Dear Editor:
The city’s new garbage and recycling program is an improvement over the old system. I like a lot of its features.
However, the new system has gaps that need to be addressed. Along our street, the boulevard (city property) contains many mature deciduous trees that lose a huge volume of leaves at this time each year. When left unattended, the street becomes a mess, can be slippery and even dangerous. Our leaves have not been cleared since early October.
Under the previous system, Burnaby citizens would bag these leaves and the city would pick them up as part of the weekly program. We often had up to eight bags, depending on the week.
The current system relies on citizens to bring excess leaves to the Burnaby Eco-Centre. This approach does not work if you don’t own a car, or only own a small car.
We have a huge volume of leaves on our street well into November. The city needs to improve their garbage and recycling program to do a better job of leaf collection at this time of year.
Hamish Robertson, Burnaby
