City seeing positive results from garbage pickup changes, report says

Residents and neighbourhood associations are already seeing the positive effects of the city’s rapid response to problem garbage complaints.

A report going to this week’s water, waste and environment committee meeting, says changes made last year by the city have resulted in complaints to 311 about garbage and debris being reviewed within 48 hours and cleanup of problem materials within five days.

As well, there has been a 47 per cent drop in the number of abandoned waste reports, owing to an expansion in the frequency of large appliance and furniture sweeps.

“There’s a lot less garbage sticking around,” said Darrell Warren, president of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association. “It’s good to hear the city is running faster.

“It was 12 to 20 days just to have them check it out before… any improvement is a big improvement.”

Warren said the change not only helps his neighbourhood, but the city as a whole.

“Letting garbage stay out just made the city as a whole look dirty,” he said. “And, when there are vacant lots, with piles of rubbish from burned-out houses, a lot of people start using them as dumping grounds.”

Coun. Ross Eadie, the committee’s chairman and a longtime advocate for improvements, said he’s pleased to hear that citizens can see the changes.

“It is working good and things will improve even more,” the Mynarski councillor said.

The “bulky sweep” program was introduced in 2013 and the next year the number of complaints about large abandoned waste items dropped from more than 850 in 2014 to 163 last year.

Overall, the civic report states about 287,240 tonnes of residential waste was collected from Winnipeg residences last year, an increase of 4.8 per cent from the year before.

On average, each Winnipeg residence tossed out about 244 kilograms of garbage last year.

While city council passed a strategy in 2011 to raise Winnipeg’s diversion rate of materials away from the landfill to more than 50 per cent by 2022, it stood at 28.3 per cent last year.

On the recycling side, the city reports about 17 per cent of material collected is not accepted into the city’s recycling program and is discarded, ending up in the landfill.

Eadie said the city’s community drop-off sites for residential organic waste have proven to be a positive development.

He said the 15 community sites scattered around the city, and the three 4R Winnipeg depots, have seen 63.3 tonnes of food waste collected just from Oct. 15 to Dec. 31.

“It is a great success,” Eadie said. “They will add to it until curbside pickup happens.”

The city has said a citywide, residential green-cart program will be created by 2030.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca