Trash carts the future

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This article was published 24/09/2011 (5097 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The days of leaving unlimited bags of trash at the curb are over.

Winnipeg is set to consider a new plan to replace garbage cans, autobins and blue boxes with automated garbage and recycling carts by October 2012. On Friday, the city’s administration unveiled its $64-million garbage and recycling master plan to increase the amount Winnipeggers recycle and reduce the amount of waste that gets sent to landfills.

The plan calls for Winnipeg to roll out 185,000 recycling carts and 145,000 garbage carts city-wide next year. The carts hold 240 litres, which is roughly three standard-sized garbage bags or four blue boxes.

If all your trash bags don’t fit in the cart, it’ll cost you extra.

The city plans to charge $5 to pick up as many as three additional trash bags. If you’ve got more garbage than that, you can pay an annual fee for an extra cart or to upgrade to a larger cart size.

There’s also a $4.17 user fee that will be tacked onto residents’ water bills every month, which adds up to $50 a year. City officials say the fee will help offset the cost of additional services such as biweekly curbside yard-waste pickup between April and November. The plan also calls for “resource-recovery centres” where construction materials can be dropped off in 2013 and a kitchen-waste-collection pilot project in 2014.

“It’s not something for nothing, we’re providing a lot more services to residents,” said Darryl Drohomerski, the city’s solid waste manager. “Residents told us, told council a long time ago they want to see improvements in the system, that the diversion rate for Winnipeg is unacceptable.”

Drohomerski said he expects the carts will increase the amount of waste that Winnipeg diverts away from landfill from about 17 per cent to 35 per cent over the next few years. Winnipeg has one of the lowest diversion rates in the country, and cities such as Edmonton and Hamilton divert more than 50 per cent of waste away from landfills and are now working to divert 65 per cent.

Drohomerski said the plan is to first roll out automated garbage and recycling carts in auto-bin areas and move clockwise to neighbourhoods such as North Kildonan. He said the city also needs to expand its recycling-processing capability, which has been at or near capacity for the last 15 months. He said the city has had to send some of its recycling to other local processing facilities and have staff work weekends and double shifts to deal with the problem.

City council’s public works committee will review the master plan on Oct. 3. It will also need to be approved by executive policy committee and city council late in October.

Mayor Sam Katz said he thinks the majority of councillors is in favour of the proposed changes. He said the cart system will help increase recycling, reduce waste and help curb illegal dumping by getting rid of auto-bins.

Katz initially trashed the city’s water and waste department for releasing a draft report on the future of Winnipeg’s garbage and recycling collection. He said the report disclosed how much the city is prepared to spend on new processing facilities, which could harm Winnipeg’s ability to negotiate a deal with construction firms in the future.

“We know we need to be doing a better job of waste diversion,” Katz said on Friday.

Public works chairman Coun. Dan Vandal (St. Boniface) said the strategy is expected to reduce waste and the amount of emissions from landfills by about 300,000 tonnes — the equivalent of removing 50,000 vehicles from the road. Vandal expects public support for the plan and its fees will be mixed, and said the city needs to educate residents about its benefits.

“We have to do something to modernize our whole garbage and recycling system,” he said.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca