Residents forced to store trash in garages City blames supply chain, staffing issues for long waits for garbage, recycling bins By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, May. 18, 2023

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This article was published 18/05/2023 (842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some Winnipeggers have been forced to hold on to their trash for weeks, as the city struggles to get garbage and recycling carts to homeowners.

The city is blaming supply chain issues for the long waits.

Bobby Colquhoun said he requested his set of carts before moving into his Sage Creek home at the end of October, only to receive them just before January.

In the meantime, he piled recycling and waste into his garage and let it freeze there, while disposing of more perishable trash at the homes of family members.

“We just kind of let it collect in the garage for a couple months,” Colquhoun said. “We had all of our recycling from moving and stuff, so our garage was a bit of a landfill for a couple of months there.”

He said the city initially told him the carts would arrive in about 10 business days, but that timeline passed with no delivery.

“We were lucky our parents live nearby. So when it got to a certain extent, we just kind of loaded up our cars, brought it to their place for a bit,” said Colquhoun.

He said the experience was “pretty ridiculous” and the city didn’t offer other alternatives for garbage collection.

Another Sage Creek resident said she waited about a month for her waste collection carts.

“We thought it was a little ridiculous…, having to do dump runs, having to go to Home Depot to rent a truck (to transfer the garbage and recycling). We stored it in our garage until it started to stink,” said Amanda Goode.

“We stored it in our garage until it started to stink.”–Amanda Goode

Goode said she felt the issue required a more urgent response.

“We have three cats, we can’t have that (garbage) festering in the garage,” she said.

A request to interview someone from the city’s water and waste department was not granted Thursday. In an email, the city said new and replacement garbage and recycling carts are normally delivered within 10 business days, but now it’s taking up to 30 business days.

“This delay is attributable to supply issues that started during the pandemic and carried through last winter, as well as staffing shortages,” wrote spokeswoman Lisa Marquardson.

Marquardson later clarified there is still a backlog to order carts and parts for them.

Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of council’s water and waste committee, said many residents have moved into their new homes long before their carts arrived.

“We’re certainly getting a lot of complaints… from brand-new areas,” said Mayes.

The councillor said he understands the situation can be frustrating.

“If you’re paying taxes, you want a working garbage cart, that’s fair enough. So we do need to get back to normal on this,” said Mayes.

Marquardson said wait times should improve soon.

“We expect to catch up on cart delivery over the next couple of months using summer staff. Since on-boarding summer staff almost three weeks ago, we have delivered (carts to) approximately 400 (residences). We currently have about 2,000 customers who require either new or replacement garbage and/or recycling carts,” she wrote.

Marquardson said the city also expects many of Winnipeg’s original automated carts that rolled out in fall 2012 to begin “approaching their end of service life,” meaning there will be a steady increase in the number of them that will need to be replaced. She said the city is increasing the number of carts it orders to address that.

“We expect to catch up on cart delivery over the next couple of months using summer staff.”–Lisa Marquardson

The city advises residents who are waiting for replacements for damaged carts to report the problem to 311, then place recycling in containers, along with up to three garbage bags, at their normal collection point. During the replacement wait, these will be collected manually.

However, when a resident calls 311 to ask for carts for a new building, they are told they are responsible to remove garbage and recycling until their carts arrive.

In that case, “you will have to dispose of the extra garbage and recycling yourself or store it until your carts arrive,” wrote Marquardson.

She said far fewer folks are facing the wait for carts at new homes now, with 20 such requests left.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga

Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

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