[getsmart-l] Toronto: Fee-based trash collection in the works

[John O'Gorman]

Personally, I prefer the tags as 
- less expensive (than a NEW and additional/unnecessary bin)
- more versatile/accommodating (can be attached to anything like the once-every-15-year-sofa)
- less expensive for the home owner (ONLY pay for what you actually use)
- promotes reduction (the less you use the more you save)
- less open to fraud and misuse and theft.
Regards,
John
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070405.GARBAGE05/TPStory/?query=garbage
WASTE MANAGEMENT

Fee-based trash collection in the works
JEFF GRAY 

Taking the garbage out in Toronto could soon resemble a trip to a fast-food drive-through as residents may be forced to choose between small, medium or large waste bins -- and the bigger the bin, the bigger the bill.

As reported in The Globe this week, Toronto officials are drafting plans to take garbage collection off property tax and instead charge a fee based on how much people throw away -- similar to the way water and power are paid for now. 

They say they have examined similar moves in several other North American cities, including Vancouver.

Geoff Rathbone, Toronto's solid-waste-policy director, would not provide a ballpark figure for the fees being proposed: "We are still finalizing our numbers."

But he did visit Vancouver to see their year-old system, which gives residents five garbage bins to choose from, and charges accordingly.

On average, residents there pay about $110 a year for weekly garbage collection. (They also pay fees for recycling and yard waste, bringing the average waste bill to $180 a year.) 

Mr. Rathbone says the idea is to encourage people to be more stringent in their recycling, as the city tries to meet Mayor David Miller's goal to divert 70 per cent of the city's waste from landfill by 2010. 

Currently, the city diverts 42 per cent, and Mr. Rathbone says that as much as 30 or 40 per cent of the garbage thrown out by households should be in recycling bins. Increasing this diversion rate, and expanding recycling, will cost more than the status quo, he warned.

Chris Underwood, Vancouver's manager of solid waste, said his city's year-old system is working well, although it is too early to tell whether it actually reduces the amount of garbage people put out by the curb.

In fact, garbage has gone up slightly, although he said this could be due to the city's booming economy, which has people consuming more.

"Essentially, the customer now is only paying the waste they generate," Mr. Underwood said of Vancouver's new system, which replaced a flat-rate fee system a year ago.

He said the system has proved very popular with residents, and concerns about cheating -- residents sticking garbage in other people's bins, stealing them or illegally dumping trash to avoid the fees -- have not been significant.

"That was something that we were quite leery of at the outset of the program," Mr. Underwood said. "We thought that might be a problem. It hasn't been a problem."

Each bin has a serial number, he said, making it easy to track missing ones even if residents haven't marked their address on it. And so far, there hasn't been an increase in illegal dumping.

But unlike Toronto, Vancouver has long had special fees for garbage, ever since it turned its trash collection into a utility and started charging flat-rate fees back in the early 1990s. 

About 100 Ontario municipalities have brought in so-called bag-tag programs, which force residents to buy stickers that must be affixed to each garbage bag for it to be picked up. Mr. Rathbone says some have seen temporary "blip" increases in illegal dumping as a result.

San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Los Angeles already have waste-collection systems similar to the proposed changes under discussion in Toronto, and officials say they are looking at all of them to design the city's plan.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East), said the proposed system is nothing more than a "revenue grab."

"It's a tax on families, a tax on neighbourhoods," he argued, saying any family with a couple of children will automatically produce more garbage than single people, and will then have to pay more.

The possible changes to Toronto's garbage collection will come forward in a staff report in the next several months, Mr. Rathbone said, along with other proposed measures that aim to reduce the amount of garbage headed into landfill.

Also later this year, if all goes according to plan, the city will roll out new extra-large blue recycling bins, which will be equipped with wheels and lids.

The new bins will also come in three different sizes, ranging from 120 litres to 360 litres. They have been tested in Scarborough and in downtown neighbourhoods, where staff were concerned that their large size could make the difficult to manoeuvre in narrow alleyways.

Cash for trash 

Vancouverites already pay garbage fees based on the size of their waste bins, under a year-old system that Toronto officials have studied. 

They also have weekly collection, which is more expensive than in Toronto, where garbage is picked up every two weeks.

      Container size  Annual cost for weekly pickup 
      75 litres  $70 
      120 litres $82 
      180 litres $99 
      240 litres  $115 
      360 litres  $147 
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