Every week, people in cities across Canada wake up early and bleary-eyed to take their garbage to the curb. Maybe it’s because we’re often in a hurry to put it out, or maybe it’s because we haven’t had that first shot of coffee yet, but there are always a few things we do that drive garbage collectors crazy. While most people only think of the garbage once a week, the employees of Tomlinson Environmental Services (TES), in Ottawa, are out early every morning, helping to keep the city spic and span. TES collects approximately one quarter of the city’s household garbage and recycling. For each driver, that works out to about 1,000 homes, or almost 18 tonnes of waste per day.

If you ask someone like Gerry Stephens or Pete Billings, stewards at TES, what you can do to help make garbage collection more efficient, safer, and less frustrating, this is what they would say.

1. Remember: the garbage man is like the mailman. Just because there’s a bit of snow, sleet, rain, or baking sun doesn’t mean they get to stay home. They’re out there every day in all types of weather.
2. Place your recycling and waste horizontally side by side, not front to back. It’s frustrating, time consuming, and hazardous for recycling drivers to climb over garbage cans to get to your recycling bins.
3. Limit obstructions to garbage cans. Putting your garbage cans in a snow bank or behind your mailbox means more strain for already strained muscles. In the winter keep your cans on the right side of your driveway; this gives the driver enough room to get out and throw the garbage in the truck without having to go waist deep in a snow bank.
4. Stay within the weight and bag limit prescribed by your city or municipality. Most waste collectors will remove the waste even if it is over the limit, but this can often lead to extra risk of injury. Also, avoid industrial size garbage bags. Drivers remove over 3,000 bags per day! Those industrial size bags can be hard on the body.
5. Tie loose cardboard or newspaper together. Picking up small pieces of soggy newspaper and cardboard strewn all over your driveway from the wind is no fun. A bit of twine or string will do wonders.

Next week, before you gather up the garbage, grab that cup of coffee first. Think about how you can make a difference by following the Tomlinson Top Five. Happy collecting!