City needs more recycling options, student says

This is the time of year you can expect to see couches popping up at curbside on Thunder Bay streets.

Out-of-town university and college students often leave their unwanted furniture at the side of the road, hoping someone else takes it home.

Ashlie Ferguson is a student at Lakehead University who left her sofa outside the place she rented.

"Even moving out of this place … we had all these boxes of random stuff," she said. "We could just put these out on the curb, but I kinda felt weird about it. And, I was like ‘no, we'll just drop them off.’"

Some cities pick up large items as part of garbage collection, but Thunder Bay doesn't.

Ferguson said the city needs to have an organized system so it's easier for people to get rid of or recycle things they no longer need. Students could use the help, as they frequently move.

"We can't really take much with us, and we didn't want to store everything," Ferguson said. "We're basically leaving all of our furniture in our house. We were lucky [the] folks that were moving in said … they would decide what they wanted and what they didn't."

And as for the couches?

"We didn't know that, until just yesterday … so they're out on the side of the road now and hopefully someone will come pick them up," she said.

The city's bylaw enforcement department reports it hasn't had any complaints about couches on the side of the road, or on residential properties, so far this year.