County council has agreed once again to reject any notion of picking up bulky objects at the curb in urban or rural areas.
County council heard a report from solid waste services committee chairman Don McKay on Jan. 24 and learned the cost of implementing such a service to every household in the county would be $620,000 a year.
But an even better reason to stay away from that service, according to the committee report, is survey after survey has indicated residents do not want such a service.
Wellington County took over solid waste services in 2001 from lower tier municipalities, and held public meetings at that time to determine what services residents were seeking.
The most recent report on bulky item collection by county engineer Gord Ough stated, “The majority of residents who attended the public meetings indicated that they were not interested in curbside collection of bulky items.”
Ough said the county has offered a drop-off service for such items at all of its facilities since 2001.
But the committee was asked again last October to investigate the option of curbside pick-up service.
The report stated there are a number of options already available to residents for items in relatively good condition that are no longer wanted. Those include:
– post items for reuse on the county’s reuse website (wellington.reuses.com), which requires no travel and no charge;
– post items for reuse on other public reuse websites (freecycle.org) with no travel and no charge;
– post for sale;
– donate to charitable organizations for reuse or resale (most of those groups offer pick-up, with no travel and no charge to residents); and
– bring the items to a county reuse site, which does involve travel and a fee.
Ough stated there are a number of municipalities that offer bulk item pick-up, and staff provided a survey of options in eight municipalities with an urban and rural makeup similar to Wellington County’s, and included Hamilton and East Garafraxa, which were specifically requested of the committee to be included in the study.
The results indicated two municipalities have fees, and one more is adding them in 2013; half require residents to call and make an appointment for collection; six limit the number of items per collection; three limit the weight of the items; six accept white goods (appliances) at curbside; collection schedules vary from once every three years to monthly collection, weekly or biweekly; and some places do it at set times of the year.
Those municipalities stated illegal dumping still occurs, residents abuse the program by placing excessive or unacceptable items at the curb, property standards become an issues (photos of piles of junk were provided), and material that should have been diverted ended up in the landfill. Simcoe County found 40% of pick-ups could have been diverted.
Ough’s report also stated:
– residents do not need such service on a regular basis;
– the initial decision to avoid bulk item pick-up was to avoid conflict with private haulers and small local contractors;
– by providing such pick-up, there is less incentive for residents to find alternatives to disposal, and some items that may have gone to recycling through drop-off will end up in a landfill;
– if appliances are part of bulk pick-up, a separate truck will be needed for them to divert metal from the landfill; and
– if refrigerators are included in pick-up, Freon would have to be removed from them by a licensed technician (currently the homeowner can take them to a county site or private site without arranging in advance for Freon removal).
Ough also said there is a philosophy of user pay with the current county system and offering bulk pick-up from the budget to residents would lead to a loss of tipping fees at waste facilities. Further, if curbside pick-up is provided for free, there would be even less incentive for residents to find alternatives to disposal.
Staff also received a proposal from curbside collection contractor Waste Management Canada, which provided an approach for collection based on its experience in other places.
The company stated the way that collection works is:
– residents must book a service one week prior to collection;
– bulky items are collected once a month;
– white goods collected once a month on a different week from other bulky items;
– Freon must be removed prior to collection, with a CFC sticker affixed;
– some items require other preparation, such as removal of doors from freezers and stoves etc.;
– items must be able to be collected by two people;
– if the collection vehicle hits capacity on any given day, a residents would be booked for the next available collection day the following month; and
– banned items would include electronics, car parts, construction debris, hazardous waste, leaf and yard waste and landscaping material, lawn mowers and tires.
Ough concluded in his report, “Information gathered on other municipal programs indicates that a variety of approaches have been tried with no one claiming to have it quite right yet. Each approach has a combination of restrictions, schedules and lists of concerns.”
He recommended urban and rural residents continue to be referred to existing waste facilities, the county reuse website, charitable organizations and private businesses for the handling of bulky items.
County council agreed.
