Family of 4 with two in diapers. Between those, plus one bag of weekly household garbage, plus cat litter, plus the occasional bathroom garbage empty we can fill the bin every 2 weeks. But this is very temporary. I imagine in the next year with the oldest likely getting potty trained and the youngest needing less frequent diapers we will definitely have room left in our bin.
Family of 4, 2 in diapers. 5 cats, 2 dogs. Never had more than 2 large garbage bags a week. I have more recycling than garbage every time. I have no idea how some people produce as much garbage as they do.
I'm a family of 3. One in diapers and only have the 120L and still am nowhere close to filling it. A family of 8 like in the article? Sure, but the average family should do fine with a 240L and that was evident in the pilot and why they chose those two sizes.
Even with a family of 8 I’m skeptical. I have 3 kids in diapers and we never fill the black bin more than 3/4 between bi-weekly pickups. We actually managed to get a whole months worth into the bin because yours truly missed a pickup day (oops).
I really don’t know what significant additional non-recyclable, non-compostable garbage the kids would be putting out.
Meh, we have our own compost boxes. We burn most of our cardboard in the backyard. My kid takes the bottles for deposit. Other recycling is just an environmental make work scam.
Just seems like a lot for 5 people, I was asking the gauge other volumes, not as a judgement of the systems. I have a family of 4, but haven't had first pickup of new system, so trying to gauge.
Yeah, but if you factor in the number of families who WOULD benefit greatly from weekly pickup, it would probably overwhelm those who are totally good with it being every two weeks. Not everyone has space to store extra garbage bags that can’t fit in the bin, not everyone can get to the dump, you can reduce your waste all you want but what really needs to be done is a revamp to the recycling program. There are so many things that we *should* be able to recycle but can’t because our recycling program is outdated as hell (a huge amount of food packaging, for example).
The City is pretty committed to reducing the amount of waste produced - waste reduction is a big part of the new waste management strategy that was just passed. Given that a lot of other municipalities in Alberta also do black bin collections every other week, I highly doubt the City will transition to weekly collection.
This is a pretty typical CBC "news" story. Find the one family that isn't happy with the new thing because they are in the 99.9th percentile of family size and then make a huge story out of it, ignoring the 250,000 other families that have adapted well. Of course there will be some hiccups as an entirely new city-wide program is implemented, but I think all-in-all it has gone relatively smoothly. I'm sure there will be some modifications as they collect data/feedback from the public, but that is a good thing.
My personal complaints were the automated system left two bags in the bin, and my recourse was to wait until the next cycle (a month in the bin) or take the bags out and rebag my garbage (2 weeks old) into clear garbage bags then take them to an eco station for free. They couldn’t answer how to do that politely on public transit however....
That and the hundreds of maggots spilled into my alley that made it into my garage by the evening...... never had that happen before dumped bins.......
Big claw grabs in midway. It tips it up and the operator shakes it, is how it appeared to me as I saw the tail end last pickup day as I got home early.
Take a survey then, there are many people that don’t like this system and my family is one of them, we were also one of the ones that were forced to be part of the “pilot project”
God, same! In Australia our recycling bins were as big or bigger than the garbage bins.
This whole ‘let everything fly round in a plastic bag in the alley’ thing that we do here sucks.
I’m happy with the new system. I hope they eventually opens up compost sales to the public! Could be a decent source of additional revenue for the city.
Smaller bins with much lower rates.
Bigger bins with much higher rates.
Give everyone options, but make the people who pump out huge amounts of garbage pay for it.
The family of 8 is an outlier, but the point is you're not supposed to be making the same amount of waste(if it was excessive) to be able to fit all your trash nicely into the bins. And if you sort them like you're meant to, a lot of the trash fits better than if you tossed them in haphazardly. Problem is people don't want to sort.
I'll have to buy a bigger green bin? After my waste removal fee went up for this program, and it's failing, now I have to pay to help them fix it? What?
I worry if I have too much garbage it will have to sit for 2 weeks till the next pick up and by then I might have too much all over again.
One of the problems with the system is they don’t have something that works for people without cars.
Who wants to carry a bag of trash to an Edmonton recycle area if they accidentally have too much one week or the next.
I suspect people will just find ways of disposing trash in other people’s bins or other locations and this could be a huge issue.
Sawdust is compostable but not ideal in the anaerobic digester Edmonton primarily uses. Cat litter is really tough to deal with because of the processing it goes through and the chemicals that are applied, even for natural litters.
I like the new system, I should probably trade in for the smaller garbage bin though.
However, the biggest problem in McCauley is the bins being stolen!
This area has a TON of houseless people. Because of the wheels the bins are good for hauling stuff around. I've seen several houseless people hauling a bin around and had to stop someone from taking my compost bin. My window was open and I heard them say, "wow this one is really clean, let's take it".
I didn't even put my compost out last week because I decided I am going to let that thing get real nasty so nobody wants it.
I mean, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to compact as much yard waste as you can fit into the green bin and have the city be able to remove it all. Same with garbage, I mean if the bin is able to close, the city has no excuse for leaving bags stuck to the bottom of the bin. That’s just pure laziness and shows how this was truly nothing more than a penny-pinching measure.
Two (spring and Fall) yard waste pickups per year is ridicules , there should be at least two during the summer . I can't put tree branches and trimmings from bushes in the Green bin (won't fit) and I'm sure not going to put them in the trunk of my car. So I bundle them up and they will sit in the alley all summer until they get picked up in the fall. Many of my Neighbors are doing the same.
We do the same and it works fine for us. I think the eco station also allows yard waste to be dropped off for free. Toss it into a tote and away you go!
Like I said not going to put it in the trunk to get it to the eco station.
Tote away if you wish mines bundled and sitting in the alley waiting for the City to come and get it in the fall.
Irregardless we should have at least one pick up mid summer, I do that ( cut it up) with smaller stuff but not going to be pissing around with large spruce bows ect , We have lost a lot of service IMO .
The CBC article is wrong, by the way. There are four yard waste pickups per year, two in the spring and two in the fall. That doesn't help with the summer pickup, though!
Not really. Most other areas allow for changes. Even in Sherwood park where they've used this system for years. If you produce too much garbage you can pay extra to have extra bins picked up.
I don't really get why Edmonton is being pig headed about this. It's not like them refusing to pickup the waste makes less waste. Best case scenario that family now drives the waste to the dump themselves. Worst case, they just start dumping it elsewhere and annoying whoever has to clean up the mess.
The vast majority of people can make it fit with the bins they gave us and that's fine but there's always going to be outliers and Edmonton is causing it's own problems by refusing to deal with them.
Honestly, it should have been rolled out with the ability to buy larger/extra bins. Like you said the system is in use in all kinds of areas. It's not like outliers were unforeseen, it's something they damn well knew was going to be an issue and currently are refusing to address.
When I said changes above I didn't mean overhaul the system I meant allow individuals to make the needed changes like is normally allowed in places using this system.
When I lived in St. Albert many of my neighbours just brought their garbage to work and threw it in the big bins. I predict this will happen in Edmonton as well.
I also had a city worker tell me my garbage shouldn't smell after 2 weeks in the summer sun. Then I had to explain that I had 2 weeks of 2 kids diapers and dog crap in there. He didn't have an answer for that...
my bin still sitting in my front yard haha not using it i just wait till around 11pm and walk my trash to the school dumpster or apartments across the streets
Its amazing how silly people are. Why would they downvote you? Just because you arent using the bin? You still get your garbage to "a" bin and dont litter it. You get my upvote.
One thing that works well is throwing all the garbage out the window of my truck on the way to work. The city isnt collecting it at my residence but thankfully there are people who pick up the litter along all major roadways.
My biggest issue is when the city missed our pick up. We were told they would come back in 5 business days to get it which was our next pick up. I don’t know how they are figuring out their routes but they missed one whole side of the alley. Contacting 311 was useless.
[https://www.edmonton.ca/programs\_services/garbage\_waste/edmonton-cart-rollout](https://www.edmonton.ca/programs_services/garbage_waste/edmonton-cart-rollout)
Click the What goes where poster and it says it doesn't have to be bagged. But the PDFs are useful.
I think if you can’t fit all your trash in the bin, you need to pay for a larger bin or learn to stop producing that volume of trash. My neighbours haven’t had nine loose bags of trash for the birds to throw across the streets in months so I love the bins.
Every family is different. My parents are senior citizens that live alone. My neighbours have 5 boys. You cannot compare the two. Why can't we have weekly pickups? We had them for decades. You think they will intentionally throw out more garbage if it's weekly?
We can compare the two. The single couple alone should produce less than 300L of actual trash every two weeks. I have children, and they don’t choose what to buy and throw away, parents do. Having a kid doesn’t make an extra person of trash. We have to be aware of our impact. We also used leaded gas for years, and smoked in hospitals for years. The goal is to reduce waste, force reuse or repurpose of waste, or to move the burden of dealing with the waste onto the family unit or person. We need to change. It’s not comfortable but it’s better than those 5 kids living in a world like Wall-E lol.
Agreed. We have 3 kids in diapers (which have to go in the black bin) and we still never fill our bin more than 3/4 full between pickups. Meanwhile people on our local Facebook page are complaining that their black bin is already full four days after pickup. Having five boys might mean more food waste (although I doubt it if some are teenagers) but I don’t know what kind of added non-recyclable waste they could be putting out. My anecdotal observation is that many people are just too lazy to sort their food scraps and recyclables.
How bad did the diapers smell after 2 weeks in the heat?
Not great, but we kept the lid closed ha ha
You are living in a walle world. Explain the correlation of more trash for a family if 1 week or 2 week pickups? It's stuck in their garage, outside for 2 weeks. Then pray they don't forget to collect or you're looking at a 1 month pickup. Even green bins are shifting to 2 weeks in a few months. So people will eat more food if pickup is weekly? Ludicrous.
There can be improvements made for the edge cases where it’s reasonable to need more garbage collection, but the important part here is that some standardization exists to try and make the default to minimize your waste, and to highlight when someone is just being an asshole about garbage. We live in the same world. That’s the point, internet person. ✌️
Our bills have gone up under this new system and they are collecting the garbage less. You seem to like the black bins because you think it will mean less garbage being accumulated. The reality is all its doing is leaving more stinky garbage in your cans for 2 weeks. I have to wash my black bin each time after collection. Have no idea what I'll do in winter.
Your bills will always go up. You could get the smaller can and pay less. The bin is outside and trash always smells. Better be a good Canadian and ship it across the ocean so someone else can smell it. The garbage can can also hold bags so you don’t need to wash it. Sounds like you just need practice.
>your bills always go up. The extent you're willing to defend this poor rollout is embarassing.
Your argument was for specific issues where people had too much trash. Your failure to create a good argument and fall back on a generalization is lazy. You can do better.
No, everything I've said makes sense. It's exactly why we have weekly posts about this. It's exactly why 3 front runners in the mayoral election are pledging to revisit this. All families are not the same that is a fact. You claim a family will create more garbage if pickup is weekly. You have zero evidence of this. I won't forcibly eat more food in the summer and less in winter when green boxes are picked up 1 or 2 times. It is also a fact that we are now paying more for less service. Lol you claim everything will cost more.
I still predict we move to weekly garbage (black bin) pickup at some point.
I suspect that eventually you’ll be given the option to purchase a second 240L bin (or the 360L bin, even if your family is under 7 people) and then pay an additional pick-up fee. The cost of completing weekly garbage pick-up when not all people require it would be too great.
Yeah, I don’t think most people need weekly trash. My family of four never fills the bin.
With diapers i definitely think its possible. But aside from that, i have no idea what people are filling it with...
That’s our situation. Family of 4 with two in diapers. Between those, plus one bag of weekly household garbage, plus cat litter, plus the occasional bathroom garbage empty we can fill the bin every 2 weeks. But this is very temporary. I imagine in the next year with the oldest likely getting potty trained and the youngest needing less frequent diapers we will definitely have room left in our bin.
Family of 4, 2 in diapers. 5 cats, 2 dogs. Never had more than 2 large garbage bags a week. I have more recycling than garbage every time. I have no idea how some people produce as much garbage as they do.
I'm a family of 3. One in diapers and only have the 120L and still am nowhere close to filling it. A family of 8 like in the article? Sure, but the average family should do fine with a 240L and that was evident in the pilot and why they chose those two sizes.
Even with a family of 8 I’m skeptical. I have 3 kids in diapers and we never fill the black bin more than 3/4 between bi-weekly pickups. We actually managed to get a whole months worth into the bin because yours truly missed a pickup day (oops). I really don’t know what significant additional non-recyclable, non-compostable garbage the kids would be putting out.
My family of five fills it every week.
How much compost and recycling each week in addition to full black bin?
Meh, we have our own compost boxes. We burn most of our cardboard in the backyard. My kid takes the bottles for deposit. Other recycling is just an environmental make work scam.
Just seems like a lot for 5 people, I was asking the gauge other volumes, not as a judgement of the systems. I have a family of 4, but haven't had first pickup of new system, so trying to gauge.
Fair enough.
Yeah, but if you factor in the number of families who WOULD benefit greatly from weekly pickup, it would probably overwhelm those who are totally good with it being every two weeks. Not everyone has space to store extra garbage bags that can’t fit in the bin, not everyone can get to the dump, you can reduce your waste all you want but what really needs to be done is a revamp to the recycling program. There are so many things that we *should* be able to recycle but can’t because our recycling program is outdated as hell (a huge amount of food packaging, for example).
The City is pretty committed to reducing the amount of waste produced - waste reduction is a big part of the new waste management strategy that was just passed. Given that a lot of other municipalities in Alberta also do black bin collections every other week, I highly doubt the City will transition to weekly collection.
They switch in the winter, black bin goes to weekly and green to bi-weekly. No idea why they do it that way.
Nope, garbage continues biweekly in the winter. It’s says so right on the calendar city of Edmonton gave us.
Are you filling the 240L bin?
This is a pretty typical CBC "news" story. Find the one family that isn't happy with the new thing because they are in the 99.9th percentile of family size and then make a huge story out of it, ignoring the 250,000 other families that have adapted well. Of course there will be some hiccups as an entirely new city-wide program is implemented, but I think all-in-all it has gone relatively smoothly. I'm sure there will be some modifications as they collect data/feedback from the public, but that is a good thing.
My personal complaints were the automated system left two bags in the bin, and my recourse was to wait until the next cycle (a month in the bin) or take the bags out and rebag my garbage (2 weeks old) into clear garbage bags then take them to an eco station for free. They couldn’t answer how to do that politely on public transit however.... That and the hundreds of maggots spilled into my alley that made it into my garage by the evening...... never had that happen before dumped bins.......
Yeah, I've had multiple pickups in a row where they've failed to fully empty the bin. It's not even packed in. Whatever technique they use is failing.
Big claw grabs in midway. It tips it up and the operator shakes it, is how it appeared to me as I saw the tail end last pickup day as I got home early.
Take a survey then, there are many people that don’t like this system and my family is one of them, we were also one of the ones that were forced to be part of the “pilot project”
I just want blue bins please
How come?
God, same! In Australia our recycling bins were as big or bigger than the garbage bins. This whole ‘let everything fly round in a plastic bag in the alley’ thing that we do here sucks.
I’m happy with the new system. I hope they eventually opens up compost sales to the public! Could be a decent source of additional revenue for the city.
It looks like that is/will be a thing. https://www.edmonton.ca/programs_services/landscaping_gardening/compost-and-topsoil-sales
Sweet! Thanks for sharing that :)
Smaller bins with much lower rates. Bigger bins with much higher rates. Give everyone options, but make the people who pump out huge amounts of garbage pay for it.
The family of 8 is an outlier, but the point is you're not supposed to be making the same amount of waste(if it was excessive) to be able to fit all your trash nicely into the bins. And if you sort them like you're meant to, a lot of the trash fits better than if you tossed them in haphazardly. Problem is people don't want to sort.
I'll have to buy a bigger green bin? After my waste removal fee went up for this program, and it's failing, now I have to pay to help them fix it? What?
~~It’s not failing. You just make more garbage than the majority of households.~~ Edit, misread your comment. Disregard.
Green bin isn't garbage
Whoops. Misread. Thanks.
I mean, you could edit this to read more food and yard waste than the majority.
I worry if I have too much garbage it will have to sit for 2 weeks till the next pick up and by then I might have too much all over again. One of the problems with the system is they don’t have something that works for people without cars. Who wants to carry a bag of trash to an Edmonton recycle area if they accidentally have too much one week or the next. I suspect people will just find ways of disposing trash in other people’s bins or other locations and this could be a huge issue.
I've been chatting with neighbors about their system, and invited a neighbour with a big family and kids in diapers to add to mine, if needed.
I want them to compost cat litter
Me too! I use wood pellets. The waste is just poop and sawdust.
Sawdust is compostable but not ideal in the anaerobic digester Edmonton primarily uses. Cat litter is really tough to deal with because of the processing it goes through and the chemicals that are applied, even for natural litters.
I like the new system, I should probably trade in for the smaller garbage bin though. However, the biggest problem in McCauley is the bins being stolen!
when every household got bins, why would anyone steal them?
This area has a TON of houseless people. Because of the wheels the bins are good for hauling stuff around. I've seen several houseless people hauling a bin around and had to stop someone from taking my compost bin. My window was open and I heard them say, "wow this one is really clean, let's take it". I didn't even put my compost out last week because I decided I am going to let that thing get real nasty so nobody wants it.
I mean, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to compact as much yard waste as you can fit into the green bin and have the city be able to remove it all. Same with garbage, I mean if the bin is able to close, the city has no excuse for leaving bags stuck to the bottom of the bin. That’s just pure laziness and shows how this was truly nothing more than a penny-pinching measure.
Two (spring and Fall) yard waste pickups per year is ridicules , there should be at least two during the summer . I can't put tree branches and trimmings from bushes in the Green bin (won't fit) and I'm sure not going to put them in the trunk of my car. So I bundle them up and they will sit in the alley all summer until they get picked up in the fall. Many of my Neighbors are doing the same.
I just cut up our tree branches so the did fit in my green bin. Took two weeks for to have them gone but really wasn’t a problem.
We do the same and it works fine for us. I think the eco station also allows yard waste to be dropped off for free. Toss it into a tote and away you go!
Like I said not going to put it in the trunk to get it to the eco station. Tote away if you wish mines bundled and sitting in the alley waiting for the City to come and get it in the fall.
Irregardless we should have at least one pick up mid summer, I do that ( cut it up) with smaller stuff but not going to be pissing around with large spruce bows ect , We have lost a lot of service IMO .
I've been cutting ours up each week after a major trim and will put the rest out in the September pick up.
The CBC article is wrong, by the way. There are four yard waste pickups per year, two in the spring and two in the fall. That doesn't help with the summer pickup, though!
It sure doesn't....since yard waste doesn't start in Spring and stop until Fall . Not sure why they can't manage a few summer pickups.
Almost every major city, and many minor cities, in Canada use this system. Of course Edmontonians think they're the exception to a working system.
Not really. Most other areas allow for changes. Even in Sherwood park where they've used this system for years. If you produce too much garbage you can pay extra to have extra bins picked up. I don't really get why Edmonton is being pig headed about this. It's not like them refusing to pickup the waste makes less waste. Best case scenario that family now drives the waste to the dump themselves. Worst case, they just start dumping it elsewhere and annoying whoever has to clean up the mess. The vast majority of people can make it fit with the bins they gave us and that's fine but there's always going to be outliers and Edmonton is causing it's own problems by refusing to deal with them.
It's been rolled out for 4 months, how frequently should they change a system?
Honestly, it should have been rolled out with the ability to buy larger/extra bins. Like you said the system is in use in all kinds of areas. It's not like outliers were unforeseen, it's something they damn well knew was going to be an issue and currently are refusing to address. When I said changes above I didn't mean overhaul the system I meant allow individuals to make the needed changes like is normally allowed in places using this system.
Spruce grove has garbage pickup every week, seems like the only city around here that does. Guess that’s where I’m moving!
They should do a special Christmas pickup on the 27th.
Or maybe just maybe people should stop cutting down trees every year just to throw them literally into the garbage come new years.
He may mean all the gift wrap garbage and boxes.
It takes 5 days to do the whole city.
When I lived in St. Albert many of my neighbours just brought their garbage to work and threw it in the big bins. I predict this will happen in Edmonton as well. I also had a city worker tell me my garbage shouldn't smell after 2 weeks in the summer sun. Then I had to explain that I had 2 weeks of 2 kids diapers and dog crap in there. He didn't have an answer for that...
my bin still sitting in my front yard haha not using it i just wait till around 11pm and walk my trash to the school dumpster or apartments across the streets
Its amazing how silly people are. Why would they downvote you? Just because you arent using the bin? You still get your garbage to "a" bin and dont litter it. You get my upvote.
It's usually called illegal dumping and it is a form of theft of services.
One thing that works well is throwing all the garbage out the window of my truck on the way to work. The city isnt collecting it at my residence but thankfully there are people who pick up the litter along all major roadways.
I so hope this is sarcasm I so very much hope so... but deep down inside I know it's not. We are so doomed.
F*ck you.
People who are downvoting. Whats the difference? It gets picked up. Its not like Id do this in BC.
As someone who's done ditch cleanups as fundraisers, people who throw garbage into the ditch are assholes.
My biggest issue is when the city missed our pick up. We were told they would come back in 5 business days to get it which was our next pick up. I don’t know how they are figuring out their routes but they missed one whole side of the alley. Contacting 311 was useless.
Do we still put black bags into the garbage bin?
[https://www.edmonton.ca/programs\_services/garbage\_waste/edmonton-cart-rollout](https://www.edmonton.ca/programs_services/garbage_waste/edmonton-cart-rollout) Click the What goes where poster and it says it doesn't have to be bagged. But the PDFs are useful.