Well it would seem that council is divided on the recycling issue and stances have been taken prior to any public meetings (SP Oct. 23/10). I guess the new council member's first task will be to cast the deciding vote. This implementation of a curbside program now rests in the hands of Ward 5.
I like Councillor Hill's idea of a separate utility billing for recycling. I would let us know the true cost of the program rather than have it absorbed into the black hole of taxation.
I expect that, as it is with all utility bills, if you don't pay your bill the service is disconnected. In order to re-establish the service you must pay all arrears, a deposit and a re-connect fee. In this instance those truly opposed to the program can refuse to pay and have the service suspended. I like it. As well, landlords would not have a reason to jack up rents under the guise of recycling taxation.
I very much support Heidt's ask for a referendum on the matter with the various options and costs set forth. I expect that won't happen as Council would probably not like the result.
I am waiting for one of the by-election candidates to use the campaign slogan "I've got a nose for garbage." It would simply say they are well prepared for the tasks ahead.
P.S. After four years on council I think it is a little disingenuous of Hill to express concern about closed door meetings.
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"I expect that, as it is with all utility bills, if you don't pay your bill the service is disconnected. In order to re-establish the service you must pay all arrears, a deposit and a re-connect fee. In this instance those truly opposed to the program can refuse to pay and have the service suspended. I like it."
ReplyDeleteI like it too! I could disconnect my garbage pick-up, and start dumping larger trash in the streets and flushing smaller items down the toilet.
In fact, the city should bill everything separately.
And enough with me paying for those damn freeways into new suburbs I never visit. Let's itemize that on my utility bill, and let me opt out, too.
Don't get me started on those f-ing schools... I'm finished with them, why should I pay???
And hell, I've never called the cops before - why should I have to pay for them? If I am being burgled, perhaps I'll call the city, re-connect my police service, then asked to be transferred to 911. Or maybe I'll just chase the person out with my own firearm.
The same goes for the Fire Service, too... when's the last time my place caught on fire. Why the hell should I pay for the neighbour's inferno???
Anon 11:49, I can sense your sarcasm. However your argument can be taken to the next extreme.
ReplyDeleteHey why don't I just sign my entire paycheck to the government. Then they can decide which groceries I can have, and drop them off at my door, because why should we trust ordinary citizens to take it upon themselves to eat healthy and protect their health. So we'll add on $150 to the utility bill and will drop off groceries once a week. We could also determine what entertainment that people receive. Add on a little bit to the utility bill and maybe they could screen movies on a channel, then they can determine what is the best entertainment for society as well.
Since they want to just add more onto my bills, can they add on a gas charge as well? It would be a great way to regulate emissions, another environmental problem. Each house, after being billed $50 a week, can receive 50 L of fuel for the week. That way we can make sure no one is driving excess, great for the environment and should help reduce the cars on the road. What about those gas stations already providing that service? Screw them, we the City know how to best run programs like this plus this way we can make it mandatory for everyone, maybe even have some people pay more for fuel then others.
But wait why stop there, food, transportation entertainment are take care of what about the kids? Well how about each child is eligible to play one sport a year within a division that is acceptable but not competitive because, we the government, know what is best and having kids lose is not good for their little egos. But we won't allow any child to participate until we are satisfied their parents have completed the mandatory anger management course (http://deadspin.com/5672643/what-it-looks-like-to-get-nailed-with-a-puck), because....you guesses it, we the government knows what is good for you.
While we are at it, we may as well fix everything, what do people hate a lot? Paying plumbers. So the city will also add on $20 a month to your utility bill and if you ever need a plumber to come out we will handle that as well. No need in having plumbing being handled by the private sector when we can deliver it ourselves. Think of it like the fire and police service, you just pay for it and when you need it you just call us.
Anon 11:49 you are an idiot. Not implementing a mandatory recycling program is going to be the downfall of Saskatoon, hey?
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that this program should be put in until we have firm numbers, which WON'T be changed after a trial period for implementing. That is my biggest problem, they are telling us $7-10 a month, but every district that has implemented that would tell you the cost is actually much different. They are using a artificially lowered number to convince people it is a worthwhile program.
Education is the key, the younger generation and much of the older generation too are already keenly aware of recycling. This starts at a young age. People under 30 consider it sacrilegious to put a aluminum can or bottle in the garbage, or to toss a newspaper in the trash. Recycling awareness is coming.
Is city administration really convinced that the people who already are dense enough to toss their beer cans in the garbage will all of a sudden have a change of heart simply because the service is offered now? Please, the people who don't recycle will be the same ones who never put their blue bins out. These people will not change because of this program. Education is the key.
Furthermore, what about deposits paid on bottles in the store? Since the city is taking all those bottles and cans now, will the reimburse us for the deposit we paid? Will the pass a bylaw stating that no deposit is required on bottle in Saskatoon anymore?
The whole point of the deposit is money you get back for returning it. So in essence, it becomes another tax on the purchase of bottled drinks. Payable to the city (as they receive the refund presumably).
There is so much misinformation out there under the guise that it is recycling and how dare anyone oppose recycling.
I'd suggest the recycling cost numbers are artifically inflated....
ReplyDeleteWhy would suggest that? When has the city ever artificially inflated numbers on anything?
ReplyDeleteIf anything we should learn from the current administration is that the numbers are never right and we always end up paying more.
If people are so certain how about we assign a certain dollar amount to the project, no more no less. If they can't make it work for what they say, we say screw it. Give them a 2 year contract to install it at the given price, if it cannot be maintained for that price then we all agree to scrap it.
@12:19
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate what you're saying, the problem with your premise (and, well, for this entire debate) is that the concept of public and private goods is being confused.
Everything on my list of sarcasm was - and by all measures should be - a public good, to correct failures of the market.
Because, as a society, we have decided that disposal of trash - for sanitation, environmental, and health reasons - should be a public good (albeit sometimes subcontracted to the private sector) then the diversion of waste from the public landfill makes recycling, arguably, also a public good.
In fact. the precedent would indicate that virtually every major centre on the continent has deemed recycling part of the public sphere.
"In fact. the precedent would indicate that virtually every major centre on the continent has deemed recycling part of the public sphere."
ReplyDeleteYou're joking with this right? That couldn't be further from the factual truth. Virtually every major centre has not deemed recycling as part of the public sphere.
Listen I'm all for recycling, but what is being trotted out by the current supporters is nothing more than a half conceived idea that recycling is good.
We have no firm financial costs (the even admit to not knowing fully what the costs will be), the breadth to which it will be applied, how Cosmo is going to be compensated, and how the private blue bin providers are also going to be compensated.
The bottom line is that the city has no idea of how to apply and run this program (which considering the brains at City Hall is not a great sign). They seem to want to do something simply to sound 'progressive' and be 'on board with recycling' when the reality is this isn't a service the city should be taking on right now. There are services available to the public right now, so if this is really that much of a hot button issue then why haven't all these 'pro-recycling' people signed up for the current private blue bin program?
In the minds of a recycler what is the difference who collects and recycles their recyclables. Offer the subsidy for those who want to do the blue bin program, at least you can control costs that way.
Secondly, why should people that have proactively been recycling for years, and take great pride in it, be forced now to incur unnecessary expenses? Why is their option being taken away?
And what is the deal with deposits? Will consumers receive their deposits back on the recycling utility statement? Or as mentioned above, will the deposit just now become another form of tax on drinks? Another source of income for the municipal coffers (and another hidden cost to the program for people).
Does this also mean that backyard compost piles be eliminated now too? If we can't taken upon ourselves to handle our own recycling should we not run a community based compost program? As that too by your definition would be a public good, as it is waste being diverted from the landfill.
Lastly, your public vs private goods comparison is flawed in that for many people these goods aren't public as they aren't destined for the landfill. For a vast amount of people these goods are already being diverted to private companies for recycling, so for that segment these aren't public goods and would not fall under the definition of 'trash'.
Anon 210pm... what a great agruement for keeping the status-quo here in Saskatoon as the worst large Canadian municipality when it comes to diversion rates from our landfill!
ReplyDeleteThe point being missed is that our current system doesn't work. period. 18% diversion of residental waste, 23% if your being generous.
What other municipalities have demonstrated is that without a city-wide/mandatory program people will not recycle enough to significantly decrease the amount going to the landfill.
So if you have a plan to address this, by all means share it. Keep in mind that building another landfill isn't an easy or cheap option....
I don't have a plan address it, but having nothing is currently better than what is being proposed.
ReplyDeleteYes status quo is not working, so as the alternative are you proposing having people with very little knowledge how to do so implement a program, with costs that are uncertain, and unsure how to include Cosmo (a given that will be required in any plan), and with no idea about collection methods (single box vs sorted boxes), and with no idea of the initial start up capital of a program, is a better solution?
This whole debate proposal is so dumb, yes people want recycling but no one seems to have an idea about how to implement it.
What is the average increase in waste diversion when a mandatory system is implemented in a large municipal centre?
What is the average increase in waste diversion when a subsidy is offered?
Can you link a source to your information?
Were there any other factors that affected the amount of wasted diversion?
What is the system that is commonly used (ie. single bin mix in all recyclables or consumer separates beforehand)?
The people advancing this program are more concerned with touting 'RECYCLING' than offering answers to legitimate questions.
Yes what we are doing now isn't working, but that is not a reason to rush into a system that is going to be expensive, cumbersome, and ineffective in the long term.
"Virtually every major centre has not deemed recycling as part of the public sphere."
ReplyDeleteFalse: http://communities.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/blogs/cityhall/archive/2009/10/14/saskatoon-curbside-recycling-weighs-in-on-debate.aspx
"Listen I'm all for recycling, but..."
Here we go...
"We have no firm financial costs (the even admit to not knowing fully what the costs will be), the breadth to which it will be applied, how Cosmo is going to be compensated, and how the private blue bin providers are also going to be compensated."
That's what the course of public debate is to accomplish. To trot out proclamations that recycling will never work because these processes are still ongoing is weak logic.
"The bottom line is that the city has no idea of how to apply and run this program (which considering the brains at City Hall is not a great sign)."
Admittedly it's sometimes hard to argue that point on the political level.
"the reality is this isn't a service the city should be taking on right now."
We're the last major centre on the continent without a curbside recycling program. When, then, is the right time?
"There are services available to the public right now, so if this is really that much of a hot button issue then why haven't all these 'pro-recycling' people signed up for the current private blue bin program?"
Even your myopic view of how markets function should see that the economies of scale dictate it is more affordable with higher use. Early estimates indicate $7-$11/month - cheaper than private pickup. Further, a rational consumer who currently pays nothing to chuck everything in the trash (with no understanding of the cost externalities borne upon all public) will continue that behaviour.
"Offer the subsidy for those who want to do the blue bin program, at least you can control costs that way."
That fails to control costs by not factoring in all externalities, from environmental costs to landfill replacement costs.
"why should people that have proactively been recycling for years, and take great pride in it, be forced now to incur unnecessary expenses? Why is their option being taken away?"
How is expanding curbside pick-up taking away?
"And what is the deal with deposits? Will consumers receive their deposits back on the recycling utility statement? Or as mentioned above, will the deposit just now become another form of tax on drinks? Another source of income for the municipal coffers (and another hidden cost to the program for people)."
That is beyond inane. Take your cans back to Sarcan like you've always done. There will be no can police searching your home and confiscating empty tins.
"Does this also mean that backyard compost piles be eliminated now too? If we can't taken upon ourselves to handle our own recycling should we not run a community based compost program? As that too by your definition would be a public good, as it is waste being diverted from the landfill."
False logic. Backyard composts eliminate waste from entering the system at the source.
"Lastly, your public vs private goods comparison is flawed in that for many people these goods aren't public as they aren't destined for the landfill. For a vast amount of people these goods are already being diverted to private companies for recycling, so for that segment these aren't public goods and would not fall under the definition of 'trash'."
Provision of waste collection is a public good, the garbage itself is not the public good. You can't argue around that.
"Virtually every major centre has not deemed recycling as part of the public sphere."
ReplyDeleteFalse: http://communities.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/blogs/cityhall/archive/2009/10/14/saskatoon-curbside-recycling-weighs-in-on-debate.aspx
Don't we have curbside recycling with the current private company offering the service?
How is expanding curbside pick-up taking away?
ReplyDeleteIf we run a mandatory curbside program will consumers still have the option to recycle their bottles and cans and Sarcan depots or will those be closed?
"Does this also mean that backyard compost piles be eliminated now too? If we can't taken upon ourselves to handle our own recycling should we not run a community based compost program? As that too by your definition would be a public good, as it is waste being diverted from the landfill."
ReplyDeleteFalse logic. Backyard composts eliminate waste from entering the system at the source.
False logic on the original point then, all current recyclers eliminate waste from entering the system at the source as well.
Even your myopic view of how markets function should see that the economies of scale dictate it is more affordable with higher use. Early estimates indicate $7-$11/month - cheaper than private pickup. Further, a rational consumer who currently pays nothing to chuck everything in the trash (with no understanding of the cost externalities borne upon all public) will continue that behaviour.
ReplyDeleteYou can guarantee this??? You state it like it is fact. You have conclusive evidence, and the reports will conclusively say that the city can apply this program at a cheaper rate than the private sector??
I can imagine those city union employees will have a thing or two to say about that. Cause you know, the city is good at controlling costs.
To quickly respond to your four falsehoods...
ReplyDelete1) Other major centres run universal recycling programs.
2) Nobody has ever suggested Sarcan will close. Good luck getting that argument out the door.
3) Your logic remains false. Unlike composting, with recycling waste still leaves the source of generation.
4) The cost premise is based on universally-accepted rules of economics, not parroting Gormley-like anti-union rhetoric.
I stand on the side of skepticism when people start talking about turning garbage collection and recycling into a civic utility.
ReplyDeleteIt may come from the "force it down their throat" attitude the city has taken on putting individual garbage containers on the front streets. This item is constantly marketed as a way to lesson the damage to our lane system. Yet the City has never shown the taxpayer a true cost analysis of how traveling double the mileage, stopping 4 times more often reduces costs to the system, let alone cheaper than grading a lane once in a while.
Now they want us to believe that they have done their due diligence on the recycling side. Sorry I don't buy it or will I be forced too?
I'm not against the thought that a city wide program will enhance our ability to reduce the waste piling up at the landfill, however the amount of trash that will be littering our streets will be astounding if it goes the way of a civic utility not to mention my pocket book will get a little lighter.
A couple of questions?
Will there be a group of "recycling police" checking everyone's "garbage" container for recyclables? If not how is the city assured people will do the "right" thing?
The fact we have private businesses already doing the recycling thing shows there is money to be made in it. So why do we need a civic run utility? Put in the bylaw if you must but let private business operate the programs.
Does anone know how much of the recycled material currently collected by the private recycling group goes to the landfill? Where does the recycled material go for processing and how does it get there?
ReplyDeleteSCR currently has about 5000 subscribers to their service. The paper goes to Cosmo and any beverage containers go to SARCAN. Both of these actions provide some revenue. The business model, however, would be a money loser if it depended on revenue from the materials that are collected.
ReplyDeleteThe profit is in the service they provide to take away materials which members of the public would rather send through the recycling stream than into the landfill.
SCR also sends its glass to SARCAN but don't get paid for it as it has no value. There is a private paving company that will use the glass as aggregate but they won't take it for free. SARCAN gets rid of it by paying the company to take it off their hands.
SCR also has to pay to have plastics sent out of province to be 'processed.' Maybe the processor sends them to China for dumping, who knows? The cost of transporting these materials is an overhead cost covered by SCR in the price charged to the resident who is a client.
Thanks for that information. But does any of it go into our landfill? What do you mean by "sends them to China for dumping?"
ReplyDeleteThe material that goes to the landfill from SCR are those items which should have been put into the garbage stream in the first place (broken hinges, plastic bags). Also, SCR clients separate the various materials for pick up and this reduces possible cross-contamination but doesn't eliminate it. In addition, clients will put in materials which they think are recyclable but aren't (think household cleanser containers). These find their way to the landfill.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's the client who is paying for the collection out of their own money with a decision made of their own free will. If the client continues to put inappropriate materials into recycling or if they do not sort their materials, then SCR has the ability to cut off service to that client. In a mandatory civic collection system, cutting off residents who pollute the recycling stream is politically impossible and draconian measures are often taken to enforce proper recycling procedures.
Residents usually think that if something is recyclable and is picked up then that material will be recycled into another product but that's not necessarily true.
In Edmonton's case they have a single stream mandatory collection system where everything is collected together and then separated at a mechanized sorting facility. This creates tonnes of contaminated materials. Stuck away behind the facility are 4000 tonnes of newspaper which was so contaminated in the collection process that it can't be recycled into anything. No one wants it. However all the residents think that the paper they put into the recycling container (at great expense) has been recycled into something else.
Aluminium has an actual market and you can be pretty sure that material is indeed being recycled into another product. The depot system gives Cosmo very clean paper which they sort into different grades of paper bales. They can sort some of the paper to the highest grade with the highest return on the market. Edmonton downgrades paper. Cosmo upgrades paper. However, there is still a lot of paper which can't be upgraded and some which is just garbage and winds up in the landfill.
As far as China is concerned, the point that I was making is that once the local recycling company, SCR, SARCAN, or Cosmo gets rid of the material to a processor or a broker, that material is a commodity which can wind up anywhere. While aluminum and grade 6 and grade 8 paper gets recycled, lots of plastics are not recyclable and end up in a landfill somewhere.
There are lots of materials that head over to China to be recycled into other products. However, there is no guarantee that action is actually taking place. Once the material is there, it could be landfilled in that country.
Example. A municipality like Saskatoon has lots of low value material it wants to get rid of. There are no local markets so it pays a company to take the material off of its hands. The company is quite happy to be paid and pays a company in China to take the material they got from Saskatoon. The company in China says that they are going to recycle it, but they don't have a market either so they just dump it. (That's not a bug, it's a feature. It's called rent seeking.)
Instead of that material going to our landfill in the most inexpensive way possible through garbage pick up, it winds up in a landfill in China in an expensive way funded by our tax dollars. However, city residents feel really good about saving the planet and all of that tonnage sent to China gets counted as being diverted from our local landfill.
Of course this could be dismissed as a conspiracy theory if we didn't have the example of the plastic 'stored' at the Humboldt lanfill by REACT.
One small point on the comment: "Early estimates indicate $7-$11/month - cheaper than private pickup."
ReplyDeleteJust because the user rate of $7 or $11 (or, more likely, $25 or more) is lower than conventional for-profit recycling, it does not mean that the program itself is more affordable. The program itself could run to about $50/month but if the homeowner pays $10, then the taxpayer will have to cough up the remaining $40.
Regardless, as with most well-intentioned government programs aimed at passifying the progressive heart, it's those less well-off that will end up paying for it.
$10/month may not mean much to most of the commenters on this site, but it means something to the single mom working two jobs to get by.
But that's just the price the poor have to pay in order for the rest of us to insignificantly lessen our self-imposed guilt.
Anon Oct. 27 10:04:
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention that revenues from recyclable materials is also decreasing as more municipalities adopt mandatory programs. Edmonton, for example, has seen a decrease of 45% in revenue from the program since 2007 due to a surplus of recyclable materials on the market.
Because of fixed costs to a system, this revenue would have to made up by the program's owner. If the program is government-owned, that means the taxpayer will have to make up the short-fall.