Was your regular garbage and recycling collection missed in December? You weren’t alone. In a media release today, the District of Muskoka acknowledged that curbside collection was impacted by poor road conditions that made it difficult for contractor Progressive Waste Solutions to complete some of their routes. And while the weather can’t be controlled, the District plans to implement changes that would improve the way such situations are addressed in the future.
The District’s Commissioner of Engineering and Public Works, Fred Jahn, said he supports those decisions made in the interest of driver safety, but he’d like to see some changes made in the way those missed collections are handled and the way they are communicated to residents in future. They are considerations being built into a new contract that will be issued this year – Progressive’s contract comes to an end this year and a new RFP will be issued by February 1 to be awarded by June to give a new contractor time to mobilize. The current contractor has been providing the District’s curbside collection since 2002.
“Under our contract, they are entirely authorized to pull their trucks off the roads if the road or weather conditions make it unsafe to drive. I completely support these weather and road reasons, and I also get that the public shouldn’t have an interval of up to a month between scheduled collections,” said Jahn. “What I’m aiming to do is have the new contract so that if we miss it during the week, Saturday would be the norm to reschedule it. But we would always have the public confirm back on our website or we’d go to the media and do our very best to let everyone know.”
Jahn said that the District – which is currently responsible for communicating issues to the public – has received many calls about missed collection in December and over the holidays, adding that as a result of weather-related issues they will collect bags beyond the usual limits this week.
I’ve instructed the contractor that we’ll pick up anything at the street at the next collection, if it’s at curbside and otherwise properly contained. We’re suspending any bag limits we have because of this situation.
Fred Jahn, District of Muskoka Commissioner of Engineering and Public Works
Jahn said that it was a lesson learned for him over the holidays. “We need to be prepared for these situations. It’s one thing if collection has stopped, it’s another thing if we at least try to let people know. That’s one thing I’m trying to immediately do better. As soon as we find out, we’ll be using all of our media options to try to get the word out there.” Under the new contract, all communication and customer service aspects related to service delivery will be completely covered by the contractor.
Doppler reader Brian Verbonac noted that despite cars being able to travel roads in his Glenwood community, collection was missed for several weeks in December, and he was unable to get answers during the holidays. “Getting tired of all the trips from garage to curb and back,” he wrote.
Progressive’s residential route supervisor is still on holiday leave and was unavailable for comment on their official policy for how and when decisions to halt collection are made. Commissioner Jahn said that the District receives reports from the contractor when collection can’t be completed. “Reviewing all of these reports for the last several weeks, in almost every case some hill is too icy, they can’t make it up the hill. My impression is that it would take a lot for them not to go out on the road. In most cases where I see something was discontinued, they were already on that road but they couldn’t continue on. Maybe the weather changed or maybe there was a hill along the way.”
When scheduled collection is missed, residents also have the option of taking uncollected waste to a landfill or transfer stations. For hours of operation or to determine your next regularly scheduled curbside collection date, refer to your waste management guide.
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I don’t usually weigh-in on commenting, but the issue of no garbage pick up sent me over the edge, WHY ? Not because it didn’t get picked up on our Thursday rotation, I understand the issues of the day but it was the “oh well” attitude that followed. Trying to find out what was going on and when we where going to get garbage pick up. (Which still hasn’t happen.) I was told that we will be able to put out unlimited bags on our next rotation which is not a sensible solution.I hope District realizes the amount of garbage that has accumulated. Sorry I digress.( I must say I emailed Jonathan Wiebe who is our councillor and got an immediate response and a follow-up response as well), but when all is said and done we still are storing a month’s worth of garbage which is not acceptable. District should have taken responsibility for getting extra trucks out and looking after the issue immediately in the days following. We get this “oh it’s not in the budget “response. Do we have to remind District that we “the taxpayers” are paying for services and paying heavily for it and to be treated with such complacency is frustrating and wrong. I wonder if we are being used as a bargaining chip for new contracts? The timing I think is suspect. So I am finished ranting but as you can tell still mad, as I sit on a pile of garbage. Maybe I will contact RIck Mercer and get him to rant for the taxpayers as well.
Muskoka needs “other” drop/pick-up points for recycling/sorting etc. & residents should take more responsibility for resource-consuming habits.
Thank you.? very much for “finally ” answering a question that I wanted answered last week. I FULLY UNDERSTAND the safety and respect of the workers, and also the weather is very unpredictable so any day, time the weather can change in a blink of an eye. So yes dump trucks should not continue their rounds, that for me is very understandable. The only concern I had was “what do I do with the extra garbage?” as it’s instructed there are a limited number of garbage bags per household, and it’s winter operation right now, and garbage is every other week. On my road, I had placed one extra bag of garbage by accident that the garbage collection did not take it… so I respected that from my view. It was very frustrating, especially when the main people were on vacation for the holidays (which they are definitely entitled to), emergency number the person who dealt with me had absolutely no idea what to tell me, in this issue; other than advize me to take it to the nearest landfill – as there would be no garbage the next week as it’s recycling only. I would have no problems in taking my garbage to a landfill “but I couldn’t afford” to pay extra for garbage as Christmas holiday just passed and bills to pay, just wasn’t going to happen; and nothing is for free. Also the person took my name and number so she can get back to me if she found a replacement or not, and I should call back if I don’t hear from her the following day; which I end up phoning and stressing the poor girl because she already had many calls from angry and frustrated people from the community. The only question I had was “what can I do about this issue?” that’s all. But I SINCERELY THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS that now the issue is resolved. All I wanted was clear communication of “why” there was no garbage pick up and if only would of been a notice through media of some sort, I would have understood the circumstances and backed off. Thank you to all the garbage collectors who go out and do their jobs through weather changes, bad drivers who are impatient to wait, during the holidays, know that my husband and I fully respect and acknowledge how hard you guys work to have the best intention of keeping the community clean. We all can’t be perfect and we all make mistakes, we are all humans; but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, learn from those mistakes and life goes on. May you all have a wonderful day, and a soul full of warmth. We can conquer anything in life if we put our minds to it ☺ Thanks again.. Cheers and God Bless.
It becomes fairly obvious over time that there is poor consistency in service levels and a lack of process co ordination in managing the Progressive standards of performance. As a former president of a Huntsville community association, over the past year alone many of the curb side collection challenges had nothing to do with weather – from July through November ’16 there were many incidences of garbage not being picked up or partly picked up. There were always excuses from the District and the company (mechanical, replacement drivers, spike in volume due to seasonal residents etc.) but total lack of remedial strategies. Week to week there are huge variances – some weeks the trucks come early in the day and the next week they come well after nightfall. Perhaps there are operations management, capacity or performance standard issues? I would not want Progressive drivers putting themselves in danger due to road conditions but unfortunately there are just too many other indications that the current system is just not working.
As a person who has a family member who drives for Progressive … I worry about him every day on the road … the general public has no respect for the drivers at all!!! And furthermore, our cars are not carrying 40 tons of stuff to garbage … they have to climb the hills in this area .. garbage trucks are 2 wheel drive !!! I have seen general public in cars pass a stopped garbage truck on the right hand side as well … I understand with any job there is risk … but come on people pull your head out of your ass .. I know for a fact when your garbage is not picked up one week they do take it the next week … reuse, reduce, recycle !!!
The District could do a lot better job communicating this. Nothing on the website to explain that you have to wait another two weeks for pickup.
The District Office is apparently closed over the week between Christmas and New Year’s and no one answers the “800” number you are directed to.
There was no information on the District web site. No one answered the phones. We tried multiple times a day for 3 days.
The reply from the District of Muskoka was expected but cannot stand without comment….On December 15, the recycle truck made its rounds without problem but the garbage truck couldn’t?….We pay for garbage pickup on our taxes now so the alternative to take to landfill would involve paying for the service twice along with additional expenditure for gas…On the communication front, I’ve called and emailed both District and Progressive..to date,.no reply from either party.
Well, there’s enough “social media” that they could have said they were cancelling the Thursday pickup….and we would have known to take back the green and garbage, rather than leaving it out for 24+ hours.