Montreal garbage starts to pile-up amid snow-removal operations

Garbage collection in Montreal was cancelled this week after 74 centimeters of snow fell on the city amid back-to-back storms – and it’s unclear when it will resume amid the major snow clearing operation. In the meantime, residents and business owners have had to find ways to manage the growing number of garbage bags.

“It doesn’t make sense that we have so many people within the city not being able to find solutions for a problem like this,” said Waseem Al-Ramli, owner, Cocktail Hawaii.

The city has completed about 23 per cent of the snow removal on it’s territory and said on Wednesday that it could take another seven days.

“We have to help the city because the City of Montreal, they cannot take the snow in one or two or three or four days, they need more time especially because Montreal is big,” added Jaoudat Abouazza, manager, Poulet Bronzé.

While some Montreal businesses understand why garbage collection has been put on hold, Al-Ramli believes the City of Montreal could have done more to ensure that garbage collection still took place.

“One example is simply doing the garbage collection at night when there is less traffic. If that’s the issue why they are not able to move around, at night there isn’t much traffic. It’s once in a lifetime, let’s try to do that.”

Until garbage collection resumes, the City of Montreal says that people should not leave garbage bags on the banks of snow next to the streets because it can damage snow clearing equipment. They add that residents are recommended to leave garbage bags on their balcony  and that businesses can leave garbage next to the side of their buildings.

“I am part of a building where I am limited with garbage containers. I’m not allowed to put garbage outside of my containers,” said Al-Ramli. “If my garbage overflows from my garbage containers, that means I have to purchase more garbage containers. That’s a cost for a business, plus later on, where am I going to be putting these garbage containers?”

Poulet Bronzé another restaurant in downtown Montreal puts some of their garbage outside in bins next to their building, but also has had to keep some of it inside within storage areas and containers.  

“I have a bin outside, I keep it nicely outside. And when it’s full, I keep inside because I have storage inside, bigger storage, and I have storage outside,” added Abouazza.

While many businesses are respecting the City of Montreal’s wishes to keep garbage off the snow banks next to streets, it appears that there are still many who either haven’t received the message or are just not respecting it.

“First of all, it is visually not correct to put garbage in the streets. We’re not New York City to do that as other cities do. Second of all, the sidewalks are already limited with space. Putting garbage in front of our businesses is not the right thing,” said Al-Ramli.