This week, I again heard about further council deliberation about biweekly garbage collection. I again heard about the concerns over a perceived lack of garbage bin space and lack of consultation. I have to admit to a personal bias about this topic. Even when my twin girls were in diapers, my family only needed our garbage collected every second week. But now with compost collection and no diapers, my family of four usually only needs our garbage collected every three to four weeks. I’ve heard similar reports from my neighbours. I also wonder about the value of further consultation given the fact that this same decision was before council last year and this resulted in educational videos, audits and public engagement events. I’m not here to defend these efforts or even suggest that these efforts were effective but it does beg the question, what else could be done? In all the comments reportedly said by our councillors regarding their concerns about biweekly garbage collection, I never did see any suggestions on what additional consultation efforts could be made. There is also the fact is that that some people will never see any value in recycling nor will they change their behaviours. This situation will not change regardless of what options are available to and/or forced upon them. I prepared an article suggesting solutions that allowed for additional garbage collection by a homeowner. These solutions would be at the request of the homeowner and could be easily implemented by the town for no additional cost. I prepared this article before I read bylaw 08/2018. This bylaw mimic’s my ideas through its ‘excessive residential waste’ provisions. Too often policy fails to make allowances for solutions that allow individual choices to be respected while simultaneously meeting larger program goals. This does not appear to be the case with this bylaw. Given the option for additional garbage collection for those who want it and the imminent rate increase in 2019 if we don’t change to a biweekly garbage collection schedule; changing to a biweekly garbage collection now seems like a ‘no brainer’ to me. Dan Cunin
