Proposed waste management system could force residents to think twice about what they toss
Pippa Norman, Ottawa Citizen
May 17, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 7 minute read
Jay Allen stands in his driveway on a balmy day at his home in Old Ottawa East. As he’s peeling off his orange puffer jacket, a budding bush on his lawn catches his eye. Spring has come to Ottawa, at last.
Then he frowns, as his eyes drift to the garble of garbage bins lying haphazardly at the side of his neighbour’s home.
He motions to the heap, but it’s not the disarray that upsets him. It’s the gnarly holes chewed through the “rodent-proof” plastic that are getting on his nerves.
Ever since the City of Ottawa switched to bi-weekly garbage pickup in 2012, he has seen a dramatic increase in the number of raccoons, rats and skunks making stops at their trash buffet, he said.
“People have nowhere to put it. They think they have to put it outside, and the longer it sits outside, the more vermin it attracts,” Allen said.
Now, he is even more worried, as the city weighs a proposal to limit the amount of trash that residents can put out for collection every two weeks. Go over the limit, and you would have to pay a fee for each extra bag of garbage. This is a variation on the “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) system that is designed to deter people from throwing out items they could reuse or recycle instead.
It’s a recipe for illegal dumping, said Allen, predicting that some residents will refuse or be unable to pay for extra bag tags.
“Not picking up the waste simply means there’s going to be more trash on the streets. There’s going to be more vermin.”
Scott Moffatt, city councillor and chair of the environment committee, said he supports PAYT because it will make curbside collection fairer to those who prioritize recycling and composting.
“I’m a family of seven, so I might put out a bit more garbage than my neighbours, who might just be an elderly couple. But we pay the same amount,” Moffatt said. “Is that fair?”
Debate over the proposal is heating up. The city recently hosted a series of public-consultation events as part of its ongoing work on a new 30-year solid waste master plan, which is due to be tabled by 2023.
But Ottawa has come late to the PAYT debate — 132 Ontario municipalities are already using either full or partial PAYT programs.
Under a full PAYT system, residents pay for every garbage bag or container they put out on the curb. In partial PAYT systems, such as the one Ottawa is considering, residents have an allowance of one or two bags per week and must pay for any additional ones, usually by buying special “bag tags,” which typically cost $2 to $3 each. All other garbage and recycling costs are covered by property taxes.
Pressure is mounting on Ottawa to curb the amount of waste it sends to the Trail Road Landfill, which has only 30 per cent capacity left. According to a 2019 estimate by city staff, the landfill could hit full capacity as early as 2036.
By that year, residents will be generating a staggering 387,500 tonnes of waste — about the weight of three CN Towers — every year, if they continue to throw out garbage at the current rate according to a 2021 report by city staff. That’s 16 per cent more than 2022, due largely to an expected increase in population of some 250,000 people by 2036.
A PAYT system — even a partial one — could make a significant dent in those numbers, said Duncan Bury, co-founder of the advocacy group, Waste Watch Ottawa.
Under a full PAYT program, the city would be able to divert 10 per cent more waste from the landfill, and even a partial one would mean six-per-cent less waste, the group has estimated.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but with the kind of tonnage that we’re generating over time, this adds up,” he said.
Josh Snider, executive director of Ecology Ottawa, said the city has a comparatively low diversion rate, the rate at which waste is diverted from landfill to recycling or composting facilities.
“We really need to accelerate the pace in terms of our diversion rate, as a city,” Snider said. “There are many other jurisdictions that are faring much better.”
In 2018, the Regional Municipality of Peel, which has a population similar to Ottawa’s, had an overall diversion rate of 50.1 per cent, while Ottawa sat at 43 per cent.
York Region, in the Greater Toronto Area, stands out as a leader of waste management, Snider said. The region had a diversion rate of 66 per cent in 2020, according to the city’s commissioner of environmental services.
Factor in the region’s energy-from-waste program, which burns garbage to generate energy, and its diversion rate rises to a whopping 93 per cent, the report states.
But would a PAYT program spur illegal dumping? And what about low-income residents? Could they afford the extra costs of bag tags?
There has been little research on illegal dumping as a result of PAYT systems in Ontario, environmental policy analyst Christina Chiasson found in a 2018 report for the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment, In fact, no data is being collected on illegal dumping in Ontario, according to the study.
In the U.S., research has found there is no substance to concerns that PAYT programs lead to illegal dumping. Lily Baum Pollans, an assistant professor of urban studies and planning at Hunter College in New York City, found the commercial sector is responsible for most illegal dumping, not residents.
“Look at where the trash is coming from. It’s not your neighbour, Betty, hiding her trash in your backyard because she doesn’t want to pay,” said Pollans. Business owners who don’t want to pay for hauling fees account for most illegal dumping in the U.S., she found.
In Ottawa, Bury said he’s not concerned about illegal dumping if the city introduces PAYT because, well, it’s just not the Canadian thing to do.
“Canadians generally follow the rules,” Bury said. “People aren’t going to start going out of their way and driving all over the place to dump and drop garbage.”
But critics such as Allen disagree. And they are not only concerned about illegal dumping and attracting vermin; they are also concerned about the impact of user-pay systems on disadvantaged people.
“Families with babies, families who have diapers and older people who do a lot of shopping online — they end up with a lot more packaging,” Allen said. “It’s got to go somewhere, and they can’t afford (additional fees).”
Christine Honsl is one such person. A resident of Old Ottawa East, she lives with a disability and because of the disposable medical products she uses, her caregivers often fill up multiple trash bins every two weeks.
If they miss the biweekly collection, it can be very stressful, she said: “I’ve had my sister running down the block, trying to catch (the garbage collectors) before.”
And even if exemptions are available for residents with excess medical waste, Honsl wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable requesting one, she added.
“If they took my word for it, that’s one thing,” Honsl said. “But if I had to verify it somehow, as (with) some professional letter or outline, then I would find that quite intrusive.”
Moffatt said it’s too early to say what the city will do in terms of medical waste, but that all residents’ needs will be accommodated, as long as the request is reasonable.
Other municipalities that use partial PAYT systems offer some exemptions.
In Kingston, residents have a weekly allowance of one bag or container. Any additional bag tags cost $2, but residents with extra medical waste s can apply for an exemption if they provide a doctor’s note.
However, critics of PAYT say the added cost for extra trash is unfair, no matter what your personal circumstances.
Framing the proposal as “pay-as-you-throw” is misleading, Allen said, because it suggests that residents will be paying for something new.
“We’re already paying” for garbage collection, Allen said. “It just seems that now they’re trying to add an extra charge for what is already a municipal service.”
Ottawa residents pay for their curbside collection through a flat annual fee. Right now, the fee is $118 per household and $77.50 per unit in multi-residential buildings.
Under a partial PAYT system, the city has said this fee could increase by up to $4.50 per household annually, to pay for outreach, education and operational costs. This is in addition to the $2 to $3 cost of bag tags.
This cost may appear steep to some, but according to Chiasson’s report, that’s kind of the point.
“The intention of the user-pay mechanism is to decrease the amount of waste residents dispose in landfill by having them internalize the cost of each item/container they are disposing of,” Chiasson wrote.
Bury agreed, saying that the city must give residents a financial incentive to recycle and compost.
Right now, he explained, “there’s really no limit on what you can put out (on the curb) and that needs to change.”
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