Trash user-fee program moves to planning stage

Pay-as-you-throw, mandatory composting could start in 2019

Saskatoon city council has given its administration the green light to develop a mandatory composting program and a pay-as-you-throw system that would remove trash collection from property taxes and replace it with a utility fee based on the size of homeowners’ garbage bins.

The administration hopes to have both systems in place by the end of 2019 at a cost of between $13 million and $22 million.

Many details — including how frequently garbage and organics will be picked up, what sizes the garbage and organics bins will be and how much households will pay for the service — are not yet known. Administrators told council during a meeting on Monday that they hope to provide more answers in September.

They said property taxes will decrease when households start to pay for garbage as a utility.

Brenda Wallace, the city’s director of environmental and corporate initiatives, acknowledged that homeowners with properties assessed at a higher value and who pay more in property taxes will likely end up paying less when garbage is treated as a utility, while homeowners with properties assessed at a lower value will end up paying more.

Coun. Cynthia Block was among the majority of councillors who spoke at Monday’s council meeting in support of the changes.

“These decisions are hard, but I think we’re here to look at the long view,” she said. “Those who would be unduly affected by this need to have some serious consideration. But I also think that they need to be considering the long game. If we want students and immigrants and others to be able to live in a city that’s sustainable and affordable, we need to look at the long view of solving a waste management problem that is both financially and environmentally unsustainable.”

The city’s goal is to divert 70 per cent of material from the landfill by 2023; last year, it diverted 22.8 per cent. On a list of 18 other Canadian municipalities, only Regina — with a rate of 21.8 per cent — had a worse waste diversion rate than Saskatoon last year.

“The status quo isn’t an option,” Coun. Zach Jeffries said before the vote.

Coun. Ann Iwanchuk voted against the changes. She said she has heard from residents who don’t have room for a third garbage bin and received two phone calls from seniors on Monday morning alone who were concerned they wouldn’t be able to afford the fee.

“Waste disposal, in my opinion, is a core service that is provided to our citizens and everyone should have this basic service provided to them. Basic services are typically collected through the mill rate and it is accepted that there is a social economic benefit to collecting for core services as a collective, which essentially translates into ability to pay. Moving to a pay-asyou throw system eliminates that value from the City of Saskatoon,” she said, reading from a prepared statement.

“I have many immigrant families in my ward and in some cases there might be several families living in one house, so of course they’re going to generate more garbage and they are the ones who can least afford to pay for more than what they are currently paying.”

Councillors voted to give the administration a $1.6-million budget to continue planning the organics and pay-as-you-throw programs. That money will be borrowed against the future profits expected to be generated from the programs.