Voted last night at Region of Waterloo meeting: Garbage in Waterloo region every two weeks, 4 bag limit, recycling and green bins every week.
Twitter is too short for this reply.
I am a two garbage can, two blue box, one green bin per week resident of Kitchener. According to the new rules, it seems like I’m in line with what they want to change to save 1.5 Million dollars in cost for the region. That doesn’t seem like a lot in the bigger scheme of things. I heard that they want to force people to adopt using green bin (I get that), and reduce waste going into the land fill to save environment, prolong life of the dump (I get that too). So…. to me there are unanswered questions. Maybe they’re not from the Region’s eyes, but here are my questions….
From people I’ve talked to, the issues with the green bin were:
1) Yuck factor – disposal, cleaning of the container, smell
2) Cost of paper bags $$$
3) Was it actually being composted or just dumped?
4) Not every building can participate in the program, so why bother?
With that in mind, here are my questions:
1. What size of bag? Weight limit per bag?
2. Trash can allowed size changed in the last while (smaller). What about can usage?
3. Is the region going to provide larger blue boxes if asked for? They recommend using two already.
4. For items that can not be put in recycling but still stink, who will pay for potential rodent population increase?
5. Have they budgeted for road side dumping? I’ve seen this happen in other regions and it’s a problem. Nothing like beautiful woodlands littered with garbage because disposal fees were expensive.
6. Tags for extra bags – is the price going to on parity with driving the stuff to the dump yourself, or should we expect additional surcharges? $2 dump fee plus garbage surplus? See Q5 as a result.
7. Paper bags – region to subsidize the cost? Newsprint is not useful nor available in all situations. Pet waste needs to be contained in paper bags to reduce/eliminate yuck factor.
8. So, I have two garbage cans to account for putting bags for one week into them. Four bags? I’ll need to buy more cans to keep all critters out.
9. Yeah, the smell!!!! Wrapping styrofoam containers and plastic that were used for meat (even if rinsed, currently has to be put in the garbage) in paper and using lysol adds costs to the homeowner and is a patch to the actual problem of it sitting around for two weeks! When are we able to recycle at least the styrofoam? We can bring it to the dump, just not at the curbside.
So I get wanting to reduce waste going into the dump to prolong it’s life and do better by our environment. I’m a BIG user of our recycling programs. All I see this change doing is taking costs away from one area and adding to another, and upsetting home owners and the trash collectors.
Too this, adoption for buildings that can’t conform to our region rules will just upset other taxpayers who have to conform. Parity first!!!! The money being saved doesn’t sound like a lot, and I wonder what other costs will go up as a result.
