Debate on waste collection hinges on split vote
By Lethbridge Herald on April 27, 2022.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
A truck operatior picks up recycling carts Wednesday along a lane in a city neighbourhood. Council is looking into costs, timelines and implementation plans for several strategies involving waste and recycling collection.Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Lethbridge city council on Tuesday by a 5-4 margin voted to task administration with investigating the costs, timelines and implementation plans for several strategies involving waste and recycling collection.
The vote came after a lengthy debate about the motion.
Administration will also look at the implications of several options regarding pickup and will report back to council through the Economic Standing Policy Committee by Oct. 11.
A report submitted by James Nichols, operations manager of the Waste and Recycling Utility, said a cart relocation project which started in 2017 was the trigger for the move to front pickup being based on efficiencies as well as the health and safety for staff and residents.
The city collects garbage and recycling for more than 34,000 households every week and since the project started, 4,163 of those had pickup relocated to the front of their homes after an assessment was completed.
The report says relocation from lane to front allowed the Waste and Recycling Utility to save on collection costs and reduce financial liability for things like snow and ice control in lanes and premature lane degradation.
Several assessments and studies were done to increase efficiencies, the most recent being an operational review by KPMG that recommended continuing with the implementation of the present improvements.
The report says the cart relocation project is now on hold until implementation of the curbside organics collection program.
Options being considered for the WRU include:
1) Maintaining waste and recycling collection in lanes for all households in areas identified in the cart relocation efficiency project using a local improvement model or other utility rate funding model.
2) Return to back lane collection for households that were relocated as a result of the cart relocation efficiency project.
3) Continue with the relocation efficiency project in 2024 following a public engagement process.
The report says reviewing operations has allowed the WRU to avoid increased utility rates for the last 10 years except in 2019 when a $7 increase was added for curbside recycling.
Acting mayor Belinda Crowson told council she did garbage pickup in Vauxhall as a job while attending university and knows well the backbreaking work of emptying bins into trucks.
“When we first saw the change from back lane to front lane, counter-intuitively we as a council at that time said this can’t work. How can this be more efficient?”
She said then city manager Bramwell Strain did a ride-along to look at back lane and front lane pickups and it was determined picking up carts on the street was much more efficient than doing lane pickup.
Crowson did her own ride-along in the London Road area last week through what she called some of the most difficult and narrow back alleys and saw firsthand the efficiencies of the new system.
She saw side and rear pickup and was able to see how the system works. She then watched some front street pickups.
“And though it is counter-intuitive, the efficiencies are there. When you watch somebody have to do a rear pickup, you can see the amount of time, how much longer it takes.
“I have no doubt that the system that we’re seeing introduced is more efficient and it is being based on metrics. Council, though, of course has the right to be as inefficient as we want. If we want to put the money into it we can.”
Crowson said the WRU is “saying we created this very efficient system which the community isn’t liking, council isn’t necessarily liking. Let us look thoroughly into it, let us look at all the costs and bring back all the information so you can make the decision and if you want to go backwards and change the system so we have rear lane pickup in those places.”
She said council also needs to consider how the costs of returning to backlane pickup will be considered if it chooses to go back to the old system.
“Do we want to look at local improvement? Do we want to look at those groups paying for it or do we want to have the entire community subsidize other people or some mixture of it, et cetera,” Crowson said.
“This hopefully will finally bring this discussion to an end because we’ll have all the information and council can choose,” Crowson said.
Councillor Jeff Carlson told council “I think more information is always better.” He said people have told him they would be willing to pay more to keep pickup in rear lanes. He said a user-pay system may wholeheartedly be supported by residents.
Councillor Ryan Parker, who supported the resolution, said people value having their garbage removed in their back alley and if he asked people, he thinks they wouldn’t mind paying more to have that convenience.
“People really value their services and so I think we put too much weight sometimes thinking by saving someone $1.50 the inconvenience isn’t bad” but he says council has heard loud and clear the effort of hauling bins to the front doesn’t make sense for some people.
Councillor Rajko Dodic said he thought it odd charging people more to return them to the service they had and they didn’t want to change in the first place.
He said no data is available that may suggest whether front lane pickup is actually more costly in some areas because of road configurations and the absence of front driveways on some streets.
“We’re just assuming the efficiencies mainly because you’re comparing back lane to front lane in one area. So basically we have 4,163 people that because of administrative decision had a change made,” said Dodic, adding he didn’t find any substance to arguments at the April 13 meeting with respect to the health and safety issues, the costs or efficiencies “so I think we’re plowing old ground if this resolution is passed.”
Councillor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel said she supported the motion. She said there were gaps in initial communications and decisions so retracing steps is OK to take a look, collect information and find out how people feel about the system.
“Then we can properly evaluate how that looks like,” Schmidt-Rempel said.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen, who said he couldn’t support the resolution, told council “the frustrating part is what I have with this, I’ll be very honest, is the severe lack of engagement through this process…and then hearing we didn’t do the engagement but if they want it back, we’re going to charge them. But we’ll engage going further?”
Hyggen said he’s driven through different areas and has seen how tight it is in front with cars and kids dodging out between them, a safety issue which he didn’t see as much in the back lanes.
“I hope that the whole safety thing is looked at and not just for it’s unsafe in the back and it’s safer in the front but we actually really do a wholesome look into that.”
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When will council members start listening to the citizens /taxpayers on this issue? Perhaps it should be put to a referendum .
This is now all about someone in City Hall protecting his job after making this ridiculous change. The old way worked fine for decades .
I can understand moving to front lane pickup in those areas where the back lanes are narrow and tight. But many home owners bought their houses with the back lane for the very purpose of having their waste and recycling emptied from the there. They have designed their properties accordingly. Let’s be real here, if the City of Lethbridge maintained the back lanes better they wouldn’t be full of potholes and crumbling pavement. If the City of Lethbridge enforced the bylaws better the back lanes wouldn’t be full of weeds, debris, junk, garbage parked vehicles and trailers, etc. that hinder the operations of the garbage trucks there would be room for them to operate more easily. Instead the City pays large sums of money to companies to do studies and offer suggestions to fairly simple problems.