The City of Estevan has set the timelines for the switch to curbside garbage pickup and the rollout of the new recycling program.
It was announced at the July 2 regular meeting of council that curbside garbage collection will begin on Aug. 2 in applicable areas of the city. The new curbside recycling system will start Sept. 1 in the Pleasantdale area, with the rest of the city to follow on Oct. 1.
City manager Jim Puffalt said the staggered rollout of the recycling program is an issue of practicality, noting it will take some time to distribute the bins to homes.
"They have to be ordered and then they have to be allocated to each house. Then they have to be tracked and delivered so it is quite a labour intensive process," said Puffalt, who added that he expects no problems with having all of Estevan ready to go by October.
The decision to adopt curbside recycling and garbage was made at the June 24 meeting of council and came despite objections from many residents who were in favour of recycling, but against the change in garbage collection.
Puffalt said since the decision was made the City has heard from a number of residents and the reaction has been mixed.
"There has been some hate mail coming in to some of us. Overall, the response has been fairly positive. The curbside recycling, I don't think anyone opposes that at all.
"When it comes to moving to curbside waste collection, we went to that public meeting and heard the concerns and we addressed those, we believe. The whole city is not going to be front street, there's areas where that cannot be done and that is going to hold true. The contractor is going to go to all those people and let them know what is going on."
Along with informing residents about which homes will move to curbside pickup and which ones won't, the City will also need to educate residents on the recycling program. However, Puffalt expects the learning curve will be a short one since all household recyclables can be placed in the bins.
"Because it is single stream (recycling) there is not a lot of separation required just keep garbage out of it," Puffalt said. "Tin cans, take the paper off and wash the cans; paper is straight forward, you won't have to separate newsprint from glossy or any of that stuff. Anybody that is recycling now has to do a lot more work. If you go to the recycling depot, you have to separate out your garbage, you've got to separate out your cardboard and tin cans and everything else that is accepted there.
"Now, as long as you take all the garbage out of it, you can basically throw everything into one can and take it away."
Council also raised the issue of ensuring that Regens Disposal, which was the only company to bid on the garbage and recycling contract, is accountable to residents. At the City's public forum in June, a number of people said they were unhappy with the quality of service and feel their complaints are not being dealt with by the City.
Puffalt said the City now plans to be more involved in the complaint process and overall quality control.
"We ask people, if you are missed and if there is something wrong with your can, call us first and we will pass it on to Regens. Then we will be able to track and see if the concern is valid, has it been fixed, has it been fixed in a timely fashion and have we provided good customer service.
"What we heard at the public meeting is there were concerns raised and people, rightly or wrongly, feel they are not addressed. We want to take a larger role in addressing those concerns and making sure they are looked at."
