City’s garbage chief leaving a year early

Toronto facing tough trash issues Career spent as ‘a garbage man’

The man in charge of collecting and disposing of Toronto’s garbage is leaving his post with nearly a year remaining on his employment contract.

Angelos Bacopoulos, the city’s general manager of solid waste management services, will be leaving his post on Sept. 15 after 23 years with the city and the old Metro government.

Bacopoulos, 52, leaves as the city faces an array of tough issues. Its deal to ship garbage to Michigan is under fire from American politicians, some of whom want to close the border. The city is also struggling to divert as much waste as possible into composting or recycling programs, including the tricky task of getting large apartment and condominium complexes to start sorting their garbage. Both the city and Bacopoulos were tight- lipped about the reasons for his departure, which was not formally announced.

Bacopoulos said in an interview the departure was “ mutually agreed upon.”

“ You get to a point in your career where it’s time to move on and let younger people take over and run the portfolio for a while, and take their turn at getting beat up a little by the portfolio,” he said.

Kevin Sack, a spokesman for the city, said it’s against policy to comment on personnel matters.

“ There’ll be somebody acting in his place until such time as some type of recruitment process takes place,” Sack said. Bacopoulos earned $ 171,030.27 a year, plus $ 10,242.32 in benefits, according to the most recently published salary disclosure list. He said his contract with the city prevents him from commenting on his departure, but he called the job a tough one.

“ My whole career I’ve been a garbage man,” he said.

“ There’s a lot of pressure to achieve diversion rates, and a lot of controversial programs come forward that provide some real political challenges. There’s no doubt it’s a very difficult portfolio.”

Bacopoulos said he’s looking forward to some time off.

“ I need to sit down and chill with my family. I haven’t done that in a long time, and just enjoy my family for a week or two,” he said.

“ Then I’m going to be deciding . . . There are certainly all kinds of options in the private sector and other areas.”