It’s time to sort out our trash problems

Everyone seems to be down in the dumps these days over trash.

The amount we generate. The pickup, or lack thereof. Who will pick it up, how often it will be picked up.

And now this — the price we pay for waste management is going way up next year, and likely for the year after that and the one after that, too.

If you’re looking for a scrap of good news, the best we can say is that the chaotic Emterra era is nearing an end. Next year Niagara will have two new companies picking up our curbside waste to hopefully provide better service.

The point is, all this reinforces the fact we all have to get better at sorting our trash and diverting as much of it as possible away from landfill and toward recycling and composting.

As much as the pending cost increases will hurt — they’re expected to be about $3.5 million next year alone — Niagara appears to be getting off lightly.

“(Elsewhere) whether it’s an extension of an existing contract or a new contract, what we’ve seen are increases from 20 per cent up to 114 per cent,” said Catherine Habermebl, Niagara Region’s acting public works commissioner.

Blame it on the additional costs of the new providers’ contracts as well as the falling value of recyclable materials.

In a way, the scene was set nine years ago when Emterra grossly underbid the competition to win an eight-year contract to collect curbside waste in Niagara.

That may or may not explain the troubles Emterra has encountered since, being unable to meet collection standards set out in the contract with the Region nearly two-thirds of the time.

It’s a reminder that the lowest price isn’t always the best, and you nearly always get what you pay for. Complaints of missed or late collections have been rife in most parts of the region.

The rising price faced by Niagara also spotlights the rather dubious belief on Niagara Falls city council that it can get a better deal by going it alone and putting out its own tender.

It’s cheaper to buy in bulk, whether it be office supplies, food or garbage collection.

If the price for collection across all of Niagara is going to be about 10 per cent higher next year, a relatively small contract like Niagara Falls would likely cost more per capita.

What spurred Niagara Falls to go in that direction, led by Coun. Victor Pietrangelo, was unhappiness over the Region’s decision to switch next year to a biweekly garbage collection schedule, rather than weekly. It misses the point, though.

The decision to collect garbage every two weeks was done to prolong the life of our landfills, which are extremely expensive to maintain, let alone replace.

Too much material that could be composted or recycled is going into curbside trash containers, despite years of the Region trying to educate the public.

Biweekly garbage pickup is a form of tough love that will hopefully convince people to be more diligent in separating their rubbish.

You think 10 per cent annual increases for waste management are bad? Add on the extra cost Niagara would face when one or more landfills needs to be replaced. Now that would be expensive.

No one likes the way costs are escalating. It gets harder and harder to pay the taxes we’re charged, despite efforts governments say they make to contain costs.

But if we can avoid the big hit a new landfill would bring by spending a little more time keeping our recyclables and compostables out of our trash bins, it seems like a worthwhile effort.