Council Decides Not To Start Weekly Trash Collection Early
If you were hoping for the City to re-instate weekly garbage collection you are so out of luck.
But when it comes to trash the City has instead decided to offer two free organic yard waste weekends to help you beautify your yards.
“We want to advise contrary to what we thought the collection has gone down somewhat,” city manager Jim Puffalt told Council.
At Monday evening's regular meeting Administration provided a report showing the kilograms of residential waste hauled to the landfill has gone down in March and April 2020 when compared to the same two months in 2019.
In the report 224,642 kilograms of waste was hauled in March 2019 versus 214,273 kilograms in March 2020.
The kikograms hauled in April 2020 was 274,440 versus 299,994 in April 2019. The kilograms of waste hauled in April 2020 is 8.5 percent less than April 2019.
Puffalt said the City checked with other communities and it is a mixed bag with some collecting the same, while others were like Moose Jaw collecting less and others were collecting slightly more.
Regina started their weekly residential trash collection early on April 6th due to the amount of trash generated when people were staying at home because of the COVID - 19 pandemic.
“It really does surprise me,” Councillor Scott McMann said.
At Council's April 13th meeting Councillor McMann had asked if there was any opportunity to resume weekly collection early as he had received concerns from residents.
Councillor Chris Warren said although Councillor McMann had received concerns from citizens about moving from bi-weekly to weekly trash collection he had not received calls from residents asking to re-institute weekly collection early.
Weekly trash collection runs from June 1st to September 30.
Bi-weekly runs during the Winter months as a cost savings measure as less waste is generated when people are not outside enjoying their yards.
Running an additional month of weekly waste collection costs the City about $25,000.
To help residents with their waste disposal Puffalt said Administration was set to provide a free organic yard waste this coming weekend - May 2nd and 3rd to take advantage of the predicted mild weather and resultant yard clean up activities.
To further assist residents cleaning up their yards he said Administration proposed the three day long Victoria Day Weekend - May 16 - 18 be an additional free tipping weekend.
The cost to operate the second free organic yard waste tipping weekend was about $1,500 Puffalt said.
“The numbers don’t lie I could live with the compromise of two free weekends at the landfill,” Councillor McMann stated.
Organic yard waste weekends allow residents to haul yard waste such as grass, leaves and tree branches under one inch for free to the landfill.
In the past residents were annually provided two free tipping periods about two weeks in length where residents could haul almost anything for free to the landfill. The free weeks saw large amounts of garbage dumped for free at the landfill.
To take pressure off of the rapidly filling landfill the City eliminated these free tipping periods and replaced them with a residential organic yard waste weekend instead.
SEE RELATED - Major Changes To Free Landfill Use Approved
Vehicles hauling non-organic residential waste will be assessed the regular $10 tipping fee with commercial rates applying to business haulers on the tipping holiday weekends.
Council voted unanimously in favour of the two free yard waste weekends.