Autobins attract more trash

IN MEMORY OF JON THORDARSON, WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Irene Pauls tosses her garbage into an autobin in Wolseley Monday. Coun. Harvey Smith (inset) is reluctant to remove them from his inner-city ward.

Winnipeg homes served by autobins generate almost twice as much garbage as other households, but the metal trash receptacles likely won't disappear from inner-city neighbourhoods.

According to Winnipeg's water and waste department, the average household served by an autobin generates about 1,600 kilograms of trash in one year. Homes with individual garbage cans or carts, meanwhile, generate only 850 to 1,000 kilograms of trash each year, depending on the neighbourhood.

The statistics are a clear indication that individual garbage carts could act as incentives for households to reduce waste in some of the neighbourhoods currently served by autobins, said Darryl Drohomereski, the city's solid waste manager.

"The recycling rate is lower in autobin neighbourhoods. There's more illegal dumping because it's a convenient bin. And there's a lot of people who do renovations who just put their waste in, instead of driving it to Brady Road (Landfill)," Drohomereski said.

"We've even had people break their driveways up and put all the concrete in the autobin. And then it gets expensive, because the trucks can't lift them."

Neighbourhoods served by autobins are concentrated in three inner-city wards: Daniel McIntyre, Point Douglas and Mynarski. The contract for emptying the collective-use bins expires in 2011.

The city plans to extend this contract until 2012, mainly to give the solid waste division time to prepare a comprehensive waste-reduction strategy for the entire city. That will take a year to 18 months to complete at a total cost of about $350,000, including public consultation, Drohomereski said.

Once that plan is in place, the city may remove autobins from some of the relatively affluent neighbourhoods they now serve, Drohomereski said.

"We'd like to see some areas trialled from bins to carts," he said, citing the Wolseley neighbourhood as a likely candidate.

But autobins will likely remain in place in more disadvantaged neighbourhoods, he added. "There are certain areas where you could never take them out. In some neighbourhoods, there are socioeconomic issues that far outweigh the (environmental) benefits of having a cart," said Drohomereski, noting the bins were put in place to deal with complaints about litter on inner-city streets and back lanes.

The city is also in the process of phasing out garbage cans. In February, conventional cans were replaced with 240-litre rolling carts at about 42,500 households in the northwest quadrant of the city. The move was motivated by a desire to encourage more recycling, reduce waste volumes and create safer working conditions for trash-removal workers.

Following complaints from residents in larger households, city council voted last month to allow residents to acquire larger or additional carts in exchange for an annual fee. Inner-city councillors Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre) and Mike Pagtakhan (Point Douglas), meanwhile, have complained of litter in neighbourhoods where residents simply aren't using the new carts, possibly because of language issues.

As a result, Smith said he is wary of removing autobins from his ward. He would like to ask his constituents what form of waste collection they would prefer.

The city plans to consult residents of all neighbourhoods as part of its waste-reduction strategy, which will also encompass recycling and the collection of organic waste such as food scraps and yard clippings.

A report about the cost and scope of this strategy is due before council in April.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

850 kilograms

Southwest Winnipeg (south of the Assiniboine River, west of the Red River)

900 kilograms

East Winnipeg (east of Red)

1,000 kilograms

Northwest Winnipeg (north of Assiniboine, west of Red, not including autobin areas; before the area switched to rolling garbage carts)

1,600 kilograms

Autobin areas (inner-city neighbourhoods with autobins, such as Wolseley)

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 16, 2010 B1