Coun. Phil Turnbull (centre) and Coun. Darren Hirsch answered questions for about two hours on Wednesday night in a town hall meeting at Medicine Hat College on Wednesday night.--News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
A town hall meeting turned into a lot of trash talk, or more to the point, talk about trash collection and recycling efforts in Medicine Hat.
The answers, according to two city councillors who held the meeting, is that the landscape is changing very quickly but the effort is on saving the city money at its landfill and they’re dedicated to keeping costs low.
“The business has changed so much in five years,” said Coun. Phil Turnbull, who also chairs council’s utility committee that oversees solid waste.
“And the next five years will make those changes look like we were living in the 1940s.”
He was responding to questions about organic food waste collection, the plastics resale market in China, which containers go in which bin, whether it’s really recycled and the state of switching contracted recycling providers.
About 12 residents braved cold snowy conditions on Wednesday night to attend a public meeting held by Turnbull and Coun. Darren Hirsch at Medicine Hat College.
The line of questioning comes about one month after the city switched contracted recycling service providers, one year into a private contract. However, a new contract could be awarded in the new year.
At the same time, private waste-to-energy proposals are being examined by the city, and a province-wide system for manufacturers to fund local recycling programs could be on the horizon.
Earlier this year, council endorsed a motion to support lobbying the province to bring in an “Extended Producer Liability System” to Alberta.
That would see packaging producers charged for the end cost of recycling – thereby giving them incentive to reduce volume and make plastic easier to recycle – paid for through the local waste system.
Coun. Brian Varga, who introduced the motion by the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, attended the meeting as an observer.
“It’s coming,” said Varga, who sits on the province-wide lobbying group’s sustainability committee. “We’re the only province that isn’t on board right now, and in British Columbia, the (ratepayer’s) charge for recycling is zero.”
Curbside collection of mixed recycling in Medicine Hat began in the summer of 2018 with a net addition to bills of about $3 in a typical month.
The contract has been re-tendered after Environmental 360 Solutions approached the city looking to renegotiate fees, stating the plastic resale market was in turmoil.
Administrators say they are looking to protect costs to customers, and continue the efforts that have extended life at the landfill and pushed off reclamation and developing a new dump that could cost $40 million.
The federal government has also announced its intention to ban single-use plastics, potentially by 2021, though the announcement came this summer in the lead up to the election.
The News has reported extensively on the potential of a biodiesel refinery, financed by a local and provincial investors group and Cielo Waste Solutions, setting up in Medicine Hat.
Turnbull said that only about 15 per cent of what is collected is plastic, and the remaining 85 per cent in paper and cardboard, which is still being bought and sold.
The interim contract provider, GFL, is currently shipping all local material to its facility in Edmonton, but would have to win a long-term contract in a bidding process, said Turnbull.
As for questions about adding food waste collection to current green cart yard waste service, Hirsch said the city is not looking “to reinvent the wheel.”
“We’re all big believers that if someone else has a program that works, lets have a look,” he said, referring to Calgary, Edmonton and other cities’ sanitation efforts.
