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Waste
There is a new garbage man in town. Waste Management trucks will disappear from County roads and streets next month, and shiny new trucks (or, perhaps, repainted old ones) will begin prowling our neighbourhoods. The best bit is that Shire Hall has elicited a sweet bid from upstart trash contractor Environmental 360 Solutions that could save the municipality (ergo taxpayers) in the order of $250,000 per year. The deal spans 34 months to July 2023.
Based upon last year’s volume of trash handling, the County will pay Environmental 360 Solutions about $1 million annually for picking up and hauling away our garbage and compostables (organics). It will generate about $750,000 through bag tags and dump fees. Close enough to imagine that with some work and some group behaviour modification, we might make this service pay for itself one day.
Maybe. And believe me when I praise the achievement of this new deal. It is a success story.
Still, it seems to me that it likely forestalls the bigger talk we need to have about garbage. Landfills. Recycling, too. The sustainability of this municipal service.
Our family had the privilege a few years ago of spending a couple of weeks in a rural region in the south of France. Each morning as we ventured forth from our rented farmhouse, we collected any garbage and recycling, as instructed by our hosts, and put it into the trunk of the car. As we approached the main road (about three kilometres from the house), tucked away in a copse of poplar and pine trees was a collection of bins—one each for garbage and three types of recycling.
Garbage trucks don’t trundle down every road in this region. They stick to the main roads—cutting thousands of kilometres from their route each year. Saving wear and tear. Fuel costs. Emissions. Money.
In a matter of a couple of days, this task had become routine. Just something else you considered as you got in your car. Later we learned that Helene, who lived nearby, doesn’t drive. Has never driven. It turns out her neighbours help with a variety of chores—including driving her to the village for groceries and depositing her waste on their way to work.
It reminded me how odd it was that we consider it normal to travel to a central distribution point (be it a grocery store, hardware store or another type of shop) to get stuff, but when that stuff becomes waste, in North America we expect it to be picked up at our door.
This arrangement might make sense in a dense neighbourhood, where hundreds of families are served in a kilometre. It makes no sense whatsoever in Prince Edward County. Our irregularly shaped island, with fingers jutting dozens of kilometres into Lake Ontario, is criss-crossed in no discernable pattern by 1,000 kilometres of roads. The vast majority of these provide access to fewer than ten families per kilometre. The truck that serves Cressy, Long Point, Salmon Point etc. gets to the end of the line, must turn around and retrace its route back. Waste upon waste.
Not yet convinced the business of garbage in the County is a distorted bundle of unsustainability? Then try this experiment: Explain to someone not from here, that you pay $3 for a bag of garbage to be picked up in front of your house, but must pay $5 when you bring the same bag to the dump. Watch their face contort in puzzlement when you repeat the fact that it costs you 66 per cent more to deliver your garbage to a central transfer site than it does to leave it at your curb. That’s 12,000 potential garbage stops in Prince Edward County. Another 12,000 for recycling.
So yes, by all means, let us celebrate a lower cost contract. But please, let us stop pretending this arrangement makes sense, because it doesn’t. Not environmentally. Not financially.
We chose to live in a rural region. We accepted there would be trade-offs. So let’s figure out a better way to collect and manage garbage and recycling. (And compost in our back yard).
Let us not be lulled into inaction for another decade or two. There are other models for rural areas like ours. Let us examine some. Let’s choose one that won’t produce a confused or pained look from our children.
One question, “where would you place these bins”? Perhaps here a commercial establishment, in an empty lot, near someones property, this question must be answered prior to commencement of this consideration. Additionally, when would the “waste / garbage” be picked up, weekly or would pickup drift into every two week or longer is there is continued financial difficulties in the county, project into the future don’t solve the problem in terms of the near future.
We were in Sarlat-la-Canéda, France, this past February, for three days, a small very old medieval town, working very hard at keeping its original character but keeping pace with the busy modern world…this was their recycling program. As you said, different bins for everything. And you were not allowed to leave garbage or recycling in your rental…Got rid of it every day on our walk or outing. As you say, a simple daily habit…you consume, you dispose…your responsibility!