Talking trash took up considerable time at Tuesday night council.
While Coun. Morgan Nagel was eager to refuse administration’s proposal to switch to biweekly black bin garbage curbside services, council voted in favour of deferring a decision on detritus until after budget deliberations, which begin tomorrow.
Nagel was emphatic that such a drastic measure would result in illegal dumping, prove onerous to larger families and the cost of $1 per month per household was nominal for the majority of residents.
“I understand the vision, but the majority of residents are in opposition,” said Nagel, who is dialed into social media and from his perspective people are upset about the potential loss of their weekly services.
Fabrizio Bertolo, manager of waste and recycling for the town of Cochrane, delivered a presentation to council that spurred discussion on everything from Calgary’s pending refusal of garbage containing organic matter by 2019 to the potential for illegal dumping to negative social media feedback.
“While change can be difficult, we’re here to help,” said Bertolo, adding that the organics curbside program (green bins) has been widely received and successful since its April beginnings, resulting in a 21 per cent reduction of organics mixed in with garbage since spring.
Combined with a continued aggressive public education strategy, Bertolo said administration is confident that switching to biweekly pick up is the best way to keep in line with the City of Calgary zero waste strategy by 2020 and keep the 2018 tax increase at 3 per cent.
Coun. Marni Fedeyko said, while she does utilize her green organics bin and blue recyclables bin as a mother of three young children she admitted that most weeks her black bin is usually full – a sentiment she was seeing expressed on social media.
She also questioned the reliability of the town’s statistics – given that these do not include winter figures, where yard waste is not a significant factor.
Coun. Patrick Wilson applauded the waste diversion rates presented by Bertolo and asked whether or not it was easier to go with the momentum as people are still developing their habits, rather than instigate change a year or so from now.
Town CAO Dave Devana said administration believes it would be easier to switch to biweekly pick-ups now.
“By 2019, if we still have organics in our black bins, we’re going to have a problem,” said Devana.
Mayor Jeff Genung said he is looking forward to learning more about administration’s plans to provide additional waste bags for families with children in diapers.
“The reality is, we’ve got to get there eventually,” said Genung, adding that he would like to see some options for long-term plans for Cochrane to capitalize on its compost, rather than sending it to Calgary.
The town is also working on recycling solutions for industrial, commercial and institutional facilities; construction and demolition recycling; and event and public spaces recycling for early 2018.
The town adopted its zero waste framework in 2012, with a goal of 80 per cent waste diversion from landfill by 2020.
