Ottawa's daily dirty needle hunt too short: critic

The city of Ottawa is seeking new bids from groups willing to go out and pick up used needles, crackpipes and condoms from the city streets between 7 and 9 a.m. each morning.

The move comes amid criticism thatthe city'scurrent approach is missing hundreds of discarded syringes.

The job has been done during the past couple of years by the Causeway Work Centre, a non-profit group that helps find work for people with mental and physical disabilities.

Chris Grinham, who lives in the city's Lowertown neighbourhood, said he has gone out daily after the crews to "hundreds of needles."

He believes two hours a day isn't enough to collect all the needles in the Hintonburg, Centretown, Byward Market, Vanier and Somerset West neighbourhoods, as specified in the contract.

"It took me four hours just to do four blocks on a daily basis," he said Monday.

The city had not returned requests for an interview by Monday afternoon.

Don Palmer, executive director of the Causeway centre, which is putting in another bid this year, said there's only so much he can do under the terms of the deal with the city.

"The city [officials] themselves specify where we go and obviously they specify the time allocated to the contract," he said.

"The problem is you've only got two hours, so if somebody uses after 9 a.m. and discards a needle, well it's going to sit there for another 22 hours until somebody shows up at 7a.m. the next day. Whether that's sufficient is something that the city will have to take a look at."

Palmer added that if needles are being discovered after the sweeps, then it probably means more collection times and possibly larger crews are needed due to increasing drug use.

He added that he's more than willing to have his crews go out more often if the city agrees to expand the terms of the contract.