A provincial recycling truck collected one Toronto resident’s bin but skipped the rest of the street
Councillor Josh Matlow called the new recycling program’s roll-out “a hot mess”
We have good news and bad news for those of you who uphold your environmental duty to recycle.
The good news is that one midtown resident had his recycling picked up by Circular Materials, the private not-for-profit company brought on by the provincial government as part of a newly implemented collection system. Since January 1, residents across the city have complained that their bins have been forgotten, so this pickup is a win.
Related: What’s going on with Toronto’s new recycling system?
The bad news is that the recycling truck that picked up the midtown resident’s bin opted out of doing their neighbours’ houses. It turns out the resident had complained about his refuse sitting out, so the truck was sent to his home and his home only.
A CityNews segment explained that the street’s recycling pickup should have been completed on January 2. A week late, a truck did arrive, but it finished only one side of the street. Eleven days after the scheduled pickup date, said the report, another truck pulled up—but it stopped at only one house.
“That’s no way to run a system,” said the homeowner. Councillor Josh Matlow agreed. “Is the Doug Ford Circular Materials recycling program based on if you scream loud enough, or complain enough?”
The privatized program is meant to save Ontario municipalities $200 million each year and has expanded the list of materials we can recycle. But its roll-out has been deeply flawed. “The way it’s been executed has been a hot mess,” said Matlow.
Premier Doug Ford defended the recycling program, somehow managing to work the word “lefties” into it, as he seems to be doing a lot lately.
A joint statement sent to CTV from Circular Materials and GFL Environmental called the pickup issues “early transition challenges” and said they would be resolved soon.
Related: This year’s TTC operating budget will exceed $3 billion
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
