City eyes garbage crackdown
Full-time bylaw officer, green carts in small businesses, among possible changes
November 02, 2009
Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/664929
Hamilton will miss its target of diverting 65 per cent of all city-collected waste from landfill by 2011.
The current estimate is that 55 per cent will be recycled or composted that year.
To do it by then, officials recommend a number of new measures, including assigning a full-time bylaw officer to enforce the one-container garbage limit in 2010.
Eight years ago, the then newly amalgamated city adopted a 25-year solid-waste management plan calling for 65 per cent diversion by 2008.
In 2007, when it was clear more time would be needed, the deadline was pushed back to 2011.
Beth Goodger, Hamilton's manager of waste collection, predicts a residential rate of 47 per cent this year, with an overall rate of 42 per cent when 5,000 small businesses are included.
She admits disappointment at failing to achieve more this year but says residents are to be commended for raising the rate from 16 per cent in 2001.
"We're still doing pretty well as a community; support has been incredible."
Toronto said in 2001 it wanted 100 per cent diversion by 2010, but later lowered that goal to 70 per cent by 2010. It now says it, too, will fall short. The forecast for this year was 46 per cent before a civic workers' strike interrupted pickups last summer.
The municipal numbers don't include shopping malls, big-box retailers, office buildings and industries that hire contractors to take their waste to private landfills, but Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen released a report last week inviting comment on proposals to make those who produce consumer products assume more responsibility for recycling them.
The provincial plan would prohibit disposal of designated materials and impose a disposal levy on others to encourage recycling.
In addition to stepped-up enforcement of the one-container limit, a report going to Hamilton council's public works committee today recommends pushing some reluctant apartment owners to start green-cart organics collection, collecting gypsum wallboard at recycling depots, putting green carts in small businesses and encouraging parents to stop using disposable diapers.
There is also a plan to clean tonnes of debris swept off streets to recover grit for use on roads in winter.
While Goodger is pleased most people use blue boxes and green carts, she says too many recyclables and food scraps are still being thrown in the garbage.
The city has relied on education to limit garbage to one container a week but, Goodger says, "in some instances, the friendly approach is not good enough."