Biweekly garbage pickup OK'd by council committee

The City of Ottawa environment committee approved the move to biweekly garbage pickup Monday.

If city council follows suit on Wednesday, residential garbage collection will happen once every two weeks starting next year, while green bin pickup will happen weekly on a year-round basis.

Councillors were told Monday that the move would be a hardship for tens of thousands of people in stacked town homes or low-rise condominiums.

Owners and managers of large condo developments say they don't have the space for green boxes and larger bins for biweekly garbage collection, so they're asking the program be delayed for an extra year.

Garbage will be piling up outside condo units because many projects don't have balconies or places to keep green bins, according to a spokesperson for condo owners.

"[It] means the amount of waste is going to sit there and double in size every two weeks ... and so the condo, not to deal with rodents and pests and everything else and the smell in the summer they're going to be forced to pay for the removal themselves," said Constance Hudak.

Noreen Harris, a condominium manager, said she wanted the city to put the move off for two years to give her and other condo managers a chance to modify their properties, educate owners and "implement it properly."

City officials agreed to set up a committee to deal with the condo concerns, but that doesn't mean they're going to delay anything.

"They've had two years since the rollout, and I'm not sure what another year is going to accomplish. If we put our noses down and get working, we've got to roll our sleeves up and get this done," said Coun. Maria McRae, chair of the environment committee.

Kanata South councillor Allan Hubley was the only committee member to vote against the plan.

"We got enormous negative feedback when we first started this in January, and we said no, no we'll come out and do a more intensive consultation. To me, that hasn't happened yet. There's been boards with information, which is communication. That's not consultation. To me, consultation is listening to what our residents come back and tell us," said Hubley.

"And I've got over 400 emails against this. I've got probably 35 to 40 for, but I've got over 400 against it. So to me to vote otherwise today would not be true to my residents, and that's what I'm here for."

The move is expected to extend the life of the Trail Road landfill by about two years, take about 25 garbage trucks off the road and save taxpayers about $9 million a year.

Results from the latest round of consultations show slightly more than half of the roughly 1,500 people who provided comments favour biweekly pickup.