Take a well-deserved bow St. Albert residents. And city council, too.
When the city imposed its new waste removal system it was a relatively controversial move, with many residents scratching their heads wondering how it would all work with two bins, a recycling bag and alternating pick-up weeks.
Well congratulations all, it certainly appears most people have figured out the system and it is apparently becoming a huge success.
When the city announced this week that changes in our waste disposal routines have reduced the city’s garbage haul to the landfill by more than 1,300 metric tonnes – about 13 per cent of the total amount of waste sent to the landfill in all of 2010 – it was vindication for council’s decision to go ahead with the plan.
Add in the nearly 3,000-tonne increase in organics collection and a modest increase in blue bag use and it’s obvious St. Albertans have bought into the program. There are those who will argue the good news about the reduced haul to the landfill should be offset by the increased pollution and road damage likely to be caused by having three large garbage trucks running up and down our streets every day.
But that argument is offset by the number of small trucks that did NOT make the weekly trips to the city’s compost yard to haul out yard waste like grass clippings, tree pruning and leaves.
How much we gain environmentally by that trade-off will be argued in coffee shops – including all the new ones springing up in the city – long into the cold, snowy winter that’s on the horizon.
And it’s not just the garbage and organics where St. Albertans have made a conscious change.
Last weekend’s first Large-Item-Drop-Off event was also a huge success. Nearly 450 vehicles lined up for the one-day event, dropping off unwanted items ranging from mattresses to lawn furniture, large toys and even a kayak.
The city collected six large 40-yard containers with landfill waste weighing about 36 metric tonnes, plus two other containers of scrap metal weighing about 12 tonnes.
That’s a lot of large items that didn’t get dumped at the 156 Street scrap metal yard that doesn’t want the junk, or didn’t get thrown into a ditch somewhere.
“The … event is a service that the residents of St. Albert have been asking for for some time,” said Christian Benson, solid waste program co-ordinator. “The response from the residents was very positive and the city will look at organizing more of the drop-off events in the future.”
This is all great news for the environment and we hope there will be financial benefit for residents in the future, which would make it a win-win situation.
There is, of course, usually a negative to every positive and in this case that is those people who will simply never buy into the philosophy that recycling is good for the world, if not for today’s generation then for those who follow. That’s unfortunate, but it is reality. It just means those who do believe in recycling will have to do even more.
The reduction in waste going to the landfill achieved so far is impressive. But it still leaves us a long way from the city’s goal of diverting 65 per cent of all waste by 2020. We were at 46 per cent in 2010.
To get to 65 will likely take a continual increase in the use of the new system plus the old depots. So if the city is even thinking about closing the recycling or the compost depots, don’t. There are still plenty of residents who still use both and they should continue to be given the option of how they want to dispose of their yard waste and recyclables.
