Garbage not a big issue with voters, mayor says
Garbage isn’t a topic residents are bringing up at the doors so far during the municipal election campaign, Jim Watson says.
“I haven’t had one person raise it, with the exception of some people still complaining about the green bin and weekly garbage pickup, but I’ve said we’re not going to go and turn back the pages of time,” Watson, the mayoral incumbent, said Thursday during a campaign event. “We’ve got to move forward and we’ve got to try and find solutions that work and help prolong the life of the landfill.”
Watson this week released his answers to a candidate questionnaire distributed by Ecology Ottawa, which asks candidates if they would reverse council’s decision to allow plastic bags and dog feces in the green bin, increase funding for education on waste prevention and set a waste-diversion target of 65 per cent.
Watson’s answers don’t address Ecology Ottawa’s questions directly. They instead highlight initiatives during the current term of council, such as the decision to allow plastic bags and dog feces in the green bin starting next year under an altered contract with Orgaworld. He also highlights recycling promotion programs underway.
The city’s last-reported diversion waste diversion rate was 44 per cent. That’s the recyclable garbage that the city has been able to put into the black box, blue box and green bin, and take to hazardous waste depots, freeing up room in the municipal dump on Trail Road. Only about half of Ottawa residents participate in the green bin program.
The province has been contemplating a phased-in ban on organic waste going into dumps starting in 2022. If that happens, the City of Ottawa will need to step up in a big way during the next term of council.
Watson was quiet on whether he’ll have campaign ideas on the future of garbage, but he said there will be an environmental component to his platform.
“I think people will be very satisfied with the progressive approach we’ve taken, really as a continuation of what we’ve done in the past,” he said.
Watson’s closest competition in the election might be former councillor Clive Doucet.
According to candidate answers posted to Ecology Ottawa’s website, Doucet would reverse the council decision to allow plastic bags of dog feces in the green bin, increase funding for education and set the diversion target at 65 per cent.
The municipal election is set for Oct. 22.