Ste-Anne-De-Bellevue (SADB) merchants hold their breath while the city council realizes they need more time to permanently suspend garbage pickup to businesses in the village. Last summer, the merchants saw a reduction in their services when garbage pickup went from twice to once a week. Now waste collection will be non-existent without a decrease in taxes. The merchants will be newly granted organic pickup, only the city cannot get their hands on the organic bins required to implement the program.
In an exchange with SADB Merchants Association President, Jean-Claude Provost, explained that in a recent meeting with Councillor Gignac, the organic brown bins were unavailable. According to Provost, the city has looked at two companies with no luck getting the bins.
"It is quite stressful to imagine a summer without any garbage pickup," he stated. "We all would have loved to do a test before jumping in with both feet. Every merchant in the village wants to do right by the environment, but that takes time and planning when you run a business in a small village with a waterfront boardwalk. As it turns out, the city is not as ready as they thought they were."
With less than 60 days to when the city will permanently stop garbage pick up to merchants, the organic bins are nowhere to be had. So far the city has denied merchants' requests to postpone the implementation of the new program, where merchants will be forced to pay for their own garbage pick up.
"If we do not hire a collective firm as a group, we stand to have many trucks coming to the city for individual merchants. That will enlarge our carbon footprint rather than reduce it," said Provost.
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