SUNDRE — Council tabled a decision last week on whether to temporarily cancel compost pickups throughout the winter, or to reduce the number of scheduled pickups.
Administration sought a decision during the regular Oct. 27 teleconference meeting in light of correspondence the municipality received from Environmental 360 Solutions Inc., the contractor responsible for collecting the garbage, recycling and compost bins.
“They are making us aware of the situation that the facility that they currently utilize in Olds for composting drop off is closing,” said Chris Albert, director of corporate services.
“They would like us to make a decision on how we would like to handle the next couple of months in terms of the compost collection,” Albert told council.
Olds College is ending its contract with a private composting company in an effort to reduce the bad smell and large number of other birds and pests in and around the site on the college grounds. The company is looking at relocating to Mountain View County.
Environmental 360 provided two options to Sundre, he explained, adding one is to continue collecting compost that would be trucked to a facility in Penhold at an additional cost, while the other choice is to discontinue the collection process for the period of time from Nov. 1 to Feb. 28, he said.
“So, approximately four months of service would be cancelled.”
Accounting for the additional trucking and tonnage fees, continuing to collect compost destined for the facility in Penhold would range upwards of $175 per pickup, or some $1,000 over the four-month period.
“The alternative would be to stop the collection for those four months, in which case we’d probably save — give or take — about $1,000 per collection. So, we’d probably save about $5,000.”
The temporary approach is not expected to endure beyond the end of February, after which the service provider anticipates a new solution will be in place, he said.
“They’re not quite sure what it looks like yet, but they believe something will be in place.”
Without any recommendations from administration, he said the decision was left up to council’s discretion.
Initiating a conversation, Coun. Rob Wolfe motioned to cancel the compost pickups for the temporary period.
“Although I know compost is important to everybody — we all do it, it’s good for the environment — I feel that the savings versus the extra amount would outweigh it,” said Wolfe.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Coun. Richard Warnock recognized that would mean compost would end up in the garbage, but added that because it’s wintertime, there won’t be as much compost anyway.
“It would not be that big of an inconvenience for our residents,” said Warnock.
Speaking against the motion, Coun. Paul Isaac expressed concerns.
“Because in today’s world, we’re all trying to be a lot more conscious about our earth. We’ve worked very hard at trying to educate our residents to have three” collection bins, said Isaac.
“We’ve had a cost in bringing them in, we’ve had a cost in educating, and now we’re going to say for four months, ‘you can’t do this'?” he said.
Should council cancel the pickup, Isaac also argued residents who want to continue composting waste should be provided with an option to do so.
“If we’re just going to say we’re going to stop it for four month and you don’t have an option, just throw it in with the other garbage, I think we contradict ourselves, and I don’t really think that’s a very good light for us. So, I can’t be in favour of shutting it down and not giving the residents an option.”
Coun. Todd Dalke agreed with Warnock’s point that the amount of waste material composted drops substantially during the winter months, and suggested that residents could still put compost in their bins, which might not even fill up.
Speaking in opposition to the motion, mayor Terry Leslie echoed Isaac’s comment that the habit of getting people to use the bins took years of education and commitment.
“This is a temporary composting issue. I really, honestly believe we must carry on — the extra cost is negligible. For our solid waste management, we run surpluses every year. On this particular cost, this would not affect our ratepayers, it would not go over the budget that we have already allocated,” said Leslie.
Clarifying his position, Wolfe said residents would not be asked to stop their composting habits, just that the collection of the green bins would temporarily cease for the duration of winter.
He also suggested that since there is much less to compost during this time of year, that people could still put compost in the bins, which would freeze thereby eliminating potential smells, and be ready for pickup in March when the service resume.
Coun. Cheri Funke sought to confirm whether the municipality reduces the amount of scheduled compost pickups during the winter anyway. However, Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer, could not immediately confirm that to be the case.
Dalke said the schedule was previously changed to have fewer compost collections during the winter, with additional garbage pickups instead, and suggested adding a garbage day for the lost compost days.
Nelson told council that administration would obtain additional information as soon as possible.
The mayor urged his colleagues to defeat the motion, instead opting to continue compost collection for the time being, then at an upcoming meeting look at reducing the number of scheduled pickups before presenting the solution to residents.
Nelson said rescheduling compost collection dates would require a conversation with the contractor. But she expressed confidence that something could be worked out.
Isaac said, in light of council’s discussion, that neither option should be voted on, if the decision is only destined to be defeated or reversed at a later date with another option.
Funke agreed, and tabled the motion.
