Windsor moving to biweekly garbage pickup in 2025

New garbage collection schedule planned for Windsor Windsor city council has moved forward with plans to collect garbage biweeky, and organic waste weekly, in 2025. Travis Fortnum has details.

Windsor City Council voted unanimously Monday night to pursue a plan to pivot to picking up general garbage every other week instead of weekly – while picking up organic waste every week.

The change won’t be in effect until 2025, but city staff say it’s overdue.

“We are certainly not the first out of the gate with this program, in fact we are one of the last out of the gate,” said manager of environmental services Anne-Marie Albidone.

This means households in the city will still see food scraps and other compostable waste hauled away weekly, which Ward 4 Coun. Mark McKenzie pointed out is the trash that causes problems.

“We need people to understand that the smelly stuff is the organics,” he said at Monday’s meeting.

“It’s not the actual garbage. We’re going to be taking care of the smelly stuff on a weekly basis.”

The move will happen at the eleventh hour of rules pushed by the province, mandating many municipalities enact organic waste programs.

Albidone says 40 per cent of the waste generated by households in the city is organic, so the change should mean less going to the landfill.

The report moved Monday also calls for a change to leaf and yard waste collection – which will start happening every two weeks from April to November as opposed to 13 weeks a year.

Albidone says that would’ve helped this summer, with severe storms downing branches on numerous occasions.

Staff will iron out the details of a public diaper disposal plan, so parents don’t need to keep them around an extra week.