Recycling on NDG streets piles up as trucks fail to stay on schedule

For more than a month, Maria Arguelles has watched the recycling pile up on the streets of her Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood.

"Rubbish is everywhere," she said, standing next to a large pile of blue recycling bags.

Pickup was supposed to be Tuesday evenings, then it became Tuesday mornings.

Now, she says, "they come when they want."

April Reding, another NDG resident, said her recycling hasn't been picked up since July 2.

"We just started noticing that it was left for days and days and days," she said.

Reding said that recyclables are being blown around, and she's tired of having to push her child in a stroller down sidewalks narrowed by rubbish.

"It looks hideously unsightly," she told CBC News.

It's a problem throughout Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. 

Coun. Peter McQueen, who represents the borough, said part of the blame lies with a new company that was awarded the contact.

It also comes at a time when China's appetite for buying reusable material from Quebec has dropped dramatically.

"With China no longer buying the recyclable material, it's piling up in warehouses, and a number of contractors throughout the province are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy," McQueen said.

China imposed a ban on a variety of imported waste materials, which has triggered recycling headaches across Quebec.

Last year it was reported that 60 per cent of Quebec's recycled material was being exported, with most of it being sent to China.

Montreal is spending $30 million to keep its largest recycling plant operating. The sorting plant was facing a $9-million loss this year because it was hit hard by the Chinese ban. 

A recycling sorting plant in Sherbrooke​ shut down for two weeks in June for similar reasons.  

McQueen said the company awarded the contract to pick up the recycling was chosen because it had the lowest bid — a rule the borough is mandated to follow. 

When it comes time to accept bids from new contractors, he said it shouldn't be based solely on who has the lowest bid.

Heat a factor

McQueen added that this week's heat wave made recycling pickup especially sluggish because people doing the work had to take extra breaks and drink more water. 

"All waste pickup workers were slowed down. That's human," he said.  

In the time being, they're trying to send out the trucks as many times as they can to pick up recycling on top of the regular schedule.