November 7, 2008: THE NATIONAL POST

By Allison Hanes
      

Almost 70,000 Torontonians are still awaiting delivery of their new garbage bins, there is a shortage of 30,000 popular medium-sized containers, and about 2,500 of residents didn’t use the temporary pink tags that were issued instead for bagged trash – meaning it got left behind on the curb. 
But the first week of a brand-new waste-collection system, where Toronto residents will be charged based on how much rubbish they generate, still went much better than councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Scarborough Centre) was anticipating. 

“The first week has been amazingly successful and I would say surprisingly successful,” Mr. De Baeremaeker, who is chair of the city public works committee, said on Friday. “I have to say we were worried that we would have a lot of implementation problems this week, but to our pleasant surprise, and to our relief, we have 99% compliance… Isn’t that astounding?”

But some of his fellow councillors were far less generous in their assessment.

“I can characterize it as being chaotic,” said councillor Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre). “I can tell you it is not very well-coordinated. I can tell you that many of my residents are very angry. I can tell you that some of the very people who we had been told residents should contact have not been very well-informed.”

Mr. Thompson said he had one staff member solely devoted to the garbage issue this week and that his office logged 82 complaints. Councillor Rob Ford (Etobicoke North) called the new system a “disaster.”

“I got over 500 calls – and when I say 500 I’m not exaggerating or embellishing one iota – with people who don’t have the right size bins or don’t have bins at all. And getting them from other wards too,” he said. “It’s just been a nightmare.”

Toronto is switching to a system of user fees for garbage collection in an effort to divert 70% of its waste from landfills by 2010. While recycling remains free of charge and composting is being expanded to 500,000 apartment units, Toronto households must pay for trash collection as of Nov. 1 according to what size garbage bin they have – small, medium, large and extra-large. They will also be charged for extra refuse that doesn’t fit in the bin – which must be bagged and tagged before it is taken away.

Mr. De Baeremaeker is the first to admit the implementation of the new collection system hasn’t been perfect.

As of Monday, the city had yet to deliver 75,000 of 500,000 bins to homeowners – although he said 7,500 more were dropped off this week. Households were instead issued pink tags, but Mr. De Baeremaeker said many people didn’t use them.

“Of course there were mistakes. Some people, they have a landlord who lives in British Columbia... We send the pink tag to the homeowner. And if that homeowner’s name and address is in Vancouver, B.C., that’s where they were sent,” he said. “There are some people whose first language is not English, so there’s a few people who got them and didn’t quite know what they were. And I think there were some people who just didn’t open their mail.”

Many people have still not responded to the initial letter, four follow up phone calls and a second notice issued to find out what size can they prefer, noted Mr. De Baeremaeker.

It will take until the end of January for every residence to receive a bin.

While he opposed imposing fees for a basic municipal service in the first place, Councillor David Shiner (Willowdale) said the implementation was rushed to start charging Torontonians as of Nov. 1 when Jan. 1 might have made more sense.

Compounding the confusion, the phone line said up to deal with residents’ concern was always busy, he said.

“I’m firm believer that if you’re going to roll out a service and charge people for that service you should be up and running and making sure you’re doing things right,” said Mr. Shiner, whose office was “flooded” with dozens of complaints. “Instead, we’ve rolled out a service and we aren’t ready.”

Councillor Mike Del Grande (Scarborough Agincourt) said like many of his residents he had "no bin and no tags on collection day," although he has since procured the necessary implements.

Over 90% of the calls to his office in the last few weeks have concerned collection, he said – or about 10 calls a day.

But the biggest frustration has been communication from the city – wrong information, conflicting information or no information because the phone line was simply busy.

"I think it was a massive undertaking, I recognize that... but it wasn't as smooth as it could have been," he said. "The lack of communication just raised the blood pressure of everyone in my office and everyone calling my office." 

Anyone with questions or complaints can call the city at 416-392-BINS or email target70@toronto.ca