City of Powell River Council has approved a weekly recycling pickup program for route E.
At the December 3 city council meeting, councillors considered a recommendation from staff to begin a pilot project on January 4, 2021.
Councillor Jim Palm said councillors received a great presentation on the pilot project a couple of weeks previously at a committee of the whole meeting. He said the route chosen was closest Augusta Recyclers Inc. He added that those involved in the pilot will continue to use their own recycling bins, to be put curbside on a weekly basis.
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman said she was happy to see the pilot project proceed and was supportive of it.
Mayor Dave Formosa said the city’s other solid waste pilot project involving organics had proven very popular.
“I have heard so many people who want to get in on the trial that we have for composting,” said Formosa. He said the city had to find a way to expand the program.
Leishman said a request for proposals had been put out by qathet Regional District for a local composting facility.
“The sooner we can get a local composting facility up and running I think the city will jump right on composting pickup,” said Leishman.
“That will be big news,” added Formosa.
According to a staff report from manager of operational services Rod Fraser, in 2015, when Recycle BC made recycling standards in BC uniform, curbside collection became more popular. Fraser stated that once the city signed a contract with Recycle BC in 2017, the city’s collection program was financially rewarded by the number of potential curbside residences providing volumes collected and contamination rates meeting their requirements.
“Curbside recycling collection is scheduled biweekly and the workload to pick it up is considered high,” stated Fraser. “Staff consistently work overtime to collect high volumes in every route.
“As a pilot project, we would like to try collection weekly instead of biweekly. We believe this may be a simple solution to workload challenges and the experience could help us in the move to recycling weekly for all route areas.”
Fraser stated staff has reviewed the large volume of recycling collected at curbside, the extra staff time and consideration of potential for injury because of workload.
He stated that the length of this pilot will be at least six months in duration.
According to Fraser, it is anticipated that the cost to move to weekly pickup of recycling will be somewhat offset by the benefit of less or no overtime being charged. He stated that costs for the pilot program will be monitored and reported back to council, along with an update of how the pilot is proceeding at the six-month mark.
