'Rotten garbage' smell disturbs Cotton Factory tenants, neighbours after recycling site opens next door

People who live and work on Biggar Avenue, in Hamilton's east end, were long accustomed to the strong smells that sometimes wafted from a liquids processing plant there.

It was "like vomit," describes Annette Auteri, managing director of CoWork, a coworking space at the Cotton Factory with windows that open toward the facility.

"That was the acceptable smell," said Ashley Shortall, who also rents a unit on that side of the Cotton Factory, a historic complex of studios and small businesses that fronts onto Sherman Avenue North.

In recent months, the facility – Canadian Liquids Processors, a division of Emterra Group – has begun operating as a recycling transfer station, without providing notice or consulting the local community. 

Neighbours say the operations began in April, after the city transferred its recycling pick-up duties to GFL Environmental Inc. and Circular Materials.

Shortall, whose business makes reusable food wraps and candles, said it's clear not everyone is rinsing out their containers before they go in the blue box. She says the new smells wafting into the building can be overpowering.

"One of the hot days last week was one of their busy days and it was so bad," she told CBC Hamilton on Wednesday. "The bathroom fans go on automatically and it stunk like hot, rotten garbage in there."

Neighbour says there can be 50 trucks a day

Area resident Mike Hansen said the company's operations changed significantly in April, the month residential recycling collection in Hamilton transitioned from the responsibility of the municipality to GFL and Circular Materials. 

The city said the change was "part of Ontario's plan to shift responsibility for recycling operations and costs to paper and packaging producers."

The property had previously been used to collect "liquid food and beverage waste," using it to make ethanol, hand sanitizer and windshield washer fluid. Then, according neighbours, a large metal shelter was erected on site in the spring and a retaining wall went up behind the backyards of a row of small homes that back onto the edge of the property along Biggar Avenue.

One day in April, GFL recycling trucks began lining up on Hansen's street, sometimes mounting the curb in front of his house, at the corner of Biggar Avenue and Lottridge Street, as they turned the corner toward the facility. Shortall said sometimes there can be more than 50 trucks a day passing through the residential streets near the complex.

"If I open my window, it's filthy," said Shortall, whose unit has a window air conditioner she is hesitant to use now because it's pulling from the dusty air in front of the transfer site.

Hansen, an artist, says many of his street's residents are low-income, a population that often gets treated differently than wealthy folks when it comes to what is allowed in their neighbourhoods.

"These are people's homes," said Hansen. "They are raising their children through a plethora of fast-moving trucks."

Operator says site is 'fully approved'

On Wednesday, waste could be seen piled higher than the fence line that separated the residential backyards from the transfer station. A kid's bike was on the lawn of one of the houses. A faint smell of garbage smell was in the air, particularly to the east of the facility, near Hansen's home.

On the property, a backhoe unloaded recycling from a truck and added it to the pile, while another worker could be seen standing on top of a large pile of waste.

CBC called Canadian Liquids Processors general manager Sean O'Neill, who declined to comment, saying he would pass our request to the company's marketing and communications team. An unnamed person later sent the following statement through an Emterra communications email account:

"Our receiving facility, which is fully approved and permitted by all relevant regulatory authorities, accepts City of Hamilton blue box materials directly from residential collection trucks. These materials are then consolidated and transported to an approved material recovery facility that is authorized by governing bodies such as the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP). This ensures that all recyclable materials are managed responsibly and processed in accordance with the highest environmental and operational standards." 

A Circular Materials spokesperson provided a comment to CBC Hamilton after the initial publication of this article. The non-profit said Emterra is one of their contracted service providers and is operating the receiving facility on Biggar Avenue.

"[Emterra has] confirmed their commitment to continue to meet all local, provincial and federal laws and to ensure that recyclable materials are managed responsibly," the email said. 

CBC Hamilton also contacted GFL but did not hear back.

Ward office wants community meeting with operator 

Shortall, Auteri and Hansen say they've contacted several departments at the city, Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann, Hamilton Centre MPP Robin Lennox, Mayor Andrea Horwath and the MECP, and have the impression there's not much anyone can, or is willing, to do about the problems they are facing. 

"The response I got was basically, 'too bad, so sad,'" said Auteri. "Basically because of their zoning… they're not doing anything illegal. Basically nothing can be done."

Nann told CBC Hamilton that her office is "paying very close attention to this evolving situation" and that the company did not proactively let her team know about the change of use on the site. 

"We have inquired with city staff about this troubling operational change and municipal requirements," she wrote in an email to CBC Hamilton. "My office… has reached out to the operator requesting a community meeting to address the issues head on!"

Kerry Le Clair, who works in Nann's office as the Ward 3 community climate action coordinator, has been in contact with several concerned residents, and has encouraged them to report air, noise and odour pollution concerns to MECP, and problems with property maintenance such as trash blowing out of the facility, mud-tracking and idling vehicles to City of Hamilton bylaw staff. 

"While incredibly frustrating, this is not uncommon and is fully permissible under the provincial building code," she wrote in an email to Shortall sent Monday and shared with CBC Hamilton.

Because the company was already a licensed waste processed facility, "there was unfortunately nothing about their taking on private blue-box recycling that would have typically triggered community notification," she added.