Sarnia residents may be eager to start decluttering their homes now that large items will be collected every week, beginning January 1, 2024.
Large item pick up changes were noted in the 2024 residential collection schedule.
"Every year, we sit down with our contractors, review how things are going, and out of that discussion we talked about improving our large item pick-up collections," said City of Sarnia General Manager of Engineering and Operations David Jackson. "We are excited about it. We have done a first week of the month collection for large items so moving forward, we're going to change that to allow large item collection every week."
Large items will be picked up according to residents' regular garbage collection day.
Jackson said the change poses as a win-win for all involved parties.
"It's actually a benefit to our contractor where it spreads out the workload for them throughout the month," he said. "We [also] think it'll help cut down on some of the challenges we had where people will put something out at the wrong time and it sits out for a long time, and then we get complaints."
Another bonus, the city will not need to pay more money for the increased service.
"There's no cost change. What happened in the past, I think previous contractors may have had a separate crew or truck go around and do that, that's why it was limited," said Jackson. "But our current contractor, they pick up [large items] with the regular pick up."
Like garbage and recycling, large items must be out to the curb before 7 a.m. on collection days but no earlier than 6 p.m. the evening before.
Details about acceptable and unacceptable large items are detailed on the city's website and the residential collection schedule (recently mailed to residents).