High winds make another cart for homes pointless
By Lethbridge Herald on March 10, 2023.
Editor:
There is so little point in adding another garbage (composting this time) container to our homes.
This morning, Thursday, we have a wind gusting at 70 km/h. Although my recycling bin was fairly full I did not dare put it out on the street. Those who did ended up chasing them down the street. Those who had already left for work will be playing hunt the recycling bin in the dark.
I don’t know what it is about Thursdays but very often they are windy and the folks in Sunridge have to deal with it. I much preferred going out to the recycling centres the City has and taking my recycling directly to the big bins.
But I’m paying for this service. The City of Lethbridge really needs to come up with a solution. Face the facts, we are a windy city. Deal with it because the residents are tired of losing their bins.
Ruth Kereliuk
Lethbridge
8-7
Whether upright, or strewn across the street. these carts are unsightly, making Lethbridge look like dumpster city. The manufacturers of these bins have justified them to the admins in city hall. $$$. Will a fourth bin be coming soon?
The “fourth” bin will be something dreamed up by someone making a pile of money. The bin will be strategically placed in your yard and will be big enough to hold up to four bins. Self contained, out of the way, totally enclosed. All done for the “save the planet religion”
Decision to add more rubble to the city was made by a group that operates/exists in a bubble. There is no wind in the bubble, unfortunately no common sense either.
i expect admin to come up with yet another great pocket-liner of an expense. it will of course be near unanimously approved by bobblehead council. simliar to what buck figures, the expense will be the bin of bins that will house all of our bins, under the auspices that such an enclosure will prevent each of our other bins from being blown onto and down the down the streets.
btw – it is my recollection that when we had private recycling, we used to more often than not actually earn a credit on our city bill for recycling. since the city stole away those enterprises, we not only do not ever get credits, we pay more each month than ever for waste removal, and, we get only half the garbage pick up service for the roughly doubled cost. the bonus is we have to deal with the stench of festering garbage for two weeks during the hot summer months. Would it be so awful to give us weekly garbage collection during the summer months?
It is interesting how people will complain simply to complain and yet offer no solution themselves. Having moved here from Medicine Hat 4 years ago, we had garbage issues for years. We had to buy our own garbage cans that were often smaller metal or plastic cans that never held enough ( thus needed more of them) and were lighter and often ended up damaged/crushed from use, and required the garbage men having to lift them into the garbage truck. This would result in city workers suffering work injuries and slower pickup. The new bins made to hold more and more durable could be loaded by automation and done safely and quicker proved a better solution.
Another issue prior to the better bins was the small cans blowing around and garbage spilled to blow around was the reqirement to have them in an inclosure of some kind. This proved problemmatic in that many people had their own version that proved more of a problem with the worker tasked to collect our waste and slowed collection and cause injuries so the city put a requirement out that all inclosures had to meet a standard and needed a stamp on their inclosure or no pick up.
When the new bins came out this made the inclosures useless as the bins needed to be out so the automated loader could grab the bin to empty.
Another garbage issue was that yard waste had to be in plastic bags, then they issued an order that it had to be clear plastic bags so as to determine the waste in the bags, then it was paper bags because of bag shredder issues, finally the order was a green bin for yard waste only.
The point is that city officials regardless of city have tried to make the unpleasent job of waste removal pleasent to everyone and it is not a simple task. If someone were to come up with a plan/ solution that makes the task more suitable and safe for everyone and the city collectors then I’m sure they would be happy.
Another plan the city had (MedHat) was to put large BFI bins at locations in alleys through out the city and the people in the areas would need to deposit their waste in them.
This of course resulted in people complaining that they would have to walk to drop off their garbage, who would complain if it was behind their yard, and would result in people throwing large items in them rather than taking them to a landfill/recycle and take up space of “normal” waste thus garbage pilled up beside them and garbage blowing across the city and hills.
So the solution is?
Further to the garbage issue, be it front pickup, alleyway pickup or a more centralized bin pickup location people will complain or find an excuse with. As to any or all enclosures for these bins on you property would be at your own cost, and must be approved by the city for ease of access by the garbage collectors, but then once again people would find something to complain about even about that with no offered solution.
agreed on the complaining – seems the more people have the more we have to complain about. in your entry i am liking the idea of centralised large bins, such as those that serve higher density complexes. they would be best placed within a 100 meters. mind you, there will come complaints from whomever has the misfortune of having one outside their back yard.
as it stands, it would be worthwhile to have weekly garbage pick ups june through august.
The downside of the centralized bins is there is no accountability when people thrown unauthorised garbage in them as no one would know who did and did not. Plus you would get people not from the area using them to their advantage to throw out said garbage, similar to a business with a large bin having it filled by others and stuck with the cost of the extra garbage or fine for the illegal garbage they did not throw in.
The end result will still cost us the public regardless on our utillity bill and is a service like public transit that will never make a proffit and at most break even. Some times a little discomfort is better than no service at all.
Sorry but to add, more then one bin would be needed so as to sort the yard waste from the recycle and again for normal house waste. Not doing so would mean everything going to the land fill, or a high cost for sorting it out. Plus there are people who would throw items in without sorting and again added cost to sort them out as well at the collection dump. Who would want that job? And pay for it? Not the complainers for sure.
There is no accountability now with City of Lethbridge bins. Someone dumped an old dead lawnmower in my recycle bin, which got me special attention from the City.
An example how people are abusing the system on the backs of others but that does not make it the fault of the city or the waste collectors. That has happened to me as well and even had some homeless rumage through our bin throwing suff aside with some doing their cocaine on the lid. A hazard of living down town.
In Medicine Hat after the city decided on the bins for waste we ended up with three types. One each for household waste, compost (yard waste), and recycle which workd out fine. You had to ask for the green/ blue bin. If you had to use more of one type you had to ask for another and were charged accordingly. On pickup day they had to be out about 1 meter from your back fence ( for rear pickup) or away from curb for front pick up. The garbage truck was a one man operation with a side mounted grapple arm that would take the bin and dump it. No heavy lifting for the workers and speed up pick up. And yes MedHat had wind and yes bins blew over or down the road/ alleyway. Solution?
Enclosures would not work unless a fellow worker walked along side and also increase cost of collection for manpower. Front pickup homes would have to have an enclosure built in front and how would this look like to some? Big enough for one to three bins. At their cost of course.
In Lethbridge I have not seen this type of pick up style truck here ( are there?) but the crew that pick up my rear bins have three men, one to drive and two walking beside and they wheel the bins (after checking them) to the rear end of the truck where a mechanical lift empty the bins thus no heavy lifting. They then wheel the bins back.
This would be okay if a “city” approved enclosure was used to store bins but again time spent and again issue with front pick up. Cost to public and more complaints for sure.
Further note that in Medicine Hat they were talking about doing away with rear pick up because of no room in some alleys for truck and due to snow in winter.
your entries cover the issue very well.