GFL Environmental’s missed blue bin collections on behalf of the new recycling system operator, in addition to missed garbage and green bin collections on behalf of the city, are raising questions about the company’s ability to provide both services to Torontonians.
Waste languishing on curbsides, sometimes for weeks, is also adding fuel to calls to take waste collection west of Yonge Street away from GFL, when its current contract with the city expires, and return the work to unionized city crews.
“It’s something we absolutely should do, given this hot mess, this disastrous rollout, where, weeks after the new system started, they continue to leave waste at the curb,” said Coun. Josh Matlow (Toronto-St. Paul’s).
Ontario’s patchwork of municipally run recycling programs fully transitioned on Jan. 1 to ”extended producer responsibility,” a system in which companies that produce packaging waste fund and operate blue-bin collection under provincial supervision. Circular Materials is the industry-funded not-for-profit now running recycling provincewide, and it has hired GFL Environmental to do curbside pickup in Toronto.
Patrick Dovigi, founder and chief executive of GFL, which has grown since its 2007 launch to become North America’s fourth-largest waste disposal company, last week rejected any suggestion of capacity problems. “Incorrect statement,” Dovigi responded, via email, to a Star question after his crews missed blue bins in entire neighbourhoods.
But since then, desperate homeowners in different parts of the city have continued begging Circular Materials and GFL to haul away mountains of waste.
Some condo owners have been forced to pile recycling inside their units.
University-Rosedale Coun. Dianne Saxe, a former Ontario environment commissioner, said she continues to receive pleas from desperate homeowners — even though the city no longer has any say over recycling. She said she’ll support ending GFL’s time as a city waste hauler when the company’s contract expires in 2031.
Residents have also been calling the city’s 311 help line in recent weeks to report missed collections of garbage, green bins and Christmas trees. Those who notified the Star all live west of Yonge Street, including on Eglinton Avenue West, Chaplin Crescent, Clinton Street and in the College Street-Dufferin Street area.
GFL has the city contract for those collections west of Yonge Street, while city workers do the work east of Yonge.
The city told the Star it was aware “a recent increase in missed collection complaints west of Yonge Street, areas serviced by our contractor GFL.”
“City staff are escalating issues to GFL immediately and reinforcing service expectations,” it said, noting that disruptions with GFL were “uncommon.”
Companies behind operation include McDonald’s, Costco and Loblaws
A GFL crew on Friday finally cleared recycling that had piled up for almost a month outside an Eglinton Avenue West condo building near Avenue Road — but Christmas trees and green bins beside it remained, resident Rachel Sheinin said.
“I’m very disappointed. Their lack of responsiveness is horrible,” she said of Circular Materials and GFL. Recycling pickup “was working fine before (Jan. 1) — we don’t even have that many recycling bins — what happened?”
She noted the Circular Materials was founded and is funded by large companies and questioned if the money they are willing to spend under so-called “extended producer responsibility” is enough to provide the same level of recycling service that the City of Toronto did previously.
“If McDonald’s and Costco and all of these companies making billions of dollars are backing and funding this organization, why is it so hard to continue and maintain our pick-up schedule?” Sheinin said.
At publication time, McDonald’s, Costco and Loblaw had not responded to a Star request for comment.
Other companies that co-founded Circular Materials in 2021 are: Empire Company, Kraft-Heinz Canada, Keurig Dr Pepper Canada, Lassonde Industries Inc., Maple Leaf Foods, Metro Inc., The Minute Maid Company Canada Inc., Nestlé Canada, PepsiCo Canada, Procter & Gamble Inc., Restaurant Brands International (RBI), and The Clorox Company of Canada Inc.
Ted Aivalis, executive vice-president of CUPE Local 416, which represents city waste collectors, said he has no personal knowledge of the reasons behind the missed collections but “the only thing that makes sense to me is a lack of co-ordination (between Circular Materials and GFL) and the availability of crews and trucks.”
Local 416 will raise the current problems while lobbying councillors to bring west-of-Yonge trash collection back in-house, he said, after city staff table a council-requested report on the merits of that idea.
Petition calls or Premier Ford to act
Matlow on Friday launched a petition calling on Premier Doug Ford’s government to “immediately fix the failed privatized recycling program and restore reliable, accountable recycling collection for our communities.”
It states: ” The Ford government broke a system that worked, and our communities deserve better.”
Saxe also blamed Ford, saying the problems are the result of his government “cheaping out to to keep the cost down for (waste) producers who have always resisted, and resented, paying the true cost of their packaging.”
When missed collections were first reported in early January, Ford vowed to take action if necessary. But he later dismissed the problems as some “kinks” to be worked out amid complaints by “some of the lefties down in Toronto.”
Aides to Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy have told the Star that he remains confident that the new system will save municipalities millions of dollars by transferring costs to the companies that produce the waste, while benefiting residents with more materials that can go into blue bins and be diverted away from landfill.
Asked Friday about GFL and the ongoing problems, Circular Materials chief executive Allen Langdon said: “Our team continues to work closely with our service provider, GFL Environmental, to ensure Toronto residents receive reliable recycling collection service.
“We want to assure residents that their concerns are our highest priority and we are taking action to ensure they are addressed.”
At publication time, Dovigi had not responded to detailed questions from the Star.
