Bids to determine curbside recycling

Saskatoon will be getting a curbside recycling program if the private sector can meet a number of requirements set out by the city.

After months of delay, city administration in a report that goes to council Monday is recommending tendering a Saskatoon-wide mandatory curbside recycling program and moving forward if a company bids and meets the city’s provisions.

The city needs to know the "true costs" of a blue-box program and if there is the capacity in Saskatoon, said Brenda Wallace, manager of the city’s environmental services branch.

"We want to get real numbers," Wallace said. "We have done cross-country studies as to what the costs are . . . but until you talk to your local community stakeholders, you’re not going to get a clear sense of what the cost of that service is going to be."

It would be up to the private-sector bidders to prove they have the capacity to collect, process and market the estimated 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of material and meet the city’s price requirements, which are based on the costs of landfilling the same amount of material.

The requested costs to the city laid out in the report range from $1.65 million to $2.7 million per year from 2012 to 2015 to collect material from single-family homes, which is far lower than any of the city’s previous cost estimates.

The city has the option to reject proposals if they don’t meet the cost threshold.

City administration is recommending further study this year on how to handle multi-family homes such as condominiums and apartments.

The request would require the private sector to give a set amount of paper — 7,800 tonnes per year — to Cosmopolitan Industries, the local non-profit organization that handles the city’s recycling depots under a 10-year contract with the city.

The method of collection — one bin for everything or multiple bins where homeowners separate material — is left up to the bidding firms.

The report says a program could be paid for through surpluses from the landfill in 2012 and 2013 and with a user-pay or property tax system implemented in 2014.

The city will look at the logistics of a user-pay model, where homeowners pay based on how much garbage they throw out instead of through property taxes, and report back by summer, the report says.

The amount a curbside recycling system will cost taxpayers has been a sticking point for many council members, with numbers floated as high as $30 per month.

The city now estimates the net cost — including revenue — of a full curbside recycling program for Saskatoon at $5.30 per month per household.

A curbside program would double the amount of material diverted from the Saskatoon landfill to 46 per cent of household waste from 23 per cent, the report says.