Recycling pick-up problems continue in Midtown neighbourhood

One side of a Midtown Toronto street that was supposed to have their recycling pick-up on Jan. 2 is still waiting, 11 days later.

Residents on Winnett Avenue waited patiently for a week and eventually, a truck showed up to pick up bins on one side of the street. Another truck came by on Tuesday, but they only took one person’s recycling.

“Just this morning, a big GFL truck pulls up, guy gets out … he says, ‘I’m here to get your blue bin.’ and I said, ‘Great, and my neighbours?’ And he said, ‘No, you complained I’m here to get your blue bin.’ I said, ‘What about them? And he said, ‘Well, I’ve got work to do,’ and he took the bin and dumped it and drove off without picking those up at all,” shared Greg Narbey.

Narbey’s neighbours, who have also been waiting since Jan. 2, were a little confused to say the least.

“This morning, we saw a truck and I thought they had picked up, but they haven’t,” shared another neighbour. “We feel like we’re doing all we can to get answers, but we’re not really getting any answers that make any sense.”

“That doesn’t sound like a recycling plan, that sounds like a communications plan. They knew that somebody was complaining, they wanted to make sure that they neutralized that voice,” said Area councillor Josh Matlow.

Problems have plagued the rollout of the province’s new privatized recycling pick up.

Circular Materials took over Toronto’s recycling program on New Year’s Day and contracted out collection to GFL. The revamped program mandated by the province should actually save Ontario municipalities about $200 million a year and allow residents to recycle even more materials.

“The arguments regarding expanding the service for example to receiving black plastics? Terrific. I like that idea. The idea of having the producers pay more for the collection? Great idea,” shared Matlow. “So, there’s a lot behind all this that I get and I acknowledge, but the way that it’s been executed has been a hot mess. Residents don’t really care who is meant to pick up their recycling, they just want their recycling picked up.”

Premier Ford defended his decision to upload recycling on Tuesday and says the vast majority of residents have had their bins collected already. If Toronto doesn’t like it, maybe they should do it themselves, he added.

“The other option for all the municipalities that want to complain, especially some of the lefties down in Toronto – why don’t you take the 50 per cent and start paying it, and you can run your own recycling,” said Ford.

Matlow said Ford should fix what’s been happening or return it back to the City.

“What Doug Ford did was he broke the recycling program, and the evidence of that is that people are not getting their recycling picked up in far too many neighborhoods in Toronto and in our region,” said Matlow. “So Doug Ford has a choice, either fix it with circular materials today or allow the city to get on with the job that it has been doing reliably, predictably for decades, which is door to door recycling.”

Ford added kinks were expected when things change. “I’m very confident [in the] next week or two, I know our officials are meeting them today, they’re going to get it all straightened out.”

Both Circular Materials and GFL have denied The Leader Spirit’ repeated requests for interviews.

Instead, they sent a joint statement, saying the companies are committed to delivering reliable recycling services and resolving what they’re calling “early transition challenges.”