More changes are on the horizon for garbage pickup in Greater Sudbury, and city staff are taking steps in an effort to ease the transition.
The city is scheduled to shift to bi-weekly garbage pickup in February 2021, where residents will be allowed to put out two bags every two weeks.
Staff are looking to implement a number of support programs that will assist residents in the move from weekly to bi-weekly waste collection.
Meeting on March 2, the city's operations committee approved a pair of support programs while rejecting a third during a nearly hour-long discussion as the city moves into the final phase of implementing its new waste collection plan that has been in the works since 2016.
In July of 2016, council approved the implementation of the new plan, and in October 2016 the garbage bag limit was reduced from three bags to two, while the unlimited collection of leaf and yard trimmings, blue box, green cart organics and large furniture and appliances was maintained.
To support this change, four support programs were created. This included a children’s disposable diaper exemption, a medical circumstances exemption, a cloth diaper rebate and a dog waste digester rebate.
In October 2019, the garbage bag limit was once again reduced, this time from two bags to one while the recylables mentioned above remained unchanged. One additional exemption support program was created for pet waste.
Support programs discussed at Monday's operations commitee meeting included animal-resistant waste storage, weekly collection of disposable diapers and weekly collection at seasonal properties.
"One way to address the storage concerns is by using the animal-resistant storage container; staff are suggesting a rent-to-own program as a well as a subsidy program," said Renee Brownlee, manager of collection and recycling.
"The rent-to-own program would work to alleviate some of the up front cost for residents to purchase container which can be quite expensive."
The city's approved waste storage container will run between $667 - $1,003 including taxes and delivery and may pose some financial challenges to some residents. The city is also looking at a subsidy program that would enable households to receive a rebate off the cost of the storage container, available to households with an annual family income under $47,000.
Ward 5 Coun. Robert Kirwan questioned whether or not residents could build their own waste storage containers, but Brownlee explained that only the city-approved "TyeDee Bins" could be used.
"Before approving those bins we did run a one-year pilot project on the bins," said Brownlee. "They did really well, we had a few bear attacks on the bin and we were able to see its capabilities and after one year we did approve them as a bin we would collect from at the curb."
The operations committee approved the animal-resistant waste storage - rent-to-own program.
The second program up for debate Monday was the weekly collection of disposable diapers. The diaper exemption special support program applications would be updated to include a payment option to have the diaper waste collected on weeks without garbage collection.
Residents will have the option of applying exclusively for the every other week diaper exemption or combining the exemption with the weekly collection for a fee per bag. The cost to collect one bag on the week without garbage collection is estimated at $130 plus taxes for 26 weeks per year (2019 pricing). The fee would be paid upon approval and then annually upon reapplying for the program.
Currently, the city has 692 households that have been approved for the diaper program. The program also comes with a provision that applicants must agree to fully participate in all of the city's waste diversion programs (blue box, leaf and yard waste and the green cart program).
"If they don't do the green cart program, are they eliminated from the diaper program?" asked Ward 12. Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann.
"From time to time we conduct audits and if we find somebody is not participating we work with them and encourage them to use the green cart, but if they absolutely refuse to use the program they may not be approved or they'll have their approval revoked."
Those residents who don't want to participate in the full scope of the city's waste diversion but need to dispose of diapers more often than once every two weeks can either store the waste or deliver it to the city's landfill site, or purchase bag tags.
Operations committee chair Deb McIntosh raised the point that she wasn't comfortable charging young families a fee to dispose of diapers. The committee agreed to an amended resolution that will provide the program at no extra charge to users, while directing staff to prepare a report with program options funded from the 2021 waste collection savings
The amended resolution was approved and will be brought to council for ratification.
The third program up for discussion Monday was shot down in fairly short order, as operations committee members found too many discrepancies in allowing weekly garbage pickup at seasonal residences.
"I don't think I can agree with providing special services to people with seasonal properties," said Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland.
"If we're thinking about a plan like this it would make sense to either offer it to everyone or to no one, but if we're offering it to everyone it undermines good work we're doing here. A diaper program makes sense, medical waste makes sense, but if you choose to have a second property why should we be creating a support program for that?"
The reason for the proposed program, according to Brownlee, was concerns that arose from seasonal property owners about visiting their properties on weeks where there is no garbage collection and having it sit out for an extended period of time, creating a risk of attracting wildlife to the property.
Robert Kirwan agreed with McCausland's comments and McIntosh stated that she didn't see any need for the program either.
"I tend to agree with councillor McCausland, any time I've been to other seasonal residences we've packed out the garbage," said McIntosh.
"If you're only there for the weekend how are you supposed to leave it out for whatever garbage day is going to happen? Even for a special program you'd be leaving it out anyway. I don't see a necessity for this program and it's almost special treatment for people who have other options."
While the city is making the move to bi-weekly pickup, large waste items such as furniture, appliances and electronics will be picked up in a more timely fashion after the operations committee agreed to a resolution that will have the aforementioned waste items collected within two business days on a pick-up request basis.
"The only thing I can say is 'hallelujah,' how many times have we had large pieces of furniture left on the roadside and the objection was when it was five days, if this happened on a Friday you were looking at another week and you'd have a sofa on a snowbank to make matters worse," said Landry-Altmann, who also had questions about rental property tenants disposing of these large waste items.
"If a tenant puts a couch out on the snowbank and the owner doesn't know because they're out of town; so my questions is, if staff are picking up garbage and they see a sofa on a snowbank, can they also initiate that request (for pickup)?"
Brownlee explained that staff would be able to make the request for pick if they felt an item had been sitting at the curb too long or was creating an issue.
"However, when the garbage truck is going by and if there's a reason they're not going to collect it, whether it's a problem or an item that needs to be segregated for separate collection, they do note it in our system," said Brownlee.
The committee approved the motion to expedite the pickup of large items to two business days.
All of the motions approved Monday will be brought to council to be finalized and have bylaws prepared in order to put the programs into effect by 2021, ahead of the introduction of bi-weekly garbage pickup.
