No time to waste as Norfolk council talks trash, new garbage contract

Bag limits, green bins, leaf pickup all up for debate

There will be plenty of trash talk around the Norfolk County council table this year.

The county’s current curbside waste collection contract ends in September 2026, and councillors need to decide what to include in the next contract by this September so any new trucks or specialized bins can be ordered in time to ensure a smooth transition.

Almost everything is up for debate, including bag limits, collection frequency, bag tags, which communities get leaf and yard waste pickup, and how to implement a provincially encouraged organic waste collection program to divert waste from landfill.

There are so many options to consider, each with its own price tag, that councillors will have a special workshop outside of the usual meeting schedule to discuss how best to provide one of the few municipal services that benefits all residents, no matter where they live.

To aid council’s deliberations, county staff plan to get resident feedback through surveys and open houses.

At the moment, garbage is collected weekly, and each household can put up to four bags at the curb. The average household generates about 500 kilograms of garbage every year, which works out to just over 14,000 metric tons countywide.

Collecting, hauling and disposing of all that trash currently costs just under $3.2 million annually.

Reducing the limit to three or even two bags per week would not affect the vast majority of residents who do not regularly generate that much garbage, waste management supervisor Merissa Bokla told council on Tuesday.

“A bag reduction also pairs nicely with an organics program,” Bokla said, since green waste would be collected separately and not count toward the limit.

Bokla said widespread labour shortages leave many waste collection companies unwilling to bid on manual collection contracts, where workers toss bags in by hand. The municipal trend is to move to automated systems where a single employee drives the truck and operates a mechanical arm that picks up bins.

Going that route would involve a high startup cost but save on labour, Bokla explained.

The debate over how to collect trash most efficiency and equitably in a far-flung county with rural and urban areas comes as Ontario is running out of landfill space and the companies that produce recyclable materials are now in charge of collecting them, a job that used to be a municipal responsibility.

Residents in some of Norfolk’s smaller rural communities are clamouring for leaf and yard waste collection, while council has already devoted significant time this year to debating the merits of various green bin options and how to keep the streets of downtown Simcoe free of illegally dumped garbage.

Public works boss Andrew Grice encouraged councillors to think about the county’s long-term waste collection needs, noting contracts only open up every decade or so.

Coun. Doug Brunton sees a complicated road ahead before council strikes the right balance with the new contract.

“This is going to be a very costly thing at the end, no matter which way we go,” Brunton said.

“And we’ve got to keep it competitive.”

Residents in some of Norfolk’s smaller rural communities are clamouring for leaf and yard waste collection, while council has already devoted significant time this year to debating the merits of various green bin options