By Diana Mendes
Ottawa small businesses are turning up their noses at the city’s Yellow Bag program, a garbage pick-up initiative that makes them pay to dump.
“Why would I do that?” says David Rimmer, owner and manager of After Stonewall, a bookstore on Bank Street. Rimmer says he puts his garbage in the bin his landlord pays for at the building he shares with three other businesses. Once a week, a waste management company comes to empty it.
“Why would I consider paying for something I get for free?” says Rimmer. “And besides, the mayor said ‘zero means zero’ and that would be another tax.”
Many other small business owners feel the same way about the Yellow Bag program. Businesses that qualify can put up to eight bags and 15 recycling bins – blue and black box combined – out for pick-up once a week.
But the program isn’t free. Businesses pay $3 per bag.
The Yellow Bag is the city’s first attempt to offer garbage pick-up to small businesses, since council voted to discontinue the service in 2004, citing budget restraints. And although the service became available last year, yellow bags don’t seem to be catching on.
Eric Collard, a spokesperson for the city, says there are about 200 participants in the program, less than one per cent of the city’s estimated 20,000 businesses.
“We’re always trying to promote more recycling,” he says, “and this is a good way to get rid of solid waste.”
Still, a lot of businesses don’t know about the program. Both Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street Business Improvement Association (BIA) and Gerry LePage of the Bank Street Promenade BIA, say they don’t know of any businesses in their area that use the bags. Most businesses indicated they either didn’t know about the program or weren’t using it.
Alex Mortimer, owner of SpaceMan Music on Gladstone Avenue, does use yellow bags. He switched to the service after his store changed management in August. He says it’s a lot cheaper than using a waste management company which had cost him about $50 per week; yellow bags cost him about $10 per week.
He says he is happy with the program, although he has had some difficulties with the city not picking up paper recycling – his store produces a lot of cardboard. He also says it is inconvenient because pickup is Monday, which means someone has to take out the garbage on Sunday, when the store isn’t open.
Mortimer says he understands why the city makes him pay for bags, but he’d like some help.
“If they would spread it out and make residents pay, instead of forcing the businesses to carry the brunt of it, that would make more sense to me,” he says.
Next door to Mortimer is Dave Dudley of Dave’s Drum Shop. He doesn’t generate much garbage so he puts it out on the sidewalk where it is picked up by the city. He says he has never heard of the Yellow Bag program.
“The awareness of that program is not here,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them [yellow bags] on the curb.”
LePage says businesses were given as little as two weeks notification when the city stopped collecting from businesses – leaving some “scrambling” to find alternatives. To help, the city’s BIAs came together and negotiated a volume discount with a private waste collector for any business that wanted it.
Now, many businesses are locked into long-term contracts.
The slow take-up for the Yellow Bag program, says LePage, may be because many businesses still had time on their waste management contracts.
Collard says the city is eager to welcome businesses to its system as their contracts expire.
But LePage says the low participation rate is also due to the fact that to join the program all tenants at one address must participate and the eight-bag limit is often too little for an entire building.
Another problem with the program, says Mellor of the Preston Street BIA, is that business owners who could participate often take their garbage home with them because it’s cheaper.
“Truthfully, the business community did not appreciate having to pay twice for garbage removal,” she says. “The city charges them for garbage removal so they figure they’ll take it home and put it on the curb.”