Garbage rules don't pass smell test, Gatineau daycare says

A Gatineau, Que., daycare says there's no way it can comply with city's new garbage limit even with purchasingextra overfill bags.

The new rules limitingcurbside pickup to 120 free litres in a grey bin every two weeks, with the option to buy up to five extra50-cent 80 Loverflow bags,kicked in on Monday.

They have created aproblem for the staff at Le pays de Cornemuse, a busydaycare off boulevard Saint-Raymondwhose staffsay thedaycare's bin isoverflowing and they've already filled up threeof their extra bags withjust two days worth of diapers.

"Something's not working," said its executive director Line Kelly.

"We used to have normal garbage containers and everything was working well. We only have one little container for 155 people per day."

The daycare looks after children from sixmonths to pre-schoolers and according to Kelly, the kidsproduceabout 120 dirty diapers a day,

The daycare occupies two different addresses side-by-sidebut gets only one property assessment, so it's trying to argue that itat least deserves twobinsand 10 bags per pickup.

"The reality isthat wedon't only have four people in our house," she said.

Ina statement, the city saidall units getthe same serviceand it will not provide an exemption to daycares at this time.

Kelly saidhiring a private company to take its extra wasteisn't an option because thedaycare issubsidizedand it can'tmake the parents pay for something that isn't actually the function of the daycare.

Neither are cloth diapers because she said shecan't force parents to use them.

• Gatineau approves new rules around garbage pickup, apartment composting
• Gatineau garbage rules could be adjusted again

Even though it's nota real solution, she did threaten as a pressure tactic to send parents home with bags of their children's dirty diapers at the end of each day.

But she says even if she wanted to, itwouldn't work.

"Every timewe give the diapers back we would put them in a plastic bag, so that's 40 plastic bags every day. It's not something we can do for the environment," she said.

Right now she is hoping for a political solution.

"[We want]to sit with the city so they can see what our problem is."

In the meantime she says they'll be putting out all the garbagein the hopes it gets picked up.