Downtown business fed up with trash, calls on city for solutions

A downtown London business owner is fed up with nearby restaurants dumping their garbage outside his front door. Now he's calling on the city to step up and solve the issue.

Steve Myts is the owner of Electric Hair Salon on Talbot Street. For years now, a group of restaurants on nearby King Street have been carrying their bags of trash around the corner and placing them outside his salon for collection, he said.

The issue started when King Street was under construction years earlier and businesses were told to put their garbage on Talbot Street, Myts explained.

"Now that the construction is finished, it seems to be a regular place," he said. "I think the city should provide a bigger solution for everybody so I don't need to try to manage garbage piles."

The trash piles up every day, Myts said, even on days when no collection takes place. The bags often leak or get ripped open, spilling food waste all over the street, he added. It attracts wasps and flies, and leaves grease stains all over the sidewalk, in addition to being an eyesore for people walking downtown.

Employees at one of the restaurants on King Street told CBC News that they do, in fact, place their trash on Talbot Street, because that's where the city has told them to put it.

City officials, however, said there is a lot of confusion about what to do with trash in the area.

That part of downtown has been the subject of numerous complaints, said Jay Stanford, director of climate change, environment and waste management. The city has recently distributed information throughout the area to educate business owners and employees on the proper times and places to drop off their garbage, he explained, but it does not seem to be catching on.

While some businesses along King Street are allowed to put out garbage on Talbot Street, not all of them are, Stanford said. But with the new bus lanes along King and changes from past policies, he added, it's possible there is confusion around the proper locations for trash.

"It's a challenge, and it's just so unfortunate because we all want a better downtown London," he said. "Sometimes it's just unclear why businesses aren't more respectful of other businesses."

Some business owners are calling for a better system that gets the trash bags off the sidewalk, such as shared dumpsters. At The Early Bird on Talbot Street, garbage is put out on the curb, Crystal Kendall, the restaurant's owner said, explaining that the collection schedule sometimes means putting trash out in front of their patio in the middle of rush times.

Businesses in the area are told to put their garbage out between 5 and 8 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 and 10 a.m. on weekends.

"I know that it's a tough situation for everybody in the area but, really, there is going to be garbage and it does need to be disposed of," she said. "So I definitely think that this needs to be revisited and we should definitely come up with a better solution than what is currently being done now."

The city has tried a similar solution in the past, using large carts for garbage, Stanford said. While they were helpful in some ways, they also led to new problems, he added, like the carts being emptied out on the streets or fires being lit inside them.

For now, city staff is continuing to do their best to pick up garbage downtown as quickly as they can, Stanford said, adding that there is no perfect system.

"We can begin to focus on who the culprits are and make sure they have all the correct information. And if we have to move into compliance issues and techniques, that would be the next step."