Weekly newsletter: May 2, 2023
Hello and welcome to May!
I’ve never been good at trash talk, but this week, let’s talk some trash.
You may have heard the City is considering implementing a bag-and-tag system which would limit each household to two bags of garbage every two weeks and provides them with an annual allotment of tags for additional bags.
Beyond that, there aren’t many details right now, but the City will be holding a technical briefing this Thursday, May 4th at 1:00 pm to share more about the proposed program with Councillors, the public, and the media.
I grew up in a town (well, it’s a city of almost 350,000 now) with a similar system — residents were limited to one bag of garbage every two weeks and allocated 20 or so tags a year.
Markham boasts one of the highest waste diversion rates in the country, but it’s not a result of the bag-and-tag system.
When the system was introduced in the late-2000s, residents began visiting the town’s parks more regularly. They weren’t using them to enjoy the scenery or amenities though; they were there to illegally dump their garbage in park refuse bins. Construction site dumpsters also saw an increase in illegal dumping from communities nearby.
So that certainly did not contribute to the town’s high waste diversion rates.
It was the strength of its recycling and composting programs. Markham collects all recyclables weekly, and does not require residents to sort them (their waste collection contractor, coincidentally also Miller Waste, does that at a depot).
The town also has a hazardous household waste depot that’s easy to access and regularly open to the public as well as a popular textile recycling program.
Along with some policies familiar to us, like allowing plastic bags to line green bins and providing waste diversion services to multi-unit buildings, residents have progressively been nudged to divert more of their waste.
The success of the diversion program actually makes the bag-and-tag system pointless. FYI: Markham cancelled their bag-and-tag system in the mid-2010s.
The same can happen in Ottawa. Rather than imposing a hard limit and punishing residents who might need to go above that limit occasionally, we should progressively nudge our city in the right direction.
Ottawa is among the few cities in Ontario still requiring residents to separate their recyclables, due to the belief that mixing recyclables diminishes the value of the material to be recycled (which has merit, but not enough to hold back our waste diversion goals).
We can also expand the recyclable materials we collect for recycling by working with our contract partners, outside organisations, or even taking the initiative to set up our own systems.
Household hazardous waste disposal should be easier to encourage us to ensure it’s properly taken care of.
We have a good system right now, but it can be better. There are better systems (not just my hometown) in Ontario we can emulate.
While increasing Ottawa’s waste diversion rates has great benefits for the environment, chief among the City’s concerns is actually the capacity of the Trail Road Landfill. The facility currently has room for another decade or so of garbage before it reaches capacity.
New landfills require several years of approvals before one can open. Cost and process notwithstanding, nobody wants one near their communities, either. There are two other landfills in the city, but they are privately owned and therefore handle mostly industrial, commercial, and institutional waste.
It’s fine to pay lip service to tell you to recycle, compost, etc., but it’s nothing without actively improving our programs to actually make you want to throw less into your garbage.
I don’t sit on the Environment Committee, so I won’t be able to vote on the bag-and-tag system when it’s considered there early-June, but I will be speaking and voting against it when it rises to Council mid-June (assuming it passes committee).
Nudge, don’t impose.
-Wilson