City proposes user fees to finance trash collection

Administration also recommends mandatory cart for organic waste

Saskatoon residents can expect trash pickup fees, smaller garbage cart options and a mandatory cart for organics collection if proposals from city administration are approved.

In order to increase the amount of material diverted from the landfill, City of Saskatoon officials are recommending sweeping changes to the way the city deals with trash. As expected, the changes include charging user fees for trash collection and offering three different sizes of container. Residents would pay less depending on how small their container is.

Brenda Wallace, the city’s director of environmental and corporate initiatives, told a packed room of journalists Wednesday the city has not yet calculated the financial impact of the changes.

“The one thing that we did make very clear through engagement, and we hope it was received and understood through that process, is that we’re not interested in double-dipping here,” Wallace said.

Under the new model, trash collection would no longer be paid for principally by property taxes and would instead be funded by user fees, Wallace explained. Those who throw away more garbage would pay more under a “pay as you throw” utility that has been adopted in other communities.

Wallace cautioned there is currently a funding gap in paying for trash collection and a decision needs to be made on how to make up that shortfall.

City administration arrived at its recommendations through a public engagement process that included an online survey, Wallace said. More than 5,000 residents took part, according to the city.

“We have not recommended anything that’s contrary to the general themes we were hearing from the community,” Wallace told reporters.

The report will be considered by city council’s environment, utilities and corporate services committee on Monday. If approved at the committee level, the recommendations would then proceed to council, but the committee could also defeat the proposals.

In a 7-4 vote last August, council approved exploring the possibility of user fees for trash collection. Several councillors acknowledged then that the idea is unpopular with some residents.

Wallace confirmed a mandatory curbside collection program for organic waste, like food scraps and grass clippings, would mean a third cart. The city introduced mandatory residential recycling collection earlier this decade, which added a blue cart to the existing black carts for houses.

At Wednesday’s news conference, the city displayed two smaller black carts next to one of the current 360-litre black garbage carts. Wallace said a final decision on size has not been made.

Although most of the financial details are not expected until the fall if the proposals move forward, the city is seeking approval to spend $8.5 million to buy green carts for organics collection.

That money would be borrowed from a future utility if the new model is approved, as would $1.6 million for planning the changes.

City administration wants to launch the new approach for trash collection and organics collection by the end of 2019.

Curbside organics collection could divert 26,000 tonnes from the landfill, although the city’s existing compost depots lack the capacity to absorb that much material, Wallace said. Saskatoon currently has a voluntary program for organics collection.

The city has set a goal of diverting 70 per cent of material from the landfill by 2023 but remains one of the worst cities in Canada for waste diversion, according to reports that have been presented to the city.

The city’s diversion rate in 2017 was 22.8 per cent, approximately what it’s been for most of the last five years. Last month, a city report said closing the existing landfill and establishing a new one would cost $150 million to $175 million.