Windsor residents who get their garbage picked up in the alleyway will have to change their routine next year. The City of Windsor is doing away with alleyway pickup in favour of collecting all garbage at the curbside in 2025.
The city's current garbage collection contract ends in April 2025, and when it does, the new contract will include the pickup of organic waste. If there's no change, the city will pay another $576,675.
There are other advantages too for the new contractor. Smaller trucks are needed to pick up garbage in alleyways, meaning more trips to the landfill and higher fuel costs. When all waste is curbside, the new proponent could use the same trucks they use anywhere else in the city.
The city conducted a pilot project late last year to see how the change would impact residents.
Garbage pickup moved curbside for 64 homes on Pelissier Street and Victoria Avenue between Tecumseh Road West and Jackson Street and 114 on Dougall Avenue and Church Street from Tecumseh Road West to Wahketa Street for eight weeks last fall.
Whether residents found it more difficult or not to put the garbage at the curb was evenly split, and 31 per cent of residents who responded to a survey said the alleyway was cleaner.
Ward 3 Councillor Renaldo Agostino said the pilot project achieved one important goal.
"It's not just a cost-saving thing to me. It's about accountability. It's about cleaning up our alleyways," he said. "In the areas that we dealt with during the pilot project, things got a lot cleaner back there."
There are 219 alleyways in Windsor where collectors pick up garbage. Ward 9 Councillor Kieran McKenzie, who still hopes Windsor and Essex County will move to a regional garbage system, supported consistency with the county.
Not everyone on the council supports the change. Ward 4's Mark McKenzie decried the lack of public consultation and expressed fears it would change the character of the city's more celebrated neighbourhoods.
"People move into that neighbourhood for a reason, and now, all of a sudden, you're changing things," said McKenzie. "I know, especially in the Walkerville area, people say, 'Hey, we moved into this neighbourhood not only because we love the character of the neighbourhood, but we love the fact that all of the clean stuff is in the front and all of the dirty stuff is in the back.'"
Gignac believes once residents get used to the change, they might grow to like it.
"The report shows in the pilot areas, we did see people move from resistance at first to by the end of the eighth week, everyone was finding it was not very onerous to take them [garbage bins] to the front," she said.