WESTLOCK – Westlock town councillors are scheduled to vote on a new residential landfill card program policy tonight that if passed will cap the amount of waste residents can take the landfill before facing additional fees.
At their Jan. 19 committee of the whole meeting councillors got a look at the new six-page policy that is aimed squarely at high-volume residential landfill users — currently town residents, who are charged $26.10 monthly for weekly waste, recycling, and organics pickup, can haul as much trash to the landfill without facing any additional charges.
Under the new policy, residents will continue to pay their monthly fee, but will be capped annually at $75 worth of trash they can take to the landfill before facing an additional charge — the $75 figure roughly equates to a tonne of residential waste. The policy, with some small changes to wording, was expected to be back in front of council for approval today, Jan. 25.
“As council is aware this is intended to target high-volume usage that we highly suspect is commercial usage and abuse of the unlimited residential system we have in place right now,” said CAO Simone Wiley.
“We’ve tried to be conscious of not adding additional fees. When we looked at this, I want to say 90 per cent of people will not (haul) more garbage than what we’ve set. The actual resulting change to the average person in terms of dollars out the door is zero,” said Coun. Murtaza Jamaly. “Page one of our usage report shows where people have brought out 16 tonnes of garbage, 20 tonnes of garbage, 30 tonnes of garbage to the landfill and that’s being paid for by all taxpayers. The average resident isn’t bringing out 30 tonnes of garbage and this is meant to address those scenarios.
“Unlimited is not sustainable by any organization. It’s just not realistic for us to provide unlimited usage of any service we offer. This is adding a cap that tries to encourage responsible landfill use. We needed to come up with a formula that was equitable and worked with the waste management’s fee structure and model that was fair and ensures that the average taxpayer in our community sees no increase in fees to what they’re paying to use the service now.”
The new program, which administration says could be up and running by the spring, works relatively simply. Residents will be able to haul up to $75 worth of refuse to the landfill yearly and once they exceed that total they will be charged on their utility account. For residents in the mobile home parks, the park owner will be issued five cards which will then be given to residents when they need to access the landfill.
Coun. Curtis Snell, who’s served as the Westlock Regional Waste Management Commission chair, said the dollar figure was chosen as the commission charges different amounts dependent on what the waste is — sorted concrete/asphalt is charged at $25 per tonne, while roofing shingles are $55 per tonne. Residential waste is charged at $74 per tonne, sorted recyclable material is $55 per tonne and sorted metal is $70 per tonne. Mayor Ralph Leriger noted that residents could haul 80 kilograms of trash monthly to the landfill and not face any addition fees.
“If I was just going to haul generic garbage out there I could basically haul a tonne, which is a fair bit of just ordinary garbage,” Snell added. “But it really depends on what you’re hauling so it’s going to take a lot to go over $75.”
“Really the only difference for people is that they’ll have a maximum (of waste they can haul),” added Leriger.
In a press release the town says it has 933 active accounts, and on average 724 are under $75 per year — those residents took 348 kilograms of garbage to the landfill.
The release goes on to state that 209 active accounts exceeded $75/per year by taking 2,771 kilograms, or 2.7 metric tonnes, of garbage to the landfill.
“The base cost for a load out to the landfill based on the waste commission’s fee schedule is $6. So the average citizen, myself included, might go out to the landfill a couple of times a year and take tree branches or something like that and you would not see any additional charges,” said Wiley. “Unlimited access to the landfill is not sustainable or realistic in practice. The impact on average users, which we believe 80 per cent of our residents are, should be negligible,” she added in a release.
“I think the bottom line is we want to stop the abuse of the system. Basically taxpayers are paying for people who are abusing the system and it’s time it got stopped,” said Coun. John Shoemaker.
