Next Monday, City of Saskatoon administration will be bringing a series of recommendations to the Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services Committee about garbage pickup which includes a “Pay-As-You-Throw” garbage program.
There is also a recommendation for a city-wide organics program with both to be launched before the end of next year. The current green cart program has over 8-thousand subscribers, but that is still only 11 per cent of eligible households.
If this recommendation were to be accepted, all single-unit homeowners would be a part of the diversion of compost material program, so each house would have 3 carts. The size of your garbage bin would determine what you pay, so rather than it coming off your taxes it would be treated like a water bill or along those lines.
Director of Environmental Initiatives, Brenda Wallace explains that it would cost about $26-million to close the existing landfill and another $100-million to start a new one, so we need to do as much as we can to keep the current landfill going.
The recommendations include that organics should be collected in a single green cart for food and yard waste, that waste utility fees be based on cart sizes, and that no changes be made to the existing recycling program. The green carts would also be for a wider variety of organics, including meat, bones and dairy, which isn’t the case with the current bins.
The City held a series of public engagement events in February and March as part of the Saskatoon Talks Trash campaign with over 5-thousand people participating.
Community engagement with those that live in apartments, condos and townhomes and their property managers is underway for feedback on organics, waste diversion and existing services.
Engagement with institutional, commercial and industrial stakeholders will begin this fall.
