‘Weather was no excuse as\u00a0garbage and Christmas trees were picked up,’ laments local resident as filled blue boxes remain on many city streets<\/p>\n
The new provincial household recycling program is off to a rough start as at least 43\u00a0streets\u00a0in Orillia didn’t get their regularly scheduled pickup on\u00a0Friday and Monday.<\/p>\n
The city posted on its Facebook page<\/a> that seven streets were missed Monday, but under the post were 121 comments\u00a0listing\u00a036\u00a0more that didn’t get recycling pickup.<\/p>\n The city reports the following streets did not have recyclables picked up Monday:<\/p>\n
But residents quickly weighed in to say many other streets were missed.<\/p>\n “It missed a lot more streets than that. Guess the new company isn’t so great. The garbage trucks made it OK,” Rilla Gammon-Todd wrote on the city’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n “Guess with the weather and them being so new to the area, we may have to call this one … training day … this time,” wrote Rob Beavis.<\/p>\n Pete Bowen wrote, “Weather was no excuse as\u00a0garbage and Christmas trees were picked up.”<\/p>\n Michelle Robertson wanted to know if the city would\u00a0be contacting Emterra on residents’ behalf.<\/p>\n “It seems … the city is just passing the buck by telling us to call\u00a0a company that doesn’t appear interested in picking up the phone.”<\/p>\n Comments on the post added Driftwood Road and Oxford Street\u00a0as being missed Friday. Comments citing missed streets on Monday include:<\/p>\n
“With a new collection contractor, Emterra, poor winter weather and some mechanical issues that Emterra has had, recycling collection has been delayed,” explained Greg Preston, the city’s director of environmental services.<\/p>\n “Emterra is aware of the collection routes and has mapping of the city,” Preston told OrilliaMatters.<\/p>\n Asked if Emterra has enough trucks to manage\u00a0the route, Preston said that question should be directed to Emterra.<\/p>\n On Jan. 1, the new\u00a0producer responsibility program began<\/a>, whereby producers of products now bear the cost of household recyclables rather than the municipality.<\/p>\n This move is saving the City of Orillia $1.8 million\u00a0this year. The goal is to make producing companies create less packaging, recyclable packaging, and recyclable packaging that can be remade and, therefore, be profitable.<\/p>\n “It benefits the circular economy. Under the old system, there was no incentive for product producers to make decisions that had recycling of that product in mind,”\u00a0Preston said in an earlier interview with OrilliaMatters.<\/p>\n Under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, recyclable materials are harmonized across the province rather than being different in each community, making knowledge of what is recyclable easier for people who travel, he said.<\/p>\n Circular Materials, a national non-profit organization, is managing the program across the province. In Orillia and Simcoe County, Emterra Group has the contract for blue box material pickup.<\/p>\n However, it’s the first week\u00a0Emterra\u00a0has taken over the collection of blue and grey boxes in municipalities across the province.<\/p>\n It’s coming at time when Orillia has been hit with a\u00a0near-record snowfall\u00a0in December (173 centimetres) and lots more already this month, so snow banks are high and roads are narrow and often snow covered.<\/p>\n The collection of green bin materials and garbage remains with the city contractor, Mid-Ontario Disposal.<\/p>\n Residents who have a problem or have questions about recycling should call Emterra, said Preston.<\/p>\n A call and an email to Emterra\u00a0from OrilliaMatters\u00a0were not returned by deadline. Callers receive a recorded message rather than a staff operator. The website,\u00a0emterra.ca<\/a>,\u00a0has a form people can fill out for customer service. The email is [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. The phone number is 1-888-597-1541.<\/p>\n The city post asks the public to continue to put out recyclables before 7 a.m.<\/p>\n “Thank you for your patience and understanding,” notes the social media post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Weather was no excuse as\u00a0garbage and Christmas trees were picked up,’ laments local resident as filled blue boxes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,122895,85,46,141],"class_list":{"0":"post-224159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-greg-prestonmid-ontario-disposalgarbage-collection-orilliacircular-materialsemterra-groupemterraorillia-recyclinghousehold-recycling-orilliagreen-bin-orilliacircular-economy-orillia","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tChristine Place
\n\tDunn Avenue
\n\tPark Street
\n\tWestmount Drive (south of Barrie Road)
\n\tRose Avenue
\n\tProgress Drive
\n\tMemorial Avenue\u00a0South
<\/p>\n
\n\tDunlop Street
\n\tLakeview\u00a0Avenue\u00a0(east side)
\n\tMississaga Street\u00a0West
\n\tVictoria Street
\n\tEsther Anne Drive
\n\tKaren Crescent
\n\tFrederick Street
\n\tMary Street
\n\tAlbany Avenue
\n\tAshton Street
\n\tCedarmore Road
\n\tCourtney Crescent
\n\tCarlton Street
\n\tVillage Green complex
\n\tGeorge Street
\n\tLakeview Avenue
\n\tInvermara Court
\n\tRosemary Road
\n\tArgyle Avenue
\n\tPowley Street
\n\tColborne Street
\n\tBrandon Crescent
\n\tQuinn Avenue
\n\tWyandotte Street
\n\tAlbert Street
\n\tLaclie Street
\n\tDallas Street
\n\tLouise Lane
\n\tGrenville Avenue
\n\tCindy Lee Crescent
\n\tClinton Street
\n\tCharles Road
\n\tWalker Avenue\u00a0complex
<\/p>\n