Surveillance footage captured by an East York family shows the overnight garbage collection noise next to their home the past few years.
An East York couple say they’re at their wits’ end after trying fruitlessly for years to stop garbage collectors from picking up trash at a school next door to their home in the middle of the night.
Michael Montgomery and his wife Susitha Wanigaratne moved into their home back in 2018 and had no issues. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city introduced an exemption for overnight waste collection noise, they started noticing loud disruptions during the middle of the night.
When their second son was born in 2021, the issue came to a head, with his crib sitting just metres away from where the garbage bins were being collected.
The noise was “pretty intense,” Montgomery says.
“When it first started happening, they would just …back the big kind of dump truck – beep, beep, beep – back through the parking lot, and then grab the big kind of bins and then kind of shake them and dump them into the waste receptacle,” he says.
More recently, quieter trucks stop on the street and an operator goes to retrieve several bins, wheeling them across the school’s parking lot. However the process still produces a fair amount of noise, Montgomery says.
While the schedule has varied over the years and pickups have sometimes been more frequent, the couple says the truck now typically comes between 3:30 and 5 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays.
A doorbell camera at the family’s home has captured dozens of instances showing the overnight pickups.
Montgomery says he shared those videos with the school and asked if they could change the pickup schedule so that trash collection doesn’t occur overnight.
He says the school, La Mosaïque Elementary School, referred him to the Viamonde school board, which referred him to Waste Management – the company contracted to pick up the garbage. Waste Management in turn told him the city had changed its rules to allow for overnight pickup — one of the few municipalities to do so — and this is how their route works out now.
“And so all in all, everybody kind of said it was somebody else,” Montgomery says.
He says while some small improvements to the process have been made over the years, the pickups – which typically last around 10 minutes – have left the family on edge and frustrated.
“I never go back to sleep,” Wanigaratne says. “So imagine I’m losing two hours of sleep. My husband, my children are losing two hours of sleep, two times a week for years, and that’s probably on the generous side, like on the conservative side of how much sleep we’ve lost.”
She adds that lack of sleep affects how people function, their mood and other aspects of their health, and says it’s frustrating to know that this is happening to her family because of a decision someone won’t change.
Ear plugs and noise machines are not an option, the couple says, as that would create a safety concern around hearing their boys.
And despite the pickups occurring in the middle of the night, the anticipation of it means stress beforehand as well.
“The anxiety of it is there and when it happens, I get really frustrated and angry,” Wanigaratne says.
She adds it’s especially difficult knowing “the fix is easy” but that nobody seems to be listening.
Company says route can be adjusted
CP24 reached out to Waste Management for a statement and the company responded, saying that they are committed to meeting their customers’ needs while being mindful of the communities where they operate.
“In Toronto, collection schedules can be influenced by factors such as traffic, construction, and site access, and we work to balance these considerations with minimizing neighbourhood impacts,” the company said.
“After being advised of this concern on August 21, WM immediately began resequencing the route to arrive later in the morning. Previously, in 2023, WM and the customer collaborated to adjust the service method at this location to help reduce noise.”
A company spokesperson noted that the trucks now servicing the school are designed to be quieter than those that were originally going to the address several years ago.
“We remain committed to working with our customer and through the City of Toronto’s established noise complaint process to ensure service is delivered responsibly and with consideration for the community.”
The city says on its website that “it is reasonable to expect a city of almost 3 million people will have some noise,” but a series of articles by CP24 has shown that a fair portion of that noise emanates from municipal decisions or services, sometimes due to poorly thought-out or managed systems.
Staff for Coun. Paula Fletcher, who represents the area, said she wasn’t available to discuss the issue and referred questions to Anna-Karyna Ruszkowski, the Toronto (Centre) trustee for the Viamonde school board.
Ruszkowski could not be reached for comment. Neither La Mosaïque Elementary School nor Viamonde responded to requests for comment either.
However, the city said it allows overnight waste collection in order to allow vehicles to operate when traffic is lower.
“The City of Toronto permits overnight waste collection in residential areas to improve safety and efficiency,” the city said in a statement. “Collections may be scheduled during off-peak hours when traffic, pedestrian and cyclist volumes are lower.”
Noise bylaw was changed during pandemic
Toronto City Council amended the noise bylaw to include an exemption for overnight garbage collection during the pandemic and made the change permanent in 2023.
“Maintaining the exemption ensures that critical municipal and private services can operate as needed and in a way that minimizes potential health and safety impacts,” staff at Municipal Licencing and Standards wrote at the time.
They said input from the waste industry indicated that it favoured maintaining the exemption as well “to ensure safety, control for public health and odour, and minimize sidewalk and street obstruction.”
While the city ultimately added an exemption for waste collection, it said that there should be a clear pathway to track complaints related to waste collection noise through 311 and dedicated mechanisms to communicate with the industry when issues arise.
The city has also published guidelines for reducing waste collection noise. It includes tips about maintaining equipment properly, avoiding scheduling pickups in the early morning hours, bin placement, and other matters.
In its statement, the city also said that it is piloting hybrid collection vehicles, which are quieter, more fuel-efficient and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
“Residents disturbed by waste collection noise are encouraged to contact 311. City staff will make every effort to work with private collectors to resolve noise complaints,” the statement read.
“The City remains committed to balancing operational needs with community well-being and appreciates residents’ understanding as improvements continue.”
But waiting years for overnight garbage collection to become less noisy is not good enough, Montgomery said.
He shared an extensive back-and-forth over several years with 311, the waste management company and the school, none of whom were able to put a stop to the noise on a permanent basis.
Montgomery and Wanigaratne aren’t the only ones in the city who have been dealing with the problem.
Other residents who reached out to CP24 described dealing with multiple overnight trash and recycling collections per week that wake them up, leaving them tired and frustrated.