Kamsack is pulling out of the garbage pick-up business and like many other Saskatchewan communities will be hiring an outside company to do the job. At its regular meeting on August 17, council ratified a recommendation to accept a proposal from Ottenbreit Sanitation Services to provide residential curb-side garbage and recycling and commercial garbage and recycling service effective October 1.
The annual cost for the service was estimated at $289,000. Making the switch, Kamsack will be quitting its arrangement with the Parkland Regional Waste Management Authority which had been picking up the paper left in the large bins for recycling.
Council has had difficulty with its relationship with the authority regarding the fees the community was obliged to contribute, Mayor Rod Gardner said last week, following the meeting. Kamsack was required to pay for capital costs for services not utilized in addition to the costs of the services utilized.
More capital costs were to be assessed for Kamsack for a proposed new refuse regional site in spite of the fact that none of Kamsack’s garbage has ever been taken by the Parkland group, Gardner said.
Councillor Joe Kozakewich has spent much time attending meetings and researching the matter and he and Laura Lomenda, the town administrator, made the recommendation to council, Gardner said. “It’s unfortunate that we have invested so much into the regional system, but we decided that it is probably best for the taxpayers to withdraw.”
So, prior to October 1, each of the approximately 900 homes in Kamsack will be provided with two large containers: one for garbage, the other for recycling. Each week a truck from Ottenbreit will visit each home to pick up the containers. One week it will be for the garbage, the next, for the recycling products, which includes paper and tin cans.
“We still don’t yet have a system for glass,” he said. The paper and tin products will be taken to a recycling plant in Yorkton, and the garbage will be left at the Kamsack waste disposal site.
Gardner said that with the new system costs per household are expected to increase slightly, but on the positive side it frees up time of town employees who had been responsible for garbage pick-up; it will minimize the difficulty the community has with residents unwilling to comply with garbage regulations, and will eliminate the incidents of pests getting into garbage receptacles that are less than optimal in design and appearance.
A survey of other communities resulted in a strong recommendation to go this route, Gardner said. The towns of Norquay, Canora and Langenburg, as well as the cities of Yorkton, Saskatoon and Regina have been using a similar system as Kamsack will be adopting.
“We still plan to continue negotiations with Duck Mountain Provincial Park and the Village of Togo for suitable arrangements for the disposal of those communities’ garbage and recyclable materials,” he said, expressing hope that those negotiations may result in some sort of a revenue stream for Kamsack. Because of tougher environmental concerns, it is expected that within the next five to seven years, garbage and recycling is going to become more expensive for taxpayers, Gardner said.
Parkland Regional Waste Management Authority was given notice in December that Kamsack might withdraw from the arrangement.
