City councillors want to make sure garbage collectors who have been scrutinized for finishing their shifts hours early aren’t hurting themselves to do it.

Councillors will also speed up a plan to put GPS in city garbage trucks and the city will proceed with a review of the routes in August, a move scheduled in 2013. Their expectation is the route review will take care of any issues that have arisen out of revelations that many city garbage collectors are not putting in a full day's work.

“It gives me a yardstick to know if we’re compromising health and safety to allow those employees to get home an hour, an hour and a half early,” said Coun. Lloyd Ferguson of Ancaster, at Wednesday's general issues committee meeting. He worries they’re “sprinting from stop to stop.”

“I’ve seen situations where they’re going so hard, they throw the whole darn green bin in the truck,” he said.

“I’ve heard lost time is higher in that area than the other departments. I think it’s worth knowing that.”

Ferguson still worries about reports that public waste collectors are finishing routes quickly and heading home early. But GPS and the route review will alleviate most of them, he said.

“They haven’t rationalized the routes in 10 years and there’s a lot more recycling,” he said. “That’ll come back in the route rationalizaton report.”

City waste collectors got glowing reviews from some councillors at Wednesday’s meeting. Coun. Sam Merulla of Ward 4 has been on a route with the collectors, and says they’re a model for other departments.

“The fact that some crews would finish sooner and then backtrack to help others, to me, spoke volumes,” he said.

“I wish we could fill potholes as well as these guys pick up the garbage.”

Coun. Chad Collins of Ward 5 said he's satisfied that the issue has been addressed.