From one voice to nearly 1,000, some Simcoe County residents are banding together to express their frustration over the one-size-fits-all cart sizing chosen by County of Simcoe staff and council for the new curbside waste collection contract.
A new petition started by Collingwood resident Dave Dickson has been making the rounds on multiple community Facebook groups from Collingwood, to Wasaga Beach, Essa Township and beyond in a grassroots effort to push for change to the bin sizing offered for automated waste collection, which is slated to be implemented as of Nov. 1.
The petition – addressed to County of Simcoe Warden George Cornell – currently sits at about 950 signatures and is growing.
“A lot of times, too many people just accept the status quo. We’re proud of our neighbourhood. We want to keep our place looking nice,” Dickson told CollingwoodToday.ca.
“I assume there are a lot of other people who are as fired up about this as we are,” he said.
Dickson lives in the Blue Fairway subdivision in Collingwood. Issues felt in the Blue Fairway community concerning the County of Simcoe’s rollout of automated cart collection inspired the formation of a petition for just Blue Fairway residents last month, which gained about 69 signatures and was sent to all 32 members of county council and some staff members.
Dickson feels the issue of cart sizes extends beyond his neighbourhood and will impact all residents in different ways – which is why he started another Change.org petition for all Simcoe County residents.
“(Many) new developments are high density. Many of the new developments being built are single car garages,” said Dickson. “This is an issue not only here, but in other developments as well.”
Dickson has started reaching out to other communities via community message boards on Facebook, and said he’s read lots of messages from people in communities across Simcoe County with the exact same concerns.
“I’m not against this. I think this is a fantastic idea. I can understand, these poor garbage guys picking up and having to lift these bins themselves (is difficult). The problem I have here is no size choice. Toronto and Peel Region offered a size choice right up front,” he said.
Dickson and his wife lived in Mississauga before moving to Collingwood officially in 2017. While Peel Region does use automated cart collection, Dickson notes they were given a choice of bin size there, and the process was very user friendly.
As Dickson and his wife live on their own, he estimates they only half fill their current bins and the new bins would be much too large for their trash.
“It’s just absolute overkill for us,” he said.
Dickson says he has corresponded with representatives from the County of Simcoe on the issue, however, he doesn’t feel heard and said the responses he has received are copied from the county’s website.
He is concerned there was a lack of public consultation by county staff with Simcoe County residents prior to awarding the contract to find out the local needs.
“Did they talk to the homeowners who are actually using them? It feels like they haven’t done their due diligence on this and just rushed it through... and we’re going to pay for it,” he said. “They’re not treating us like we’re intelligent, informed people.”
When reached for comment by CollingwoodToday.ca this week, County of Simcoe Warden George Cornell said research done by county staff found that other municipalities which offered cart size options to launch their programs encountered significant challenges down the road due to exchanges, which informed the county’s decision to choose the one-size-fits-all approach.
“We are listening, and our councillors continue to bring forward their constituents’ input,” said Cornell. “We know some individuals with smaller properties, as well as some of our seniors, have shared their feedback, similar to what is expressed in the online petition. Once these households receive the carts, we hope they can assess if the size works for them or if they would like to further share their input through our survey.”
During a waste management workshop held on July 27, Willma Bureau, the county's contracts and collections supervisor, said a public survey would be done in the spring of 2022 to determine if there is still an appetite for varying cart sizes.
At that time, director of solid waste management Rob McCullough said the county wanted residents to experience the carts for three to six months before releasing the survey. Once the survey results are returned, a staff report would come to council with the results, at which time council would vote on whether to pivot direction on cart collection.
“It’s great to see residents participate and this is exactly the type of engagement we want after residents utilize the carts for a period of time,” said Cornell this week.
Moving forward, Dickson said he’s hopeful the petition will make a difference in the minds of County of Simcoe councillors, and it will show this isn’t a niche issue. Ideally, he hopes it will encourage councillors to push county staff to start making plans to offer alternate cart sizes before the survey comes out.
“They said they’re going to wait six months (to do the survey). How long after that is it going to take them to read all the surveys, another three months? Then how long is it going to take them to act on it? Possibly another three months?” he said.
“That means it would be a full year before any action would be taken. I would like them to start the motion going now,” said Dickson.
