A Windsor councillor wants the city's bulk garbage pick-up program expanded.
The current program is only offered to residential homeowners.
But Ward 3 councillor Rino Bortolin says there has been an increase in demand since pick-up fees were reduced to $10 in an effort to cut down on illegal dumping.
He would like to see the program include apartment buildings and commercial businesses.
Bortolin says the city pays a flat rate for pick up regardless of the number of items.
"We have a lot of unused trips on the books that we're paying for, why not use it in commercial areas?", he says. "So I think there's going to be interest from some of the new councillors about a bulk item that isn't paid for that's free. They might me a little bit more proactive as well. This has been a four or five year process to get it this far. We can improve upon it every year."
After a brief debate Monday night, council agreed to have administration look into adding apartment buildings, but not commercial properties.
Bortolin argues that business owners pay taxes as well and should have access to the service.
"I get a lot of calls for bulk item issues and small business owners that have very limited budgets, pay higher tax rates than the residential and feel that they should have access to the bulk item pick-up," he says. "Generally, it's those kind of commercial areas behind BIA's {Business Improvement Areas}, behind commercial buildings that get dumped on the most."
He believes the addition of multi-unit buildings would be a step in the right direction.
"Multi-residential units are the ones that have the biggest amount of dumping and the biggest need," says Bortolin. "Someone leaves an apartment and leaves all their stuff in there and they need to pitch it, it becomes nuisance and an issue for that building. Then all of a sudden it's sent out back and it stays there for weeks and weeks and weeks. It's garbage that's out there, so why not pick it up?"
A report examining the addition of multi-unit buildings will be part of council's 2019 budget deliberations.