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Day 2 of outsourced waste collection not much better
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The second day on the job for Green for Life (GFL) Environment Corp. didn’t go much better than the first day.
Waste services general manager Jim Harnum said GFL was behind on Wednesday’s waste pickup operations as of late afternoon.
He expected all garbage and organic material would be picked up by 8:30 p.m. but didn’t expect all recycling to be collected before day’s end. An additional 20 GFL trucks were dispatched to help with recycling pickup around 4:30 p.m.
“GFL will again be bringing in additional resources (Thursday) in an effort to catch up,” Harnum said in a statement.
“Our goal is to have all garbage, organic material, leaf and yard waste, and recycling completed by Friday evening.”
The “majority” of areas not completed during GFL’s first day on the job were completed by mid-afternoon Wednesday, Harnum added.
“We would like to apologize for the inconvenience during this transition period and ask residents for their continued patience.
“We would also ask that residents continue to leave their material out until it has been picked up.”
GFL missed its pickup deadline on day 1 as the company adjusted to picking up waste from 165,000 households between Yonge St. and the Humber River.
Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) was still waiting for bulky items, including mattresses, to be picked up from his home, 24 hours later than scheduled.
It’s now considered a missed pickup and will be collected in the next three business days, he said.
“I’m not entirely surprised,” Perks said.
“During the debate at council, many of us expressed shock that Green For Life’s price was so low and felt that they couldn’t deliver the same quality of services we had with public-sector (employees) at that price.”
GFL’s contract is expected to save the city about $11 million per year. Its bid was $2.5 million per year lower than the next competitor.
Perks, who voted against the agreement, wants the administration to issue the company a warning in writing.
“If it continues in the next week, we should start fining them.
“If they needed to hire extra people to have available while they got the bugs out of their system, they should have done that. Why should we pay them when they haven’t delivered?”
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