Tantramar will look at bringing back an annual bulk garbage pickup after several councillors raised concerns about large items being left along roads for weeks.
Council voted Sept. 8 to have staff investigate an annual pickup in addition to the existing service, which allows one large household item to be collected every two weeks.
Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen brought forward the motion and proposed holding the pickup near the end of Mount Allison University’s academic year. He said he has received emails about the service and seen complaints online about items not being collected.
“I’m seeing illegal dumping. Miller Waste is not picking up the garbage the way that they should be,” Goguen told council.
Goguen said some items have remained outside for two or three weeks, while mattresses have sometimes been left for longer.
Other councillors described similar experiences. Councillor Wayne Wells said two bulk items he put out took about a month to be collected. Councillor Kristen LeBlanc said items she had placed at the end of her driveway had still not been picked up after a couple of weeks.
Tantramar Director of Engineering and Public Works Jon Eppell said the department had heard from “virtually nobody” about dumping or problems with bulk-item collection. Eppell had also checked with Eco360, which reported receiving 12 emails and 38 calls from Tantramar residents since March 2025.
Eppell questioned why the complaints councillors were hearing weren’t reaching the municipality. Goguen said he had been sending people who contacted him to Eco360 and acknowledged that some of the complaints he had seen came from Facebook.
Under the current system, residents can put one bulk item out with their clear-bag garbage every second week. Council was told Miller Waste’s regular collection trucks record the item before a separate vehicle is dispatched, normally within 24 to 48 hours.
Eppell said Miller Waste had recently reported a staffing problem affecting the service. The company had told the municipality it needed to adjust staffing and had experienced some problems with the new system.
Eppell estimated an additional bulk pickup would cost about $30 per household. He estimated the two bulk collections Tantramar previously offered would now cost just under $100,000.
Tantramar spent $490,479 on waste collection in 2024. By 2025, that had risen to $677,430 under the current collection system. Eppell estimated keeping the previous bulk collections could have brought the total to roughly $800,000.
Councillor Allison Butcher said the garbage contract is “really not working for our community” and supported finding out whether another option is available.
Councillor Tori Weldon said she missed the former bulk garbage days, while questioning whether bringing them back would be affordable. She suggested the municipality could instead do more to explain how the existing collection system is supposed to work.
Staff will now examine what an annual pickup would cost and how it could work before reporting back to council.
Theodore Ramharack holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Western University and a diploma in Broadcast Journalism. He recently completed an internship with CBC News’ The National.
Originally from Ontario, he moved to Sackville to join CHMA as a local journalist and is excited to get to know the Tantramar region and share stories from the community.
