Coaldale delays curbside composting program

LACK OF PROPER SIZED BINS PROMPTS DELAY

The Town of Coaldale has put off implementation of its new curbside composting program due to delays with procuring wheeled carts, but have decided to use much larger bins when the program does go into effect.

Council made the decision to increase the size of the wheeled carts planned for curbside composting from 120 litres to 240 litres.

However, a lack of available bins for the town to purchase means the planned May start date for the program will have to be put off — possibly as late as next spring.

Cindy L’Hirondelle, Coaldale’s Development and Environmental Services manager, told council a request for proposal issued last month to provide the town with the needed bins resulted in no offers.

She said when she inquired to a specific company which had helped her gather research on the bins as to why they hadn’t responded to the RFP, she was told the timeline was a problem.

“One (issue) was the timeline of May,” she said. “They got a huge influx of orders, and the City of Calgary had placed an order for the whole city. (The company is) backed up until November.”

L’Hirondelle found no acceptable options from local companies, and said inquiries to American companies were also unacceptable due to differences in the bin properties, taxes and shipping fees.

She added she had contacted the City of Calgary in the hopes of piggybacking on their order, but said the bins are made for each municipality with a unique numbering system and unique logos. They were also going with a different size than Coaldale had planned.

She said the difference between the 120-litre bins and 240-litre bins was about $42,000, which was available in the town reserves.

Discussions with Calgary as to why that city was going with larger bins revealed many residents were producing more waste than could be collected in the smaller bins.

“(The 240-litre bin) fits a large yard waste bag if people choose to bag their yard waste,” she said. “It also diverts that waste which was being put into garbage bins once their compost bin was full.”

She asked council to consider the idea of increasing the size of the compost bin in order to avoid issues down the road.

“We don’t want to regret the decision in a few years when we have the smaller bins, and we’re thinking we should have got the larger bins,” she said.

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