To go to work in her convenience store in the Vache district of Toulouse, Océane passes by a pile of garbage about ten meters long : “we can’t walk at all. It’s been like that since December, it’s exhausting. It would take at least three or four trucks to empty the pile”. She does not understand why no lorry has passed since the end of the garbage collectors’ strike ten days ago. She has no choice, in the evening when she empties the garbage from the store, she has to leave everything on the ground next to the heap.
Favored neighborhoods?
Amandine, a real estate agent comes regularly to show residences in the neighborhood, “but it’s a bit complicated in terms of aesthetics, the bins are starting to open up a bit”. To customers who ask questions, she explains that there was a strike, “but now that it’s over, it’s hard to understand why they don’t go everywhere“. She has the impression that certain districts, such as the city center of Toulouse, are favoured. The same feeling for Océane, who has the impression that her HLM district of Sept Deniers is abandoned.
The explanation of the metropolis
As for the northern districts of Toulouse, Vincent Terrail Novès, vice-president of cleanliness at the metropolis, explains that the Raisin depot, on which the sector depends, there was a staffing problem last weekend. :“On Saturdays, the agents come on a voluntary basis and are paid overtime. But this time, there were not enough volunteers.”
– Caroline Felix
Wider, the health crisis reduced the workforce. The Union depot, which collects the municipalities in the east of Toulouse, is particularly affected, with half the workforce down last week, we explain to the metropolis. Vincent Terrail Novès also reminds us that we must pick up “at once” 3,000 tons of waste.“The inhabitants have the impression that we collect less, yet we collect more”, he assures. “Usually, we bring 500 tons of waste to the incinerator every day, but since work resumed, we bring 800 tons daily”, he details.
The inhabitants have the impression that we collect less, yet we collect more – Vincent Terrail Novès
On the side of the unions, we explain this slowness by the end of the finished party and by the fact that the sectors are too large in relation to the workforce They also criticize the fact that the metropolis has refused to amortize the non-payment of strike days over several months. The garbage collectors will therefore receive the equivalent of the RSA this month.
Private service providers
The metropolis explains that until the return to normal on the sidewalks, it uses a private service provider to collect household waste. She indicates that it represents 8 to 10 skips and about thirty people, without giving the cost of this recourse to the private sector. It also ensures that agents who usually provide cleanliness will lend a hand collection agents.