By Joe Sambol
The environmental services committee is looking at smaller ideas to encourage recycling and reduce waste following the defeat of a motion for user fees for garbage collection.
Committee member Herb Kreling says that although the user fee motion was defeated March 26, it was only one piece of a larger strategic plan for waste management in Ottawa.
“The motion was a component of the plan to look at the possibility of funding for the future, and now we will look into other strategies,” he says.
One idea the committee will be examining is co-mingling, which means all types of recyclables would go into the same bin without sorting.
“They sound like pretty simple issues, but the committee is going to develop a whole new strategy,” Hume says.
The committee is also looking to educate the public about the immense expenses of waste management in Ottawa to help limit waste and encourage recycling.
“An average home pays about $40 a year for garbage services, but to actually deliver the service it’s about $125 to $150,” Hume says.
Committee member and Rideau Ward Coun. Glenn Brooks also emphasizes the importance of public awareness regarding garbage collection.
“We’ve got to educate the public. It’s one thing to simply legislate, but if the public does not buy into that legislation, whatever it is, the city will not get the cooperation from the public one would hope for,” says Brooks.
Hume says the staff is proposing a wide range of options and listing their costs for the committee to consider. He adds their goal is to have 70 per cent of recyclable material in bins instead of garbage bags.
But while user fees for garbage collection may not happen anytime soon, Hume says the debate is bound to resurface.
“One way or another this is going to come back,” says Hume, who is also councillor for the Alta Vista Ward.
Hume says as landfills begin to reach their capacity, user fees may become more attractive to the public.
“The idea is not appealing now, but in 10 or 15 years as we start to run out of landfill space, people will start to realize how expensive it is to build new landfills,” Hume says. “They’re going to realize that a better system is more of a utility bill system like the water rates.”
Hume says a user pay system would encourage recycling and actually reduce the cost to the taxpayer because only about 32 per cent of all recyclables end up in recycling bins, the rest goes to the dump.
“When you don’t have a user fee system, people consume more,” Hume says. “User pay tends to modify consumption.”
Hume says the committee is trying to set the groundwork now for waste management in the future because it will take years of planning to adjust the waste management system once current landfills are full.
“We want to make sure that when future councils look back, they will say we made some really good key strategic decisions,” he says. “We don’t want to find ourselves in the same position that the City of Toronto is in, shipping their garbage to Michigan.”
“We certainly have to start to plan for the future well before the 15-year period,” Kreling adds.
Vice-chairman of the committee Phil McNeely says urban areas such as Centretown may still be years away from embracing the user fee idea. “The urban people are saying that’s part of what they’re getting taxed for.”