By Staff
November 20th, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
Complaints about the leaf collection are understandable. However the people who put th schedule together had no idea that the warm weather we have experienced would last quite this long.
As nice as the weather has been – it does play havoc with the plans some departments put in place.
Could we, should we have expected them to have crystal balls that would tell them it is going to be another couple of weeks of unseasonably warm weather?
Just how proactive could they have been?
The city could have revised the plans and moved everything back a few days – perhaps the contracts they signed didn’t allow for that. Write better contracts.
Global warming is changing everything which means everything has to change.
Set out below is the schedule the city is working to at the moment.
To those people who complain about having their leaves picked up or not should be glad that at least you have some pickup. Those of us who live north of 5 are in area that have plenty of trees do NOT have any pick up and we therefore have to resort to the old method, raking , bagging and then disposal. And no, the garbage collecting in our area does not pickup any yard waste at anytime of the year.
Great article, Pepper. I emailed the city last week about this as I live in Area 1 and at best half of my leaves had fallen by the time city came by. I’ll summarize the response:
No, we’re not going to do anything else. We use some of that equipment for snow so we don’t have time. If we do, we will put it on the website so look there for yourself if you want to find out.
I was pretty disappointed with the response. This tells me the City is managing by checking boxes and not providing thoughtful service. If the service is not going to do what is intended should we eliminate the service and get a tax break?
Everyone still raking them to the road, despite knowing full well that the leaf fairy is not going to pick them up. Many are from City trees. Have to pay a landscaping service to rake again and drive them to Milton, at our cost. Not environmentally friendly and an expense. They just had to look out the window to see there was going to be a problem. Wet leaves = slippery roads, clogged drains and an aesthetic mess. Live in the most treed area of Burlington, yet we are 1st and 3rd week of a 5 week schedule…every year. Either clear them or make those who are still dumping them on the road remove them.
The City needs to consult with the weatherman when doing these pickups. Appreciate the dropping of leaves is hard to predict – all the more argument against a rigid pick-up schedule. The City’s first leaf pickup was obviously a “walk in the park” there was literally nothing to pickup in October — It would be nice if the City could work out a way to shift the effort saved during the non-existent October leaf pickup – to doing an extra pick-up now. If the City is unable to complete leaf pickups perhaps it’s time to go for a private contract based on weight – You know they’ll pick up the leaves. However considering the city has all of the equipment and the know-how maybe they need to get better at forecasting this.
Our area (2) has already had their leaves picked up. But people are still pushing all their leaves to the curb because they fell after a schedule that was wrong. Yes I do expect the city to recognize the change. What happens now during the winter, is the drains will be clogged, the roads will flood and people will complain. Then a special crew will come (at extra cost), to clear the drains of the leaves. It’s simply a matter of noticing how the climate is changing and adjusting schedules accordingly. How the city fails to understand this, is beyond me.
those of us with last pick up are happy this year as in past our leaves were frozen to the ground by pick up time this year is good by next Monday all will have fallen and weather not too bad for raking/picking up Every year some win and some lose this year early scheduled lose and late win.