TISDALE — Recycling pick-up in Tisdale will increase in frequency from once per month to every two weeks.
Council voted to sign a new contract with Greenland Waste at their meeting May 14 that will do that while keeping the frequency of garbage pick-up at once per week.
“More and more people were recycling,” said Al Jellicoe, Tisdale’s mayor. “Their recycle bins are full every month so now we’re going to try this and see if it creates a little more recycling, taking away from the garbage.”
The new recycling pick-up schedule will be implemented in the late summer.
The town had placed a tender that asked waste disposal companies what it would cost to have garbage, recycling and compost collection, as well as the cost for changing the frequency of each service.
Much of the discussion at the council meeting focused on the frequency of garbage collection.
“I did a cross-section of a bunch of people, from families to couples to whatever,” Coun. Gord Mamer told the rest of council. “I asked a bunch of people about it and the most common comment I got back was, ‘I’d like to keep my garbage weekly and two weeks for recycling.’”
Some of council wondered if changing the frequency of garbage pick-up to every two weeks would increase recycling.
“If we’re trying to get people to recycle more, the only way is to be able to try to pinch it a bit,” Coun. Brendan Samida said.
Brad Hvidston, the town’s administrator, said the price difference between having pick-up once a week and once a fortnight wasn’t that large.
Council had little interest in starting a compost pick-up service, but that is something that could be revisited in the future. Melfort doesn’t pick up compost, while Nipawin does.
Even though there will be more frequent recycling pick-up, the cost of waste collection is going down. The new contract is around $145,000 per year, compared to around $191,000 per year for the previous one.
Hvidston said council has yet to decide if those savings will be passed to consumers.
