The issue of rural garbage and recycling pickup, seemingly pretty much settled in Wellington County for the past five years at least, appears set to get another airing.
Wellington County’s solid waste services committee has listed rural pickup as among the top priorities in a strategic plan review of county services. County staff are expected to complete a rural pickup analysis by March and provide a cost/benefit analysis on the concept of rural pickup across the whole county.
Mapleton Mayor Driscoll has publicly supported the idea and called on local citizens to communicate their position to county council representatives. Citizens – at least some – will be asked for their views in any event, as the strategic plan process will involve seeking feedback from residents on county waste and diversion programs. The county will be contracting Oraclepoll Research to conduct a telephone poll on such topics over the coming weeks.
Hopefully, citizens will take the opportunity to respond to opportunities for input, because by no means is the case for rural pickup open and shut. While it appears ostensibly unfair that rural residents of only two Wellington municipalities receive the service, the process that got us to this point was evolutionary. A two-year pilot program that saw garbage and recycling picked up in Minto and Guelph-Eramosa every other week resulted in the service being discontinued in Minto in December 2008. Only 22 per cent of rural Minto residents took advantage of the service at the time. Pickup was continued in Guelph-Eramosa, which doesn’t have a landfill or waste transfer station. Participation there was almost double that in Minto. In Erin, rural pickup has been provided since the closure of a transfer station in Hillsburgh in May of 2010.
One of the first things we hope to learn from the county’s study is how heavily the service is being used in Erin and Guelph-Eramosa today. If participation is still under 50%, one would have to question the need to send trucks up and down every concession in the county, especially given almost 80% of rural Minto residents clearly considered the service unnecessary less than a decade ago.
