What to do if your waste collection has been delayed by inclement weather

From time to time, waste (garbage and recycling) collection can get delayed due to inclement weather and/or poor road conditions. While our waste collection partner, Miller Waste, does their best to avoid any kind of collection delay, sometimes they are unavoidable.

Due to the nature of inclement weather delays, Miller Waste often won’t know if there will be a delay until it is happening. That makes proactively communicating these kinds of delays difficult as the weather is often unpredictable.

While we can’t control the weather, we can do our best to notify those affected by collection delays as early as possible.

Here’s how to get waste delay notifications:

Download the Recycle Coach app – the Recycle Coach app provides you with a personalized waste and recycling schedule right at your fingertips. Residents with the app will receive notifications for collection changes, delays, upcoming special collection days and recycling tips right to their mobile devices. Download the Recycle Coach app on your device today to stay on top of any collection delay.

Follow Kawartha Lakes on social media – collection delay notifications are sent out through our social media channels as soon as possible after Miller Waste has made us aware of the delay:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cityofkawarthalakes

X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/kawarthalakes

Subscribe to our Newsroom – moving forward, collection delays will be sent out in the form of a news release through the Kawartha Lakes Newsroom. Stay up-to-date on all of the latest municipal news, including waste collection delays by subscribing to our Newsroom today.

What to do if your waste is missed:

Instructions for what to do with your waste if it is not collected due to collection delays will be included in the notices sent out. Generally speaking, the following will apply to most if not all of these kinds of delays:

Garbage Collection: If your garbage is missed, your next waste collection day will be a double garbage collection day. Meaning that instead of a two bag limit per household, you will be able to put out four bags (your garbage from last week plus your garbage for this week).

Recycling: If your recycling is missed, since we only pick up one kind of recycling per week, we ask that you bring your missed recycling back inside and then bring it back out two weeks later for collection.

Example: Your container (blue bin) recycling was missed due to a delay on Thursday February 15. Since Thursday February 22 is a paper/fibre (green bin) collection day, we ask you to hold on to your container recycling until your next container recycling day on Thursday February 29.

Please note that even if there are recycling collection delays, bagged recycling will not be collected.

If your container recycling is overflowing, it is free to recycle at our landfills. For winter hours of operation or to learn more visit the Landfill page on our website.
My waste was missed and the weather isn’t even that bad today

Along with the weather, there are other environmental challenges when it comes to waste collection in Kawartha Lakes.

When we experience a milder winter, like the 2024 winter, it can take longer for rural roads to develop frost. That means that our rural roads are softer than usual which makes driving on them with heavy vehicles like garbage trucks difficult. Especially on or after rainy, or snowy days. Depending on where you land on the truck’s usual route, the slower collection could lead to a delay.

While these types of delays are rare, they do happen and they will be communicated in the same way that an inclement weather delay is communicated.

What to do if your waste isn’t collected and it wasn’t due to a delay

On occasion, waste collection can be missed. If you notice that your waste hasn’t been picked up, we encourage you to check our social media channels to determine if there was any kind of collection delay.

If there isn’t any mention of a delay, your waste or your street’s waste may have simply just been missed. If that is the case, please reach out to recycle@kawarthalakes.ca and a customer service representative will help you with next steps.