Missed garbage pickup complaints rise in east, fall in west
Since privatizing waste collection west of Yonge, complaints in the two halves of the city have sharply diverged

thestar.com
July 9, 2015

East meets waste.

A Star analysis of 311 service request data shows a stark contrast between the number of complaints for missed waste collection in Toronto’s east and west ends.

In the years since the complete privatization of collection services west of Yonge St. in August 2012, complaints concerning missed residential garbage, green bin, recycling and furniture pickups have declined by 10 per cent in the west.

During the same period, the number of complaints rose by 29 per cent in the publicly serviced east.

Toronto is a divided city, literally, when it comes to garbage collection.

The city points to its older garbage trucks as a possible culprit.

“We are seeing a trend that our fleet is aging, so that may be a key factor in the east side of things,” said Beth Goodger, general manager of the city’s solid waste division. “Our fleet is getting older and we need to replace it.

“Other than that, there is no obvious reason.”

Taken as a whole, she added, the number of complaints are “within the department’s tolerance levels” and represent only a fraction of the roughly 60 million pickups city collectors make annually.

“People expect us to be waste fairies and make all their waste disappear,” she said. “What you’re seeing...is sometimes you catch the fairies and we didn’t do exactly what you had hoped.”

Initially, Goodger suggested extreme weather, such as the 2013 ice storm, was responsible for the east’s higher rate of complaints.

When shown the Star’s monthly breakdown of east and west complaints, however, Goodger conceded that isolated weather events were not the sole factor.

Pickering-based contractor Green for Life (GFL) Environmental Corp. began its seven-year collection contract west of Yonge in August 2012. A study exploring privatization’s cost-effectiveness will be delivered to the city’s public works and infrastructure committee this fall.

“The decision-making effort is about the dollars,” said Councillor Jaye Robinson (open Jaye Robinson's policard), the committee chairman.

Privatizing garbage collection was a hotly contested issue during last year’s municipal election. Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard) promised throughout his campaign to bring contracted collection to the entire city.

Scott Bullock, a homeowner who lives east of Woodbine Ave. near Queen St., said that although his curbside pickup “isn’t reliable,” he’s more disappointed that Tory has not yet fulfilled that promise.

“I based my vote on that,” he said. “It’s extremely frustrating.”

“I almost get anxious when I know tomorrow is garbage day,” said Scarborough resident Lea Greenwood, who once ran out of her Clonmore Drive home to chase after a garbage truck that missed her house.

“I think I’m on the red flag list for calling 311.”

Between January 2010 and July 2012, the city’s 311 hotline logged roughly 49,000 missed waste collection complaints from residents living east of Yonge, a slightly higher rate than recorded by Toronto west.

But in the nearly three years since privatization, complaints in the east steadily expanded while they dropped in the west.

The data was filtered to include only the 191,742 service requests that fall under the mandates of both public and private collectors.

Kevin Wilson, a spokesman for CUPE 416, said the raw 311 data does not assess the validity of each complaint and may not capture complaints made through other channels. The union represents approximately 1,000 solid-waste management employees.

A 2014 CUPE study had suggested service calls were decreasing on the public side but not on the private side.

METHODOLOGY:

The Star’s analysis is based on customer-initiated service requests received by 311 Toronto from Jan. 2010 to the end of May 2015. These requests are made by Toronto residents to 311 via phone, fax, email, online self-serve, mobile app and Twitter.

The data was filtered to only include the 191,742 service requests categorized by 311 as a report of a missed garbage, recycling, green bin or furniture pick-up. These complaints were categorized “east” or “west” based on the service request location.

The 311 service requests contained in this data have not been screened for validity. This only happens after the request is passed on to the city’s Solid Waste Management Services division, which reviews and resolves the request.

There are more residences on the east side of Yonge St. (237,856) than on the west side (221,502) and the percentages within the article are adjusted to control for this.