Curbside blue bin service aiming to begin next spring
The company responsible for setting up and operating a curbside recycling service in Medicine Hat is aiming for next spring to bring blue bin service to Hatters, but bigger changes could also be on the horizon.
At about that same time, a report is due on how the city, town of Redcliff and Cypress County could better, and possibly, jointly, manage waste collection.
CanPak Environmental was awarded the blue bin contract in the city last spring and took over operations of the city’s material sorting facility in early August.
Since then it has been picking up large bins at four city drop-off depots, as well as shopping its commercial services to businesses and larger condo complexes.
Local CanPak manager Randy Wong told the News with a long-term contract in Medicine Hat the company is excited about its operation in southern Alberta.
“This will give us the opportunity to expand in southern Alberta,” said Wong, a local manager who is well known as the former coach of the Medicine Hat Tigers.
He said the company, which is based near Red Deer, has taken operations over at the city sorting facility from REDI Enterprises essentially without job losses.
More hiring will occur next spring when drivers will be required to pick up from 23,000 residential addresses and volumes increase
“It’s going to be very similar to how garbage is collected now,” said Wong, citing a once-per-week pickup alongside regular trash collection.
“It won’t be much of a change. We’ll come in right behind (city trucks). It will provide the ability to recycle without sorting it or dropping it off at the depot.”
City council approved curbside program last winter stating that as the last top-50 city in Canada without the service, the time had come and improved diversion rate with door-to-door pickup would add years to the landfill’s lifespan.
At that time, the council gave a mandate to negotiate a price that would set the homeowner cost at under $5 — making it one of the lowest in Western Canada.
City council typically sees various budgets of the utility operations in late November each year to include fee changes for the start of the next year.
Medicine Hat’s manager of environmental utility department Brian Murphy expects the regional management study to be completed in the same spring time frame.
“At this stage the work involves collecting data and evaluating the assets of the municipalities,” he told the News. “They will come up with a series of options for ways the municipal entities could potentially work together.”
The GDH Group, a global consulting agency that caters to large industry and government, was awarded the contract that is partly paid for with a provincial regional collaboration grant.
At the time the curbside plan was approved, planners also said two city depots would be kept open to accept overflow from residences, serve multifamily or condo units that use commercial bins, and also accept glass.
The plan calls for loads of unsorted paper, cardboard, plastic and tin cans to be picked up in a single bin from residences.