GUELPH – Wellington county will extend the term of its contract for processing and marketing of recyclables with Mount Forest-based Waste Management in order to align with the term of the curbside collection contract.
On April 25, council approved a recommendation that the previously approved extension be increased to a seven-year term, with three one-year options, to align with the upcoming curbside collection contract, effective on July 1, 2020.
Solid Waste Services manager Das Soligo explained in a staff report that in 2017 council authorized staff to negotiate a five-year extension to both the collections and processing contracts (a two-year contract, with three one-year options), due to uncertainty around the timing and implications of the Waste-Free Ontario Act (WFOA) that was passed in the provincial legislature in June 2016.
“Specifically, it was not clear how the transition to full producer responsibility for the blue box program (where producers of printed paper and packaging would be responsible for the full cost of recovering and recycling their products) would function, and what the role and implications for municipalities would be,” Soligo noted.
More recently the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has revised its original advice, which encouraged municipalities to extend collection and processing contracts, and now suggests communities should seek to develop new contracts with built-in clauses which will provide flexibility to allow for a timely and orderly transition to full producer responsibility.
The report points out an upcoming curbside collection RFP requires inclusion of a destination to haul collected recyclables for processing and marketing and the processing and curbside collection contracts need to be aligned in length, in order to avoid costly contract adjustments mid-term.
“This Waste Management-run facility is the only material-sorting facility operation within the county and by choosing this service again all the materials, recyclables, waste, and potentially organic if we do that, will be managed within the county,” said councillor Gregg Davidson, who chairs the county’s solid waste services committee.
