The City of Melfort has until the end of 2018 to decide if it’s going to adopt curbside recycling and until the end of October 2019 to ensure its landfill complies with provincial rules.
Meeting provincial standards
The current landfill, which was once a gravel pit, doesn’t have engineering and environmental controls to properly prevent the waste from leaching into the aquifer. This violates standards that passed in 2010 and took effect in 2015 – a situation that applies to many landfills in the province.
“There’s a new commitment from the Ministry of the Environment to make sure that everything is up to snuff,” said Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor. “These rules have been in place for quite some time, but they’ve never really been enforced by the Ministry of the Environment to the extent that they’re being enforced right now.”
There are also other procedures the landfill will have to adopt to meet the new rules.
The effort to become compliant has resulted in council approving price increases at the landfill at their Oct. 16 meeting. For instance, Melfort residents will have to pay $10 for the first 100 kilograms of garbage, up from $8.
The city will also have to hire someone to perform a third party review of the landfill that will help them create a long-term plan.
“As it stands right now, I think it’s just a work in progress, that we have to stay in communication with the Ministry of the Environment, make sure that we meet any deadlines that they imposed,” Lang said. “There’s a push to get everyone to compliance and we’ll make sure we’ll work with the Ministry of the Environment to make sure we’re in compliance because we want to be.”
Future of recycling
When the city’s waste collection contract ends at the end of 2018, council will have to decide if it wants to adopt curbside recycling, something done in Nipawin, Tisdale and Carrot River.
“At that point in time, we will decide to go with curbside recycling – or not,” Lang said. “We’ve been thinking about it and talking about it in the meantime, but at the end of 2018 will be when that decision will be officially announced.”
Right now, the city’s official recycler is PLUS Industries, which helps adults with intellectual challenges. It collects recycling materials by asking residents to drop them off at collection points around the city. The recycling program provides more than 20 jobs for those participating.
“I know that there is a want on behalf of council to keep PLUS Industries involved somehow because the recycling program with PLUS Industries achieves a couple of things: it provides meaningful jobs for their participants, it provides a level of pay for the participants that doesn’t exist without that,” Lang said. “We don’t want to jeopardize that unless we absolutely have to, but we’re going to do what’s best for the City of Melfort, what’s best for the citizens and what’s best for a cost perspective basis.”
The mayor said the city will have to meet with all of the stakeholders before making a final decision. He said there could be a variety of options on the table: going to curbside, keeping the status quo, expanding the number of PLUS Industries collection points and expanding what can be recycled, or some combination of the three.
Lang said the city is taking a long time to think about the decision because, unlike other Northeast communities, it has an option, as they don’t have a PLUS Industries involved in recycling.
