Since 2017, complaints about garbage pickup in the Niagara Region have gone up more than 400%.

Aging vehicles and staffing issues are the main factors, but many trash collectors were fired after failing drug and alcohol testing.

Emterra, a Burlington based company, is paid 19 million dollars to pick up garbage in the Niagara region, but 10% of the area’s trash isn’t picked up on time.

In the first two and a half months of 2017, there were 147 complaints about garbage pickup in the Niagara region, in same period this year, that number jumped to nearly a thousand.

No one from Emterra would do an interview today, but they told Niagara officials that they were having maintenance issues with aging vehicles.

Last year, 35% of Emterra workers failed drug and alcohol tests, a number of them were fired.

Everyday in the Niagara Region, garbage collectors don’t make it to an average of 3300 homes, leaving the trash on the curb to blow around for other people to pick up.

Part of the regions contract with Emterra says that if the level of work becomes unacceptable, the region can contract out that work to another company, and they have. Now routes in Lincoln and West Lincoln are picked up by Canadian Waste Management, and Emterra pays for that.