A resident’s observations.
I had my reservations about the new garbage system with the bins before we started using them in our area on November 11th. (Ward 4, Imperial Road South) I was displeased to find the new green bags are about half the size of the old ones, feel very flimsy in comparison (I will now be putting my cat litter in the grey bin, as I’m not going to have that all over my house when the bags break), and cost 2-3 times more.
I’d read the stories about how the bins, sitting outside people’s houses because they were too large to fit indoors, were an eyesore. However, that concern is completely secondary now that we have experienced winds that blew over everyone’s blue bins last night, leaving Imperial strewn with trash. I was SO pleased to be picking up other people’s garbage off my lawn this morning, and walking down the street felt like I was at the dump.
Is THIS the cash savings we were promised? Skip the dump, and just let the trash flow? I saw a city worker driving down the street this morning righting people’s fallen bins, but whatever had fallen out through the night remained loose and blowing around.I recognize it’s too late to dump this trash program, as a fortune has been sunk into it already. As a suggestion, PLEASE change the requirements that blue bin trash has to be loose. If it’d been in bags, all the mess associated with these ridiculous bins could have been avoided. No, it wouldn’t have fixed the problem of the bins falling over – which made me think of the promotional material of a senior happily wheeling the bin out… how happy will they be having to bend over and try to wrestle the things back up to standing?
When I moved here, I thought Guelph was a beautiful, green city. Now all I see in my neighbourhood is garbage. RT