SJ Solid Waste Pilot Project
I’m going to touch on this because it’s come up again in the news as of late, and was actually posed to me as a question by someone in the Ward.
So the underlying problem here is one of money (when isn’t it?). Saint John is paying FAR too much in tipping fees at the local landfill for the amount of garbage we’re generating.
So what council has done is to approve a pilot project that moves recycling to the curb instead of the neighborhood recycling depots (good!) but also moving to charging $2 a bag for everything that does NOT fit into the provided black bin.
This isn’t even a thinly veiled attempt to pass the costs onto the homeowner or renter. If we’re going to do that, they may as well just have raised your property taxes. Needless to say I think this is lazy, short-sighted administration, and we can do better.
There are a couple of major concerns I have with this plan.
- Waste collection is NOT normalized across the city.
For example, if I lived on Germain St uptown, my waste is collected WEEKLY on Tuesday evening. However, if I live WEST, it’s BI-WEEKLY on a Friday.
Now as a west side resident, I pay the same property taxes as someone uptown, but my garbage collection is only 50% of theirs.
If we’re going to be forced to pay per bag, then the rate of collection should be the same. Either decrease theirs, or increase ours.
2. Rodent and Pest issues.
There are a number of places in the city where rodents and other pests are very prevalent. We border a major waterway. We’re a deepwater port. We don’t just see rats around here, we see RIVER rats. I have cats that are smaller than some of these things.
They’ve been a presence in the area for literal decades. Parts of Milford/Randolph on the west side, Indiantown/Old North End, Parts of Lower West and Uptown.
Are these bins going to hold up against pests? The current green bins absolutely DO NOT hold up. If they are the same design/same material, it’s going to lead to issues and damage to those bins.
At which point, what’s the plan to replace them? Who absorbs that cost?
If we are going to be doing this, then we need to have a plan in place to address these things.
If there’s going to be additional costs (ie. for bin replacements) then a) we need to make sure those are clearly communicated AND b)we need to have policies in place in the event of issues beyond the control of the homeowner.
3. Enforcement concerns
There are several priority neighborhoods where one need only drive through on the last few days of the month to see this behavior. Moving day. Piles of trash gets left on the curb. HOW are you going to tell who it belongs to? Who is going to enforce it? By-law is busy enough as it is…are they really going to have time to track down trash offenders on top of it?
What’s the plan here?
4. What impact is mandatory curbside recycling actually going to have on the amount of waste generated?
Isn’t it possible it’ll reduce it to the point we don’t need to charge per bag? What is the actual data? It seems rather premature to me to implement a fee policy without having the actual information in hand first. Is $2 an appropriate amount? Is it $0? Is it $1?
You have no way of knowing this yet.
Now ALL these concerns were expressed to the current incumbents of Ward 1 (Greg Norton and Blake Armstrong) back in Sept 2019 when this was first announced. I received not a single reply back from either of them.
If elected, I would propose the following to correct the deficiences
- Normalize waste collection across the city.
Move everyone to biweekly pickup until we can get our finances under control. At least that way if we absolutely MUST charge per bag, it’s fair and equitable.
Eventually I would like to see this service expanded to be WEEKLY pickup across the entire city, as well as return to a “spring cleanup” (on top of the large/bulky item pickup program). That’s the end goal here.
2. Look at ways of empowering bylaw enforcement.
I would already like to address this as one possible way of catching derelict buildings before they become a problem. I don’t think some of the ways Mr. Harris has proposed are going to be viable, but having a PROACTIVE bylaw office, vs. a REACTIVE one, is one alternative to some of the issues I see with his proposal.
How do we give bylaw the ability to actively address issues before they become major problems?
Part of their scope of responsibility is unsightly premises, including garbage issues like this.
3. Look at ways of creating a city wide pest management program.
The entire province of Alberta does this. There are no residential rat populations in AB, and it’s been that way since the 1960s.
4. Make decisions with actual data and evidence.
I would vote to put a hard stop on the $2 per bag charge, until we have some evidence it’s actually needed. If we absolutely MUST charge per bag (and admittedly this is an EXTREMELY common practice in other regions) then we need to determine what the appropriate cost is going to be based on the actual data and evidence POST move to mandatory curbside recycling.
Randomly choosing a figure without having any evidence to support that figure is just lazy administration.
On May 10th, we CAN do better.
Woodin4Ward1
