Waste Management in Ottawa

[YOWflier]

The problem is that we're contracted to provide a minimum of 80K tonnes of material and we're nowhere close to that. As a result we've paid about 5-8 million in penalties to Orgaworld.

Of course, the matter has been tied up in legal arbitration because the City, realizing the folly of the contract, wanted Orgaworld to accept leaf and yard waste in addition to the organic household waste in order to help meet the target (Orgaworld was against this).

In the end, the arbitrator ruled in the City's favour (Orgaworld must accept leaf and yard waste), and also awarded the City its 5-8 million in paid penalties.

Yay, right? Wrong.

At the end of the day we're stuck with probably the world's most expensive leaf and yard waste collection program. Before this silly program was conceived, we were collecting the same leaf and yard waste at a tiny fraction of what it's now costing us.

Incidentally, the city's auditor general recently released his scathing report on the Orgaworld contract. For the first time that I've ever seen in any auditor general report anywhere, he recommended that we cancel out.