The city’s Waste Diversion Strategy is up for discussion at Tuesday night’s committee meeting of council.
Recommendations include a reduction in the number of free waste receptacles at the curb from the current three to two.
The cost of tags for extra bags of trash could also go up from $1/bag to $2/bag.
“The cost of recycling and garbage collection has gone up in the past year due to a renewal of the existing contract with Miller Waste,” states a staff report. “Also, the cost of $2/tag is more in line with other Northern communities which do have partial User Pay systems including Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sault. Ste. Marie.”
The Waste Diversion Strategy shows over 21,000 tonnes of waste was diverted from the landfill in 2020.
That’s up about 20 percent from the 17,000 tonnes the year before.
“This could be attributed partially to COVID which saw additional use of city waste and waste diversion facilities due to people spending more time at home.” states the Waste Diversion Strategy. “However, there are noticeable increases in areas where new waste diversion programs have been implemented.”
One example is the relatively new mattress recycling program which more than doubled year over year.
The report also says mixed load tipping fees were implemented in 2020, placing an additional charge on unsorted waste loads and likely contributed to additional wood and clean fill diversion.
After a ban on textiles at the landfill was approved in March 2020, the city is now looking to implement it on September 1st, 2021.
The ban encourages residents to donate textiles, like clothing and blankets, which still have market value rather than throwing them away.
It was temporarily put on hold due to the pandemic and the shutdown of local re-use stores.
Several new strategies are also detailed in the lengthy report.
Some include a rebate and education program for the purchase of backyard composter units, additional plastic types being accepted into the current blue box program, a drywall diversion program and more.
The full strategy can be found with the Committee agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting.
