Renters’ recycling can get trashed
Apartment dweller watches his diligent sorting instantly undone by contractor — and he’s probably not alone.

TheStar.com
Nov. 3, 2015
Michael Robinson and Jennifer Pagliaro

Kevin Nugent diligently sorts his trash and recycling every week in the kitchen of his Lawton Boulevard apartment. He descends seven flights of stairs to empty both bags — one grey, the other black — into two separate bins.

So when he witnessed a waste-collection truck empty all that work in with the regular garbage, Nugent grabbed his camera and hit “record.”

The resulting footage appears to point to a problem Toronto has struggled with for years: how to deal with multi-residential buildings, mostly apartments and condos, whose waste is privately collected and free from city oversight.

For Nugent, who says he witnessed similar incidents three times since early October, recycling is simply “a no-brainer.”

“I’ve done it all my life,” he said. “All the junk mail, yogurt containers, the ridiculous packaging you get when you buy something.”

Nugent’s gripe with the collection at his building highlights a loophole in waste collection across the province, where those opting for private pick-up are also ultimately responsible to make sure it is sorted correctly, with little or no oversight from the city or province.

While city contracts for collection are monitored by a team of staff to make sure they comply with standards, the city’s solid waste management division says managers of some multi-unit residential buildings have opted for private services instead.

The contract for collection at Nugent’s building belongs to Tor Can Waste Reduction Management, whose website says it has a reputation for being “respectful toward the needs of the environment.”

When reached Tuesday, company president Liborio Gurreri told the Star the business encounters recycling bins contaminated with non-recyclable materials “from time to time” because “tenants don’t necessarily abide by the recycling rules.”

“If that occurs, the driver exercises discretion to dump the contents of the recycling bin into the collection truck,” Gurreri’s statement reads. “Once the truck returns to the company’s depot, the driver notifies (management) that the load contains recyclable material and the recyclable materials are segregated from the waste stream for recycling.”

In Nugent’s footage, both the waste and recycling bins are closed and the driver does not seem to attempt to assess their contents before emptying them. Gurreri told the Star another driver must have appraised the bin’s contents the day before.

Gurreri did not immediately respond when the Star asked if the driver in the footage alerted the depot their truck contained a mixture of recycling and waste nor if it was eventually sorted. He did not immediately respond to emails inquiring how many of the company’s recycling pick-ups are mixed with waste due to contamination.

The property firm who oversees the building’s day-to-day operations, Akelius Real Estate Management Ltd., told the Star it is investigating the incident.

“It is our expectation that recycling and waste are treated appropriately by our waste removal contractors,” said spokesperson Ben Scott. “Recycling is to be recycled and garbage to be treated as garbage.

“This is clearly stated in the terms of our waste removal contracts.”

Akelius’ policy, as described by Scott, stipulates that in order for a load of recycling to be accepted as such, it must contain 95 per cent recyclable material. Anything less is thrown in with the trash to be sorted later.

It’s unclear how many buildings or residents are served by private, non-city collectors — the city does not keep track of those that have opted out. The province also does not track those numbers.

Jo-Anne St. Godard, the executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario, said they run into the issue of poor collection with both private and public waste collection across municipalities.

“You’ve asked us to make an effort, we’re making an effort, we’re complying, we’re paying attention, we’re behaving, we’re using our buying power to make the right decisions and then it’s sort of all for not at the end of the day because there’s not the right checks and balances in place to make sure that my efforts are not wasted,” St. Godard said.

While the province oversees which companies are allowed to transport and manage waste in Ontario, it doesn’t regulate how arrangements are made for pick-up — which is mostly left to individual cities. In the case of private contracted service, there appears to be little oversight.

Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change spokesperson Kate Jordan said the province does conduct audits and inspections of storage and transportation facilities. Ontario’s regulations require multi-unit residential buildings with six or more units to have a recycling program.

“The program must include reasonable efforts to ensure that full use is made of the program and that the separated waste is reused or recycled,” she said. “Our officers conduct unannounced province-wide inspections at facilities that are covered by our recycling regulations, including multi-residential buildings.”

St. Godard said while provincial regulations oversee daily operations, ultimately it is individual contracts with collectors that dictate what services must be provided.

“The permit doesn’t say, ‘You must tell the truth that for every pick-up you pick-up that is recycling that it goes to the recycling facility.’ It doesn’t work like that,” St. Godard said. “The rules, per se, that sort of guide the service would be in the contract, whether it be a public or a private setting.”

Part of the problem, she said, is the difficulty for consumers to audit the service being provided.

“All of us collectively have a role to play in making sure that these services are authentic,” St. Godard said, adding building managers and individual companies should consider a contract that allows penalties or zero-tolerance for non-compliance.

The Ontario Waste Management Association, which represents the industry, wrote in a 2015 report that, “While there has been some success, it is evident that Ontario’s waste management framework is not working.” The report said diversion across the province has “flatlined” and argued for legislative changes.