Green boxes soon to be curbside in urban County
Administrator | Jan 23, 2013 | Comments 26
Green boxes will soon be left curbside as part of a new organics collection program for Picton, Bloomfield and Wellington.
The County joins Belleville and Quinte West in a joint tender for collection and disposal of household waste and organics. The program will start in August with 3,070 households in Picton, Bloomfield and Wellington on the assumption that urban areas have a more difficult time disposing of organics. Start up costs (green bin, kitchen catcher and communications plan) are set at $43 per household to be paid by the tender, Waste Management of Canada.
Using data collected from the Belleville Quinte West pilot programs, staff estimate than an organics program could provide savings from diverting tonnes of curbside waste annually from the solid waste collected.
Council will look at expanding the program county-wide.
Acceptable items for food and organic waste recycling can include:
Fruits and vegetables
Meat, poultry, seafood (bones and shells)
Bakery items and ingredients
Eggs and paper egg cartons
Milk, juices and cartons
Plants and cut flowers
Coffee grounds, filters, tea bags
Paper products (napkins, paper towels)
Ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese
Filed Under: Local News
Let’s see the price tag and terms of the contract on this green bin scheme. I expect to hear that it will be revenue neutral with less going to landfills. Yeah right! Our roads are falling apart and haven’t received routine maintenance.I don’t know how they expect to ever address this major issue. So I have a problem with stepping into a new venture when basic maintenance and delivery of services is under threat.
When we lived in Etobicoke (Toronto area) they tried this too, it didn’t work there, it only stunk up the neighborhood! Does our municipalities not do any research at all? It cost Etobicoke tens of millions of dollars to give up on it 8 months later. STOP WASTING OUR TAX DOLLARS ON STUPID IDEAS!!
Did anyone notice that the county has advertised the Picton dump will now be open on Wednesdays (see the local papers this week)?
What’s that all about? I thought they said one day a week was enough and that was that, like it or lump it. Waffles anyone? This council is becoming a lot like the last one – make a decision, reverse a decision. They got it right when they decided to keep the dump open for an extra day. Why couldn’t they have listened to ratepayers in the first place?
I’m reminded of “Marge” the talking garbage heap from “Fraggle Rock.”
As I said earlier, a missed opportunity. We could have advertised ourselves as: The County — Composting Capital of Canada.
This is another stupid decision by the council.
I do my own composting and like another writer i want the soil it produces for my flower beds
Before the county signed up for this they should have asked us, they could have put a note on our water bill and asked us to sign up if we wanted a green bin.
I will notify the county i do not want a green bin for both of my properties.
So where does one keep this filhty, stinking, germ infested green bin between pickups? Picton is over run with coons now, can you imagine the feast they are going to have on collection day. An article in the Ottawa Sun today in regards to their failed green bin program and the massive contract they are signed onto for years. I thought the County was going to reach out to the constituents to see what services they wanted? I missed it or else green bins was a high priority for the taxpayers.
@Dayton Johnson: Wildlife – all those species you mentioned – are always welcome on our property. However, to answer your question, I have never seen any wildlife around or in the composters, mainly because I keep the lids secure so nothing can get in.
As an adjunct, don’t get carried away with adding “meat” into you composters or compost pile. Many years ago, when I worked at Glenora Fisheries, I asked permission to claim a few pails of fish after staff had finished with their autopsies. I had read about early North American natives burying a fish beside their corn, so I figured if one pail of fish in my compost pile was good, then 20 five-gallon pails would be even better. It was, after all, a very large pile. I buried them deeply and covered them well. The July humidity was heavy and those fish kept working their way to the surface, despite my efforts at burying them and covering them with more straw. The odour was overpowering, enough to knock over a bull elephant. Even the two workers who were next door on tall ladders painting the side of the neighbour’s house wandered over to ask about what had died! It was a very long July for us and the neighbours, but I had tomatoes you wouldn’t believe the following year.
@ Terry Sprague: With 3 bins in use I’m interested in your expertise,,,, if you have any problems with vermin or critters like raccoons,skunks,coyotes.I have two black bins and have seen evidence of voles or rats..not sure. Also my open 8×4 mulch pile for leaves, trimmings and occasionally corn husks/cobs rinds,peelings,is visited regularily by coyotes,one skunk,and deer. We enjoy the wildlife but don’t want them visiting the buffet and getting too friendly and dependent.
With that in mind does one want these visitors in an urban location? Remember the black bear of Talbot street a few years ago?
Will this weekly Green Bin pickup be popular enough to make it profitable for the Company involved to continue? If not what happens to the extra bins? Were they purchased by County ahead of time for distribution to only Picton, Bloomfield, Wellington? Even if it is a pittance of cost involved why are all County taxpayers on the hook for the cost? Either not enough discussion or another snap decision by Council just to keep in step with Belleville.
I think we should have a corner of our local dump site available for those wishing to dispose of their green bin products,open on dump day and managed by the attendant. This would keep this valuable product local. Bring in the County wood chipper to mulch up the brush and eliminate the burning.
I have no strong feelings about this issue, but would like to know how the decision to bring in green boxes was arrived at…will they make a difference and how do we know?
There is nothing very urban about this county, and except for condo/apartment dwellers, most of us could handle our compostables better, with a little education and incentive.
Gary, You are so correct our elected officials have been allowing many jobs to be tendered out to outside companies as well as hiring individuals for jobs that could most definitely be given to our own County residents.However due to the new County logic (which is missing) we will continue to loose out.
I’ve been advocating for some time that County government should find ways to access the expertise of County residents, to no avail. Here is a perfect example of a missed opportunity.
Terry Sprague and quite a few others in the County have lots of experience with composting. Instead of getting advice from these folks, County government has gone ahead and immplemented an urban solution in a rural community.
Bobbi M has the right idea. Instead of teaching residents to be irresponsible and wasteful by putting compostable items at the curbside, we should be directing efforts toward education on how to make use of that “black gold”. We need to get people past the mindset that kitchen waste when composted produces offensive odours. Even if done incorrectly – and we certainly do it “incorrectly” at our house by composting anything that will rot, including meat products, dairy products, grease, facial tissues, paper towels, table napkins and shredded office paper. It all goes in, and even with three composters placed 10 feet from the house, going full tilt all the time,there is no odour, even on hot, July days. The end result, a beautiful, black compost for our gardens and flower beds. Taking this one step further, we also invested in a wood chipper to grind up fallen and pruned branches. Our leaves are not burned or bagged for the roadside but are mulched in the fall with a recycling mower and returned to the soil. It’s being responsible. If you create it on your property, then it should stay there, in a usable form. We are two people and a Shih-tzu. We are really pushing it if we manage to have one bag of garbage for pickup every six weeks, and we even feel guilty about that. I am sure we can do better.
We live in “urban” Picton, and I can’t imagine how we would ever fill a green bin! Our kitchen waste is too valuable to us as compost- we have a worm bin (with red wriggler worms) for kitchen scraps, as well as a compost heap in our backyard for yard clippings and extra kitchen waste. The “black gold” left after things have composted is too valuable for our gardens for us to consider putting it in a green bin and sending it off to some big compost pile where someone else can reap the benefits! 🙂
Good comment Mark, just one thing tho’ It is not Big Business that is shoving IWTs down our throat, it is our Provincial Government!
I am fairly certain that most couldn’t give a damn about Councils efforts to promote green bins all the time sitting back and allowing big business shove Industrial Wind Turbines down our throats and destroy the environment. They missed the opportunity to be on the green platform.
Marnie, you’re absolutely right! Doing Trash Bash I’ve often wanted to dump all the Tim’s cups right on their doorstep for them to deal with! 😉
Marnie and Donna are correct. I recyle I compost but still have a lot of garbage. the packaging on some products is too extensive.
I hope the County does not waste money on green boxes–they are not needed. We each can compost our own material
Maybe education regarding garbage reduction should start with the companies that over-package everything and the fast food outlets that supply the paper cups and cardboard boxes that litter the roadside.
Organic material should be composted and thus diverted from the landfill. Most country families should be doing this already, and it would be easy for many in-town people to do it themselves too. The exception would be those that live in apartments or condos.
Priority should be given to education: how to reduce garbage (ie packaging, paper, etc); how/what to recycle; how/what to compost.
The issue is not the cost of garbage collection; the issue is the reduction in the production of that garbage.
why are we being forced into the green boin program. are we a communist state and are told everything we can and can’t do.are all taxpayers in the county going to be paying for the program that is only in the 3 urban centres.should the people have been asked about the green bin program.why was it not tendered out for others to give a price. what gives with our council
If they take cat litter I’m in.
Who is paying for all of this??? My GOD we can’t afford what we have now. Lets focus on creating jobs first or the only thing will be compositing is the garbage that is left behind when everyone moves. On another note, I witnessed the fire trucks below the heights road (York & Church) getting water from the hydrant so couriosity made me follow them to the unfortunate fire on the heights. My question is over a million dollars was spent this summer/fall on the new facility at the booster station on the heights. So why are the firemen having to transport water up to this fire??? Did we the taxpayers hand over this money to something else that dosn’t work>>>
I have a personal green box in my kitchen which has to go in the composter every other day or I get fruit flies.
I have a composter and am not interested in a curb side green bin pickup–save your money council. It is already costing me too much now for garbage
Right on Mark. Who wants to stockpile this sort of waste in warm weather? The cost of garbage pick-up is far too high given that it was once included in our taxes. Dump fees also are out of sight. It has become harder and harder to dispose of garbage in responsible fashion and the end result has to be more dumping along the roadside and in out-of-the-way places. The idea of having the dumps open just one day a week is lame. With what we pay in taxes at least one waste disposal site should be open mid-week. Maybe if they were to forget the green bin and channel the money into keeping the dump open two days a week?
It will be interesting to see the communications and sales pitch to get people to buy into this. A green kitchen catcher doesn’t sound overly appealing for this type of waste particularly during the hot summer months. There will need to be an active control plan to deal with the racoons and skunks ravaging the bins within the urban areas. And how much taxpayer money is being thrown at this one? Our regular garbage pickup which was part of our taxes at onetime is more expensive than neighbouring municipalities that I am aware of.