WELLINGTON NORTH – On Wednesday nights Ingrid Graham prepares her blue bins for collection the next day on Princess Street in Mount Forest.
But lately Graham’s dachshund Teddy hasn’t barked to alert of a passing recycling truck, and the bins are left untouched.
Last week’s regular Thursday collection for the area, falling on New Year’s Day, was moved to Jan. 3, a Saturday. But nobody showed up, according to Graham.
Nor were the bins collected earlier this week, on Jan. 8.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said, adding collections are missed about every other week.
Graham is less concerned with what’s behind the problem and more about getting reliable collection.
“They know it’s still out there, come pick it up,” she said.
Wellington North CAO Brooke Lambert said in an email the township receives eight to 10 calls per week about missed collections for recycling and garbage.
But when it comes to waste, the township has never been in charge; collection has been administrated at the county tier, and still is when it comes to garbage.
Residential recycling across Wellington County, however, is now managed by Circular Materials, a non-profit funded by producers of recyclables, and responsible for orchestrating collection in Ontario municipalities.
The switch took full effect across the province on Jan. 1, with the onus now on producers to collect and process the materials they make — a change expected to save Wellington County $2 million per year.
Graham typically reports missed collections to the county via the Recycle Coach app. A day or two later, she said, the bins are emptied.
This time around she complained to Waste Management, contracted by Circular Materials to collect blue bins in the county, and was told bad weather is responsible for delays.
According to a statement emailed to the Advertiser by Waste Management communications director Jessica Kropf, households have been affected by “minor collection delays” because of severe winter weather.
Routes take longer to complete with bad weather, and collection can be slowed or deferred for safety reasons, the statement read, noting collection hours are being extended and additional crews sent out, with trucks arriving from outside areas.
County solid waste services manager Das Soligo said although the county no longer has an official role, staff continue to field complaints and advocate for residents experiencing ongoing issues.
“In the past several weeks there have been a lot of issues related to curbside collection services,” Soligo wrote in an email.
Calls and emails complaining of missed collections have almost doubled in recent weeks, according to Soligo, with reports coming in from across the county.
Soligo blamed service disruptions on bad weather and holiday schedules, making it difficult for Waste Management to stay on top of its obligations.
A missed collection pushes work onto another day, meaning further delays and missed collections, Soligo explained, calling it a “snowball effect.”
Mix in holiday schedules — holiday collections are deferred to Saturdays, as in Graham’s case, or Mondays — and it becomes that much harder to catch up.
“On an almost daily basis, [Waste Management] has had challenges completing all scheduled routes on many days over the past month,” Soligo wrote.
Last winter was much of the same story, he added, also suggesting a high volume of recyclables during the holiday season contributes to delays.
Geography matters too, with rural residents like Graham more likely to experience missed collections than urban residents.
During bad weather, resources may be focused on urban areas where roads are plowed more frequently, according to Soligo.
Following missed collections reported in Toronto last week, Premier Doug Ford told reporters on Jan. 5 the new system will be changed if fixes aren’t made.
In a prepared Jan. 8 statement emailed to the Advertiser, Circular Materials CEO Allen Langdon said a “small number of households in Wellington North” have experienced “minor delays” because of heavy snowfall and freezing rain.
The Circular Materials and Waste Management statements did not specify the number of affected households.
Langdon noted Waste Management would catch up on missed collections in the township by Jan. 10.
Calls to Waste Management’s customer service line for Wellington North were up last week, Langdon added, and messages would be worked through by staff “as quickly as possible.”
