Centretown residents can blame waste collection’s busiest time of the year for the numerous homes skipped on collection day this week, a city employee told the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday.
Not only does the city’s solid waste department now have to collect green bins, but also the the extra waste created by falling leaves and cleaned up gardens.
This week, collection trucks filled up, and many residents may have noticed that bags of yard waste, and a few green bins, were left uncollected until the following day.
Marilyn Journeaux, the city’s manager of solid waste operations, also told the Citizen that a number of workers called in sick this week, which only made the situation worse.
She said collection fell behind on Monday and created a ripple of delays, affecting more and more streets as the week progressed.
Extra staff have been summoned, and it was expected that collection be caught up by the end of Wednesday.
Journeaux also told the paper that the “very high levels” of leaf and yard waste are expected to continue until snow remains on the ground.
She also suggested that anyone whose green bin or yard-waste bags are not picked up on time call 311 to report the issue as well as leave their waste out the following day.