Long lineups at Sudbury's landfill because of scale repairs

Repairing the scales at Sudbury’s main landfill site on The Kingsway is causing delays and long lineups for residents and businesses using the site to dispose of waste and trimmings.

We visited the site just before noon on Thursday, where people were waiting as long as 60 minutes in line.

One person said the wait isn’t so bad.

“One hour to wait is a lot better -- I am from the Hamilton area and you could be two to three hours waiting for some the same thing,” said Robert Gracey.

“So to me it’s pretty good here and if you come a little later in the day, there is not crowd at all.”

While some waited patiently, others expressed frustration and said the city could be being doing more to ease wait times.

“I am sure I could have probably drove down to Azilda or Chelmsford, it wouldn’t take me as long,” said Joe Melanson.

One roofer we talked to said he loses a lot of productivity waiting in line at the dump.

“If they were going to do it now, I feel like they should have gotten like portable scales or something,” said roofer Dylan McLaughlin.

“We definitely have the means to facilitate, like, them doing these repairs and have it work seamlessly. So I do think they could have taken better precautions and counter measures to fix it.”

Repairing the scales at Sudbury’s main landfill site on The Kingsway is causing delays and long lineups for residents and businesses using the site to dispose of waste and trimmings. (Alana Everson/CTV News)

Another man we talked to is doing renovations and said he’s making regular runs to the dump. The one on Thursday morning took him two hours.

“Either let the cars go in without weighing them and let them get rid of their garbage and drive out of here, or the people with brush, let them drive in and out of here without having to use the scale,” said Keevin McCormick, a home renovator.

“There are things they can do to move this line along a lot faster.”

McCormick said long lineups will lead to illegal dumping.

“They are going to be dumping garbage all over the city and what’s that going to cost people?” he said.

“I am not suggesting people to do that but I am just saying … like, people will do it rather than go through this, OK? They need to fix this -- this is ridiculous.”

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In a news release, however, the city said repairs to the scales are expected to continue until the end of July.

Landfill users can check the live camera the city set up to check the length of the lineup at any time.