The solution to a chronically overflowing trash receptacle would be to empty it more often, but that’s easier said than done.

With condos sprouting like weeds — particularly in the downtown core — pedestrian traffic continues to grow. All those new inner-city dwellers are out and about, and that can only be a good thing.

The side effects include litter, but not all of it is tossed to the sidewalk. Clever people know that those grey or black street bins are for garbage and have figured out how to put their trash in the small holes in front.

But there’s a limit to every receptacle. When it’s stuffed to the gills, trash inevitably ends up spilling out and strewn around the street.

That’s the big picture in photos sent to me by Michael Malleson, showing an overflowing bin with extra trash carefully placed on top, on the south side of Charles St. E, just east of Yonge St. and next to George Hislop Park.

Malleson, who lives with his family in a condo on Charles, said two 50-storey condo towers went up on the street in the last two years, adding at least two thousand new residents to the immediate area.

“There are many things I love about this development,” he said. “The sidewalks are bustling with happy people. Local businesses, big and small, are thriving.

“There are however some downsides. A major one is that 80 per cent of the time, our local public garbage bin is overflowing with stinky rotten garbage, with more garbage surrounding the bin and on top of it.

“One would hope the city would respond by increasing the frequency of pickup, or at least provide a bigger bin. The number of property taxpayers within a stone’s throw of that bin has increased many times over, but there appears to little or no increase” in pickups, he said.

He added that he’s been telling 311 and his local city councillor for more than a year that the receptacle needs to be emptied more often, but so far it hasn’t happened.

I went there Saturday and found the bin filled to capacity, with trash jammed into both holes but nothing on top of or around it. I sent Malleson a note to say I’d been there. He replied with two more photos, one shot Saturday night that showed a guy placing a bag of dog droppings on top, and another taken Sunday morning, showing litter piled on top of and around the container.

STATUS: Lisa Duncan, director of collections and litter operations, emailed to say “the litter bin at this location is emptied nightly due to limited access for collection trucks during the day with the vehicle traffic and parked cars. We do our best to supplement the service with daytime litter operations crews who clean around the bins and empty the bin liners. In the meantime, with the growing densification of the area we are looking at the option to pilot park bins in this area, which would include a green bin to separate the dog waste.”

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