City expands fall leaf and waste collection
Coun. Paul Carr told council the current period for yard waste pickup is too short. Photo by James Gaughan, QNet News
BELLEVILLE – City council voted to extend the period yard waste is collected in the fall months, as well as make it easier for people to drop off their waste at its meeting Monday night.
Coun. Paul Carr, who brought the proposal before the council, said last year’s yard waste collection had stopped before most of the leaves had fallen off trees.
“If we’re asking taxpayers to pay for a service like a yard waste pickup they should actually get to use the service,” he said.
According to the city’s website yard waste collection stopped between Oct, 17. and Nov, 21. last year depending on the ward.
City council didn’t set an exact date for how much later it would extend the collection into the year, but Carr told QNet News he has an idea.
“I think that pickup should run until the very end of November,” he said.
Council also decided that the city’s public works yards, where people can drop off their yard waste, will be open for four hours on Saturdays during the upcoming spring collection.
Currently, the public works building had only been open on Wednesday evenings, explained Carr.
“That didn’t fit the schedule of most people because people have work and busy lives but opening it on Saturday for a few hours gives people the opportunity drop their waste off when they’re less likely to be tied up with other things,” he said.
Coun. Egerton Boyce supported Carr’s motion explaining that he heard from residents quite a bit about this last fall.
“I got probably a phone call or two a week for quite some time last year from people who had nowhere to put all of their leaves and such because they were waiting for it to fall off the trees but the city wasn’t collecting anymore,” he said.
Having the public works building open on Saturdays for people to drop their garbage off is a good thing, Boyce said.
“It gives people more options,” he said.
The public works building will be open for four hours on Saturday when spring waste collection beings in April.
City staff will look into how much longer to extend the yard waste collection.
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