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Thorold pushes region to consider bringing waste collection in-house

City wants all options on the table before awarding new contract
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In a reversal of the trend to look to the private sector as a means to lower costs, Thorold city council wants to be sure Regional Niagara considers bringing waste collection back in-house as a possible alternative before it awards a new waste disposal contract.

Representatives of the region presented a report to council this week outlining possible changes to the Niagara’s waste collection services, including adopting clear garbage bags and halving the garbage collection schedule to every other week service with a corresponding doubling of garbage limits as central to its efforts to lower costs and divert more recyclable and organic materials from landfills.

Niagara’s current waste collection contract is set to expire and a new contract will come into effect in March, 2021.

During the presentation to council this week, Councillor Jim Handley attempted to find out if the region had investigated the possibility of avoiding a tender by studying whether it might be more effective and less expensive for the region to provide its own collection services, but Regional Waste Management Services acting director Lydia Torbick didn’t really answer his question.

Instead, Thorold later approved a staff report asking the region to provide an analysis of bringing the service in-house when regional councillors consider any changes they want to make to the contract before sending it out to tender.

As part of those deliberations, Thorold is also asking the region to take a closer look at a closed-lid system of collection containers as a means to reduce the “amount of debris and litter collected along city roads and public spaces.”

According to Mayor Terry Ugulini, better containers might not just help in windy weather, but could also play a role in helping make the idea of providing collection service locally more practical. The containers he is referring to are usually provided as a kind of collection grouping, with a container for recyclables, organics and garbage all contained within the same system. He said when these types of containers are used, garbage trucks can be outfitted with lifts that are used to empty the contents rather than an individual employee doing the lifting.

While an initial response from a regional representative at Tuesday’s meeting was cold to the idea, suggesting such a system would be confusing to residents and lead to greater amounts of cross-contamination between garbage, organic and recycling streams, Ugulini told ThoroldNews he thought it would be a fairly simple process to provide residents with a service that alternated weeks for various items so cross-contamination didn’t become a problem.

He did concede other municipalities had paid a high price for similar programs in the past, with Peel paying $35 million in 2013 for a similar service, but argued that was the price of one system and he thought the Region should at least investigate whether a less expensive option exists.

Ugulini said it would be unfortunate if the region went through the entire tending process without considering every possibility.

“I’m not saying any of this is the answer, but we should look at every option. I mean, we still have two years to get this right,” he said.