Bowden residents could see roll carts for garbage and recycling collection coming to their doors as soon as late July or early August.At a special meeting on June 2, Bowden council passed a motion authorizing the town to purchase 550 black bins capable of holding 242 litres of solid waste and 550 blue bins for recycling from Superior Truck Equipment Inc.The cost of the bins is $67,463 plus GST.At the same meeting, council gave town staff the go-ahead to enter into a five-year agreement with Can Pak Environmental Inc. (CPE) for garbage and recycling collection services.Andy Weiss, the town's chief administrative officer, said CPE will collect waste and recycling from the bins on a biweekly basis with garbage picked up one week and recycling the next.He added CPE has carried out waste collection duties for the town for several years and began collecting recycling in Bowden in February.Currently, town residents put out trash in bags and recycling in small boxes and all of the waste is collected by hand.Weiss said part of the reason for the new roll cart program has to do with “liability issues.”“There are compensation claims due to overweight bags,” he said. “There are issues of keeping staff because no want really wants to hand-collect garbage in a blizzard or in a driving rainstorm, etc. Automation certainly eliminates the risk to staff or contractors in the fact that they don't handle waste by hand anymore.”The automation Weiss refers to is the ability for waste collection vehicles to lift the bins for emptying into the vehicle.He added the current waste collection system has problems with animals and wind spreading garbage around the community.He said the new program will save the town between $14,000 and $18,000 a year because the new collection system eliminates the need for any town staff to carry out waste collection duties.The money for the purchase of the bins came out of the town's reserves and 2014 operating budget, with $50,000 coming from reserves and the remainder from the budget.Council wanted the reserves replenished as soon as possible and so another motion was passed at the June 2 meeting where the town will contribute $18,000 from the annual budget to reserves in 2015 and 2016 and $14,000 in [email protected]
