![Vancouverites complain after trash collection suspended amid cold snap](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6313268.1642052442!/cumulusImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/recycling-in-snow.jpg)
Vancouverites complain after trash collection suspended amid cold snap
CBC
Vancouver residents are complaining to the city in droves after waste collection services were suspended amid the recent cold snap, with some trash bins not emptied for more than a month.
An unusually long bout of winter weather saw centimetres of snow throughout the city in late December, with continuous snowfall only recently being replaced by the region's usual relentless rain.
The amount of snow on the ground led the city to suspend trash collection on two days, Dec. 30 and 31, according to Albert Shamess, director of waste management at the City of Vancouver.
"What happens in Vancouver when we get heavy snow … is the laneways, where the majority of our garbage is collected, freeze and become really icy and really dangerous," he told Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC's On The Coast.
"The last thing you want is an icy lane where there's a 10-ton truck sliding down and banging into people's cars and garages."
Shamess says the city is still playing catchup, with around "two or three per cent" of the city yet to be covered as of Tuesday.
He says the relatively warmer weather and rain currently hitting the city would help crews fully empty all the bins soon.
"This weekend with a change of conditions, and the ice hopefully going, we'll be in good shape by the end of the weekend."
The City of Vancouver is responsible primarily for garbage and compost disposal, while recycling falls under the purview of Recycle B.C.
Some Vancouverites have consequently had their recycling not collected for upwards of a month.
"We've seen some pretty significant challenges, not only in Vancouver, but across the Lower Mainland and frankly across the province, depending on where you live," said Recycle B.C. spokesperson David Lefebvre.
Lefebvre says there are specific reasons recycling pickups are being affected more than garbage or compost disposal.
"Often, a recycling truck is a single axle vehicle. It is lighter than a garbage or an organics recycling truck," he said.
"That makes it more difficult to navigate sometimes in these snowy conditions, these icy conditions, these slushy conditions."