REGINA – It’s been over half a year since Regina started its recycling collection program, but one Councillor thinks it’s already time for it to evolve.
“The idea is to try to create an incentive for people to recycle more and to put less garbage into the landfill,” said Ward 8 Councillor Mike O’Donnell.
Right now, recycling collection is charged on utility bills while garbage collection is lumped into property tax. O’Donnell is put a motion at city council on Monday for a report looking into having the two collection service bills reversed.
The motion was referred to a later date to give City Administrators time to assess their options in terms of getting a report done.
Get breaking National news
He says seeing garbage collection charges on a more recurring basis encourages less waste and the public to “be aware of the effects on the environment, what it costs us as a community to operate a landfill.”
The proposed change could even save homeowners money.
“You could begin to show incentives that if you actually have less garbage going in, your taxes may be less in the future on that,” said Mayor Michael Fougere.
The report will look into changing the costs to reflect the amount of waste each household produces. That could mean garbage bins of different sizes.
“I think there would have to be a tiered approach to the size of the container, at least that in my mind makes sense,” said O’Donnell.
Cities like Toronto already do that; the bigger the bin, the higher the fee.
“It’s been a key component of the city increasing its waste diversion rates and also establishing efficiency with our curbside collection program,” said Vincent Sferrazza, director of policy and planning for Toronto’s Solid Waste Management Services.
Regina Waste and Recycling reports it’s reached a diversion rate of 19 per cent, recycling 5,700 tonnes of waste since the program started.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.