Mayor wants everyone to clean up garbage
The mayor wants everyone to clean up garbage around where they live.
Updating to add: I took a full-size garbage bag out just now and walked around my block, house fronts and the corresponding back alley. I hadn’t thought it was too bad, although I’d noticed some litter recently, mostly shiny bits of snack packaging among the lingering heaps of dead leaves. Got back with a full bag.
Chris 21:15 on 2026-04-11 Permalink
She’s right. The filthy mess out there is our collective fault, we should collectively fix it.
Kate 21:28 on 2026-04-11 Permalink
People do seem to have the notion that it’s somebody else’s problem.
Joey 21:32 on 2026-04-11 Permalink
I don’t disagree, but I would add that the city has missed half the recycling pickups on our street since February/March. It’s hard to keep things tidy when there’s a bunch of garbage blowing around.
MarcG 07:22 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
The reason for trash in the street isn’t littering, it’s poor management/containment and extreme weather. The last big windy evening was on a garbage night here in Verdun and it spread loose junk absolutely everywhere.
SMF’s idea that businesses in South Korea just spontaneously and non-selfishly collect people’s garbage is misinformation. Like deps with bottle returns, they only take garbage from items you purchased from their store. They are charged for their waste by volume (you pay for special govt bags) and there are no street garbage bins. This idea of “oh people should just act better without me, a politician with power of regulations, needing to do anything more than ask nice slash guilt trip them like a lazy parent” is the real garbage.
Chris 09:34 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
> The last big windy evening was on a garbage night here in Verdun and it spread loose junk absolutely everywhere.
Here too the fault is (partly) everyone’s. Why don’t we properly bag/tie/bin our recycling? Why don’t we keep it home one week longer when the forecast is windy?
Meezly 10:44 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
Our alley has an apartment building on each end, and the garbage behind those buildings are out of control. Tenants move out and leave a pile of junk, or they don’t even bother to bag their trash properly. It’d be great if there was a way to publicly shame these people.
A neighbour posted photos on a Mile End FB page and someone responded saying he’s a tenant in one of the buildings and they have a rat problem as a result of the unmanaged trash. Mile End residents piped in to say it’s an ongoing problem. They’d frequently call 311 to report it, then they get an email that it’s been resolved and when they look outside, the garbage is still there.
I can’t imagine the city would send workers to actually clean it up the mess. I’m guessing an “inspector” would visit the site and issue a fine to the building’s owner? Maybe the fines aren’t high enough? Would anyone know how the process works?
Unfortunately, the most efficient way to deal with the unsightly and disgusting strewn garbage is to organize neighbouhood cleanups.
MarcG 10:46 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
I’m interested to hear your answers to those questions.
Ian 12:23 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
I agree that people could put more effort into being tidy, but would also like to note that not everyone has the space in their apartments to store their garbage for an extra week.
Joey 14:12 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
There’s a huge pile of garbage behind that building right now. The fines should go to the landlord and should increase exponentially.
Chris, we put our recycling and increasingly garbage out at the last possible minute (like when we hear the truck). Otherwise the bags are opened immediately by folks looking for cans and left untied. IOW our problems are interrelated and structural. A shitty economy means everything is worse. SMF’s attitude is basically, it’s your own damn fault.
JP 14:21 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
And if its not a person opening it up for cans, it’s a squirrel or a crow…..or whatever else.
I know someone who lives in parc ex close to the metropolitan…there’s an alley there that really doesn’t feel comfortable or healthy to be in….but with so many apartments in such close proximity….I honestly don’t know how they fix the rat/mice issues.
jeather 16:18 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
I’ve had good results complaining about garbage not being picked up on the app.
Ian 19:44 on 2026-04-12 Permalink
@JP last year a squirrel got hit by a car and some enterprising crows hid it in a pothole so they could eat it when the traffic was gone. Eventually city workers just filled in the pothole squirrel and all.
@Joey on my block we have an alley, with the garbage pickup there instead of the street. The city recently decided that we should have our recycling and compost picked up in the alley, too. The problem is that the map they distributed was so confusing (I called 311 three times and got three different sets of instructions) that basically everyone started putting everything in the garbage. Last week, we got a notification that recycling will now be on the street, but compost and garbage will still be in the alley. We’ll see how that goes since people have only just now started consistently putting all their materials for pickup in the alley instead of just leaving it on the street, wondering what was going on, until it snowed …and the snowplows effectively carted all the recycling away with the snow.
Joey 11:49 on 2026-04-13 Permalink
@Ian somebody should have told Cathy Wong that if it ain’t terribly broke, don’t fix it. I don’t know how many times Mile End councillors have had to post these incomprehensible messages about this issue (especially what you’re describing), and always implying that it’s the citizens who are at fault.