With 700 public garbage cans in Milton when do they get emptied?

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Published May 24, 2023 at 4:18 pm

An overflowing garbage bin in Milton Community Park following the Victoria Day long weekend.

An overflowing garbage can in a Milton park is never what Doug Sampano wants to see, but he recognizes that sometimes it’s unavoidable.

“We have dedicated staff operating in Milton Community Park and Lions Park over the weekends, but sometimes things get a little hectic during a long weekend,” said Sampano, the Town’s director of Facilities, Operations and Environment.

The issue was raised with inhalton.com when a local resident saw overflowing garbage cans throughout Milton Community Park.

“It’s early in the season for us, and we’re still getting ramped up with summer students,” said Sampano. “We have staff and full coverage in parks and staff there.”

The overflowing cans were noticed Tuesday morning, only a few hours after Victoria Day celebrations, and that may have contributed to the situation.

“There are about 700 cans in town that we’re responsible for maintaining. We get to each of them about once a week, twice a week for those in higher traffic areas. But there are some things we just can’t control. If, a few minutes after we’ve done our maintenance, there’s a local event and it gets filled up again, it’s going to sit for a few days.”

Sampano’s crew is also responsible for cleaning up following the Saturday morning farmers’ market on Main Street and special events like Summerfest.

“For the farmer’s market, we’re ready to go when they close around noon. Our crew heads straight up the street, picking up garbage and clearing cans. Then we head back down, take down the barricades and reopen the road.”

For a larger event like the upcoming Summerfest, the team gets a staging area behind the scenes and brings in a dumpster.

“We bring in staff for events like those whose sole role is working maintenance and changing out the garbage bins.”

One of the ways the Town is trying to stay ahead of things is with new technology.

“In high-volume areas, we’ve been using in-ground containers with higher capacity. They can last much longer between changing, up to a month rather than a week.”

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