While many businesses and industries have ground to a halt during the novel coronavirus pandemic, garbage collection has not, and some are concerned that sanitation workers aren’t being properly protected.
Michael Faddoul owns and operates A-Plus Garbage Removal, which offers waste removal for residential and commercial buildings. Right now, his small team of five services 130 sites across the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), mostly restaurants, office and apartment buildings.
“We actually pick up the physical bag and throw it in the back of the truck, and that’s where the fear is coming in for me and my team,” says Faddoul.
“Some spots we go to, the bags are not tied at all, there’s loose garbage in the bin — Kleenexes, gloves — and that’s a hazard to us.”
Faddoul says his employees easily handle 500 to 800 individual garbage bags each day. He says that while he and his team are taking precautions where they can by wearing gloves and handwashing regularly, he fears they and other garbage collectors are being overlooked.
“We’re an essential service. I reached out to the Canadian Red Cross, 211 and the public health sector, and they couldn’t help me, unfortunately,” says Faddoul.
“I just wish there was somewhere or somehow we can be given the proper tools and equipment so we can do our jobs safely and efficiently and risk-free.”
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For residential pickup across the HRM, waste collection and processing has continued as normal, as it’s considered an industry exempt from social distancing and five-person limits under the Health Protection Act.
However, a spokesperson with the municipality tells Global News precautions are still being taken, including social-distancing measures, health checks, more frequent handwashing and more frequent cleaning and sanitization of equipment, including collection vehicles.
Gloves, masks litter city streets and provincial roadways
More and more Nova Scotians are taking precautions while out in public, such as wearing latex gloves or masks. The problem is, many are ending up in city streets, parking lots and along provincial highways.
“We’re hearing a lot of complaints about gloves, disinfectant wipes and stuff like that — definitely related to the coronavirus outbreak,” says Amy Langille, Nova Scotia Adopt-A-Highway’s program manager.
Usually, volunteers would be out in full force across the province cleaning up trash along roadways, as Adopt-A-Highway’s annual litter cleanup was scheduled to kick off on April 1. But because of the novel coronavirus, the event has been postponed until at least May 1.
“I think these will be long-lasting effects that we will see for a while. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get our programs running and our volunteers out to help clean up the province and clean up our environment and wildlife,” says Langille.
“Anything you do is directly impacting another person, so whether that’s littering a glove or a Lysol wipe or that kind of thing, someone else has to pick that up, and we don’t want to put anyone else at risk.”
As residents increase their use of cleaning products, Halifax Water is also urging people not to flush wipes — even the so-called “flushable” ones — down the toilet.
“Diverting valuable resources of time and equipment to a situation that is 100 per cent preventable is not the way to go,” says spokesperson James Campbell.
Disinfectant wipes do not break down in water so they can end up being stuck in a home’s plumbing system or clogging up pipes leading to sewage treatment plants, where staff have to fish them out by hand.
“If the blockage winds up being bad enough and it backs up into somebody’s home, they’ve got a real situation on their hands,” says Campbell. “When people are trying to shelter in place right now during COVID-19, if you have a load of sewage in your basement and you have to leave, that’s a real problem.”
‘We’re walking in blindly every day’
Faddoul is urging residents to ensure they don’t throw any loose garbage in their bins and that all their bags are tied. He says this not only applies to his employees but all garbage collectors.
“There is a person picking that up, and we don’t know when we’re going to a building or a house or whatever, if someone’s infected — that’s the scariest thing. We’re walking in blindly every day, doing our job,” he says.
“We have families as well. We’re working long days, and we just ask people to be a little more cautious with the way they put their waste in to protect everyone.”
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