The move to county-wide garbage and recycling pick-up is now official. Wellington County council approved the plan at its March 31 meeting.
In approving the solid waste services committee recommendation to expand collection, council also endorsed changes to user fees for waste disposal, the first increase since the county took over waste services during the municipal amalgamation process over 15 years ago. As of July 1, when the expanded service goes into effect: large user-pay garbage bags will cost $2, an increase of 25 cents; small user-pay bags will increase to $1.50 from $1; and bags dropped off at county waste facilities will cost $2.
The county anticipates the user fee changes will offset the additional cost of providing expanded rural roadside collection service every other week. However, that assumes the experience doesn’t mirror what has happened with water rates in some local municipalities. Rates for a new metered system resulted in increases for many Minto customers, who responded by cutting usage to the point the system was operating at a substantial deficit before it was a year old. Although a rate review is not completed, indications are Mapleton is dealing with a similar situation.
Hopefully residents don’t let the additional cost deter them from using the service and opt to toss garbage by the roadside or switch to burning, as either would undermine the environmental aims of the program.
Environmentally, another question is whether large trucks travelling each rural road in the county twice a month will emit more or less than the individual vehicles residents currently drive to the transfer stations, often, presumably, on the way somewhere else. However, factor in the need for fewer vehicles to haul waste from the stations and it many indeed come out even or better.
The fate of existing transfer stations also becomes an open question with roadside pickup set to become a reality. Solid waste services committee chair Don McKay has stated “Everything is on the table with regard to transfer stations.” That means the county will consider everything from the status quo to reduced or expanded hours, closing stations or opening new ones, with the attendant impacts on residents and employees.
What the county can’t do, obviously, is simply shut all the stations down. There are too many items acceptable for disposal, that won’t fit neatly into a garbage bag. Residents will continue to need places to take unwanted furniture and other large items including, in some cases, recycling, at locations and during hours that are convenient.
It can’t be, as Ward 8 councillor Doug Breen suggested it was, “an either/or proposition.” While not taking a position on the question, Breen said he had been under the understanding a municipality could have either rural pickup or a transfer station, but not both. Guelph-Eramosa Mayor Chris White also took pains to point out the service expansion did not result in a “level playing field.”
That all prompted some discussion of whether or not the question of rural pickup was becoming a “north/south” issue.
On that point we agree with Mapleton Mayor Neil Driscoll, who commented it was “starting to sound like that.” Perhaps not north/south, but more like the old Smothers Brothers routine – “Mom always liked you best.” (Google it if you’re under 45, we don’t have the space to explain.)
Fortunately, county engineer Gord Ough illustrated the value of institutional memory by explaining that when the county was asked by municipalities to take over waste collection, “it was not clearly stated that everyone would have a transfer station or necessarily the same service.”
He said boundary lines were eliminated within the county for use of transfer stations, which were “strategically placed around the county so it would be easy for everyone to get to one.”
Sounds like a plan that could still work today.
