COVID-19 Update March 25, 2020

Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - 1:30 PM

The Residential Drop-Off (RDO) at Robin Hood Bay is closed to the public until further notice. The Robin Hood Bay landfill site will remain open for commercial and municipal customers Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

As advised by public health officials, the City is making every effort to support the need for social distancing.

“The Chief Medical Officer for the Province has stated that people should be staying home except for essentials such as groceries and medical supplies; dropping extra garbage off is not essential at this time,” explained Mayor Breen. “We are doing our part to support the guidance of the province.”

Presently, members of the public are coming in close contact with one another at the RDO as they travel back and forth from their vehicles to the bins, often assisting one another with heavy items, and approaching staff with questions on where to place items.

“The RDO continues to be a very busy site, despite the advice to restrict movement,” explained Mayor Breen. “Yesterday, for example, there were 1200 vehicle visits.

“We recognize that these closures, along with others announced in this week, are challenging to the public and apologize for the inconvenience. I strongly advise that people stay at home unless absolutely necessary and ask for your understanding, patience and compliance with measures put in place to control the spread of coronavirus in our municipality so that we can return to normal operations as quickly and as safely as possible.”

On March 17, the City announced that it would suspend recycling collection for a minimum of two weeks. Recycling collection will not resume on March 30 and will be suspended for another two weeks. If the public are able to store their recycling, we encourage them to do so. However, if storage is not possible, please include your recycling in your regular garbage collection. Additional bags are not permitted outside of your cart.

There are two main reasons we will not collect recycling at this time:

  • Recycling collection requires far more handling by our staff than regular garbage, potentially placing our staff at additional risk of coming in contact with the coronavirus.
  • As part of our workforce management, it is imperative to ensure that the City has a full crew available every day for garbage collection, which we want to continue, uninterrupted, throughout the entire pandemic period. 

The City recently announced that City facilities, parks and playgrounds have also been closed. Grooming of the ski trails in Pippy Park, a service the municipality performs in this provincial park, has also been suspended for the season.

Information and updates related to COVID-19 are on the city website.