Talking trash is fraught with potential pitfalls. On the surface, waste management is pretty simple. We are supposed to recycle as much as we can; what does not go into a blue box or a compost pile ends up in a garbage bag that eventually winds up in a landfill site.
Yet, too many people have not yet bought into the whole recycle, reuse and reuse concept. For example, Cornwall’s waste diversion rate — the portion of waste that is reused, recycled or composted, and therefore diverted from landfills — is about 35 per cent, paltry compared to other cities in Ontario. As valuable landfill space continues to be used up, governments are attempting to alter citizens’ wasteful habits in order to increase the volume of garbage that is recycled.
Hey, we all want to reduce our environmental footprints and save the planet.
But there are some articles that cannot be recycled and that cannot be easily disposed.
Take mattresses, please. Box springs and mattresses are big and cumbersome problems. Used mattresses are really difficult to shred, are hard to compact and take up a lot of space.
In fact, the city of Cornwall estimates that if the mattresses it received last year were placed on top of each other, the pile would have been 1.5 times the height of the CN Tower. That factoid is contained in a report from a recent meeting of the Regional Waste Management Working Group, comprised of representatives of the six townships in Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry and Cornwall.
Considering the trouble of unloading huge items, the fees for disposal of bulky stuff is reasonable. For example, Cornwall, which collects bulk waste on a cost recovery basis, charges $30 for a mattress and $15 for a chesterfield.
South Glengarry also offers a bulk waste collection service while most municipalities still have “dump days,” when people can do drop-offs at the local waste disposal site.
Sooner or later, everyone has to get rid of a broken down fridge or a busted water heater. No, they do not make things like they used to but built-in obsolescence has been a sad but key component of a capitalist economy for centuries. How would manufacturers make any money if their products lasted forever?
The dump drop-off option helps prevent debris from being illegally pitched into a ditch. However, those items also shorten the life span of a waste disposal facility. So, sigh, everything has a price of some sort.
In the meantime, our governments continue to seek ways to stem the flow of trash that must be collected and disposed of, while also trying to avoid provoking taxpayers, who understandably do not want to pay higher user fees, for anything.
Additional bag tag fees are a constant source of consternation. People must pay something for exceeding garbage bag limits, but if the fees are too high, illegal dumping will increase, or in some cases, neighbours will, under the cover of night, drop off their extra garbage bags in front of one-bag households. Yes, this happens more often than one could fear.
Now, this is just a suggestion, but people will probably have to start paying higher fees for additional bag tags in the near future.
In her summary of the regional waste committee meeting, Sarah McDonald, GM Infrastructure Services for South Glengarry, where a bag tag costs $2, writes that the current fees charged by local municipalities range from $1.50 to $3 per tag. “The purpose of the tag fee is to encourage waste diversion without negatively impacting large families,” she notes. “With the consensus that $2 a bag was not enough of a deterrent, the group agreed to raise the Benchmark Level of Service for additional bag tags to $3.”
The increase has not been fully discussed, let alone approved by all of the seven municipal councils in SDG. However, $3 is not a lot to fork out if one looks at the long-term goal. But it is not easy to think of the big picture when you are faced with a fee increase.
Resistance to change may be futile but that doesn’t mean people cannot try to defend the status quo. For example, some Cornwall citizens are still fighting against the installation of water meters, devices that ensure fair billing and encourage conservation.
Another important observation from the waste working group report concerned a contentious move in Cornwall. “The Clear Bag Initiative is a source of excitement and a regional opportunity following the City of Cornwall’s upcoming success,” writes McDonald.
“Let’s be clear about garbage,” exclaims the city on its web page, explaining that starting in January, Cornwallites will have to put their garbage in clear bags, or loose in garbage cans.
The decision is not all that popular – 74 per cent of survey respondents opposed clear bags, citing privacy concerns and higher costs. The city stresses that there will be no additional costs for users.
“The privacy of residents is important. With a clear bag collection program, an allotment of small opaque (non transparent) bags would be permissible to be contained within the clear bags,” stipulates the city.
Garbage collectors will monitor the contents of clear bags to ensure they do not contain material that should go into blue boxes and green bins. If violations are detected, the waste management department will educate the owners. “Following an allotment of time to remedy any issues,” a third party will be hired to collect waste abandoned at the curb “due to non-compliance.” The owner will then be billed to cover the costs.
Cornwall is part of a growing, yet slow-moving, shift towards see-through garbage bags.
As the new system rolls out in January, neighbouring municipalities will be closely watching to see if the change is indeed a clear success.
