Estevan residents will get a chance to have their say on garbage pickup and curbside recycling in May.
The City of Estevan has announced an open house will be held May 2 in the lobby of Spectra Place. At the meeting, City officials will speak about the four options it is looking at and will then open the floor to comments from those in attendance.
"We are just trying to give everybody the information so they can make an informed decision," said city manager Jim Puffalt.
Earlier this year the City made a request for tenders from companies, asking them to give prices on four different options.
Option 1 was to maintain the status quo of back alley pickup in the majority of Estevan and front yard pickup where applicable. The proposal also presented the option of having curbside recycling pickup every two weeks and back alley waste collection in applicable areas once a week. The final option is for curbside waste collection and curbside recycling every two weeks.
"We were looking at recycling and the garbage pickup (contract) was up as well," Puffalt said. "We were wondering is it cheaper on garbage if we do a bi-weekly recycling. It's status quo, throw in curbside recycling every two weeks and look at front street waste collection along with curbside recycling."
Puffalt said the City is looking for feedback from the public and is giving them every opportunity to have their say, something they were accused of not doing when the decision was made to switch to automated garbage pickup a few years ago.
"What we learned from last time was we didn't have enough public engagement. So we want to make sure before we make any decisions on the next contract and we know what the costs are if we decided to go full scale curbside recycling so people could say 'I like that, I don't like this and I do like that.'"
Puffalt said aside from the meeting all of the information will be posted on the City Page in the Estevan Mercury.
Another positive development is the Multi-Material Recycling Program, which was announced earlier this year by the provincial government. Although details on the MMRP are still being worked out, Puffalt said it will provide funding to Saskatchewan communities to help offset the cost of their recycling programs.
"My understanding is that, in essence, at least 50 per cent is going to be paid for by that program," he said. "We are basically getting curbside recycling at a fraction of the cost and that should help our garbage collection because if you are doing a full scale recycling program, you should have less garbage so we should see some advantages coming back to us on the garbage collection as well."
The provincial government announced last week that the implementation of the MMRP is not expected until 2014. To carry communities over until then, they are providing $1 million in bridge funding.
On the topic of garbage pickup, Puffalt said the City's decision to have only curbside pickup on a temporary basis was done strictly because many alleys in Estevan were very wet and there was concern about damage from the heavy trucks.
He added if the City were to move to full-time curbside pickup, which was one of the options in the package, they would continue to maintain and clear snow from back alleys. He noted that a number of residents are against curbside pickup out of fears that back alleys will no longer be an area of concern for the City if a change were made.
