Complaints about trash collection pile up in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve

Article content

Guerrilla trash heaps have been popping up all over the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve area, and the problem has been getting worse since the borough gradually switched to garbage collection once every two weeks, says a local councillor.

They have been spotted at Parc de la Promenade-Bellerive, in front of apartment buildings, and last weekend citizens brought bags of garbage to the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough hall, said Alba Zúñiga Ramos, councillor for the Louis-Riel district.

Article content

On Wednesday, Zúñiga Ramos met a reporter near the Place Versailles shopping centre to show a pile of garbage that she said has kept reappearing over the span of several months. An empty aluminum can of lemonade, cardboard boxes, four dining room chairs, a sofa, several stuffed animals and a SpongeBob SquarePants, and black garbage bags were among the trash on the corner, near apartment buildings. The pile of trash was in the spot where the buildings’ residents usually place garbage to be collected. The last pickup in the sector was on Aug. 1, according to the city’s Info-Collectes web page.

Article content

Article content

“This keeps coming and going,” Zúñiga Ramos said. “We have tried several times to contact 311, and nothing has happened. I got fed up with the situation, and I don’t think my citizens deserve this.”

On Tuesday, Zúñiga Ramos posted a video of the trash heap on X, and said it comes back days after city crews come to clean it up. She said the switch to collection every two weeks exacerbated the problem.

“Citizens are sick and tired of not being heard,” she said. “We voted in favour of the change, but we asked for a few measures, including keeping collection to once a week during the summer months, when garbage tends to pile up. Our motion was defeated, and the measures were not adopted.”

The trash was cleared away minutes after Zúñiga Ramos’s interview. However, she believes the problem will continue to crop up.

“For months, Louis-Riel residents have been making formal complaints to the City of Montreal about the pile of garbage, but nothing had changed. Sadly, it took denunciations via social media to get things moving,” Zúñiga Ramos wrote in a statement on Thursday. “I’m relieved that this specific case has been resolved, but this is just one example. The systemic problem remains the same. Cleanliness and sanitation issues are more than common in Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

Article content

“I call on the Projet Montréal administration to assume its responsibilities, because right now it is obvious that the cleanliness of Montreal is not their priority.”

Zúñiga Ramos said she believes it is possible to have effective garbage collection once every two weeks, as was done in the St-Laurent borough. However, the city will meet with resistance from citizens if it intends for other boroughs to also adopt that collection schedule, she added.

“It’s a city-wide problem,” she said. “Obviously, we’re not against measures to reduce the amount of trash we produce, but things have to be done properly and we have to adapt to the realities of each borough.”

The Gazette reached out to administration spokesperson Catherine Cadotte to request an interview with Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough mayor Pierre Lessard-Blais, but was told he’s on vacation this week. Cadotte declined to provide a written statement, because she said she was informed the trash near Place Versailles was picked up.

jmagder@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jasonmagder

Article content

Article content