The new roll-out bin trash collection regime in North Battleford is already seeing a dramatic reduction in the amount of household waste heading to the landfill.
Statistics showing waste tonnages for the year to date were provided to council Monday in a written report by environmental manager Tammy MacCormack.
Numbers from May onward, when the new back rollout garbage carts and blue recycling carts were introduced to replace the old communal bins and recycling depots, showed a significant drop in waste and recycling tonnage from a year earlier. City Manager Jim Puffalt observed in his written comments that waste collection tonnage had dropped to less than half from the old system, while recycling dropped 40 per cent from the depot system.
Numbers for the first four months of 2014 stood in stark contrast to what they would be after the introduction of the rollout carts in May. From January to April, household waste picked up by garbage contractor K&B were pretty much on par with what was the situation the year before. In April, 469 metric tonnes of household waste was picked up compared to 421 tonnes the same month a year earlier.
But one month later, with the introduction of the new rollout carts, household waste tonnage dropped substantially; 213 tonnes of household waste was picked up using the new carts in May, down from 647 tonnes a year earlier.
The downward trend continued the rest of the summer. The annual decrease in metric tonnage in June was from 562 to 253. July saw a drop from 545 to 266 and August dropped from 432 to 239.
September reported another significant drop as 252 tonnes of household waste picked up, also down from 443 tonnes for the same month a year earlier.
Tonnage for the blue roll-out recycling carts was also down from the former recycling regime. Tonnage in May dropped from 132 tonnes a year earlier to 63 tonnes using the new blue carts.
The recycling numbers remained down by about half throughout the summer. In September, 64 tonnes of recycling material were collected compared to 94 for the same month a year earlier.
Numbers for waste management facility unsorted waste tonnages were also provided, which point to little change in tonnage compared to a year ago. September numbers did show an increase, however, with 1,705 metric tonnes of unsorted waste collected compared to 1,353 the year before.
Generally, the reduction in household waste was exactly what City officials had hoped to see in switching to the new biweekly garbage and mandatory curb-side recycling. City officials switched to the new black and blue bins in the hope it would reduce the amount of items going into the landfill and reduce the costs to residents.
Director of Operations and Maintenance Stewart Schafer had a ready explanation for the lower numbers for residential waste: there was now less dumping of inappropriate items into the new bins from non-residents of North Battleford.
"What that is indicating to us is we had people coming in from outside, (placing) garbage into our garbage bins and our communal bins, and also our recycling bins," said Schafer.
"This of course meant the residents of the city of North Battleford were paying for these costs."
Councillor Kelli Hawtin did raise concern about the prospect of more illegal dumping going on outside the city.
Schafer did say areas of the surrounding rural municipality had seen an increase in items thrown into the ditches, but those are being monitored and the authorities alerted. Some cameras have been put in place to catch people dumping material, he added.
Beyond that, few service issues were reported.
Schafer said that since introducing the new rollout bins, five residents have applied for and been approved for assistance, that six out of 30 applicants had been approved for an alternate collection location (those denied wanted them picked up in an avenue or back alley); and that 54 additional black garbage carts and 13 blue recycle carts had been delivered to residents who requested additional carts. The majority of these have gone to group homes, approved homes or large households.
As well, there were only a few instances of rollout carts being too full or having the lid open. It was reported that from the period Sept. 22 to Oct. 3, a total of 29 rollout carts were not picked up by K & B because they were too full, too close to a vehicle or the cart was backwards, out of over 4,850 carts delivered.
The number of complaints have been "very minimal," said Puffalt. "I think the expectations you had of the program have been met," said Puffalt.
Overall, councillors were pleased and somewhat surprised with the reduction in waste collected.
"I didn't know it would be that much in the first year," said Councillor Greg Lightfoot.
Councillor Ryan Bater was also pleased with the numbers, which confirmed for him the idea that the reduction was due to non-residents no longer dumping garbage into the city's bins.
"It's clear that non-city residents were taking advantage of the service that city residents were paying for," Bater said, adding it was "reassuring to know that some of our [theories] are correct."
