HawthorneVillager.com

Thank you for bringing this up Tony - I always give credit when it is due!

How will you be voting on this initiative? Colin, if you read this, same question to you please!

When we first moved to Milton, we had weekly pick-up of up to 6 bags. That was changed to bi-weekly pickup of up to 6 bags, but we were given weekly recycling and greenbox to offset the switch from weekly to bi-weekly. Now we are (proposed) moving to 3 bags every 2 weeks, with nothing extra to offset the reduction. With 2 kids and 2 pets, we often are over 3 bags every 2 weeks - sometimes we have even hit the 6 bag limit if we have lots of waste that week. Our Recycling bins are always full, and we have at least 2 organic bags in the greenbin every week. I would especially like our regional councillors to explain why the second reduction in garbage in less than 10 years (Mayor Krantz does not peruse these boards, so Tony and Colin will have to suffice.)

I don't believe that our Councillors should have to poll their constituents before vote, but I will say that with this actually costing the region more, and reducing what we can put out, I am completely against the motion, and would like to hear the opinions of our councillors on which way they will be voting next week and/or October 3rd.

Thanks!

I read the post about the proposed financial burden.

But I didn't read anything about the projection of income based on the sale of Bag Tags.

Surely there are some projections around the income the new programme will bring. Are those available for sharing? What will the income from these new user fees be spent on? Presumably some sort of park space or something to stay in line with a greener Milton?

Tag revenue appears to already be allocated to offsetting costs.

The net full annualized cost of the Three Garbage Bag Limit program, which includes the contracted price to collect and process waste material, promotion and education, the printing and distribution of Bag Tags, and tag revenue, is estimated to be $602,400, or $0.68 per $100,000 Current Value Assessment.

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No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

At the end of the day it is cash grab. How is our council voting on this recommendation ? I think this is not fair.

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Milton1

This is not a cash grab, it is a >$900,000 annual expense, marginally offset by the income generated.
Sounds like free bag tags may be obtainable fairly easily from friends with children. I wouldn't worry about it because every 2nd home in Milton has children.
Two weeks of diapers take up about 10% of a large garbage bag, bag tags will be a huge joke inside of 6 months.
The expense to taxpayers won't be so funny.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

Two weeks of diapers for two kids under 3 is quite significant. At least, my kids were filling a diaper genie every 2-3 days.

The big problem is the weight, not so much the volume. I've literally had garbage men struggle to lift some of my garbage bags. Sorry if anyone here happens to be one of those men.

My kids eat 1 canteloupe and 1 watermelon minimum per week, and the husks of these melons takes up a considerable amount of space in the rather small green bins. Having more than one green bin will help. It sure will be interesting in the heatwave of 2013 to see how many maggot and fly infestations there are around town, though, as people struggle to balance which garbage bags need to go out that day.

After reading the report more thoroughly, the proposal is for two new FTEs -- 1 garbage man, 1 administrator for the program. However, in the section that says FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS, it only lists the garbage man as the cost, and I didn't see the proposal for the administrator's additional cost here. The proposal for the administrator is under the heading "Administration of the Three Garbage Bag Limit".

My neighbor and I put our garbage together on the blvd to make it easier for the garbage man.
He knows this because our respective blue and green bins bookend the central garbage pile.
How does he know which excess bag to leave? What are the repercussions against him if he gets it wrong?

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No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

Sounds like a GARBAGE CAP AND TRADE PROGRAM.

Except enforcement would be too expensive... to actually punish polluters.... so people will likely sell their tags on KIJIJI and dump their garbage around town....

OR the scary santa claus looking scrap metal guy will collect up all the tags.

IF THE GOAL IS GREATER WASTE DIVERSION: I would say 70 percent of people who don't use green bins don't want to buy the compostable bags. The Etobicoke WM processor has a separator that removes plastic. therefore they accept grocery bags.

15 percent too lazy to separate, 14 percent don't understand it, 1 percent compost their own garbage.

So I get why people are pissed. Its frustrating to see 600K spent on ways to reduce waste, but really the cost of a new dump is $$$$. If we can defer this by a few years, I think you would wince at what we'd spend on a new dump.

So here is an assignment to those that are pissed off at this idea. I'll give you 600K, how do we decrease the amount of garbage produced and how do we increase the use of the blue boxes and green boxes.

The idea is that by reducing the amount of garbage bags, people will have to be creative (and by creative that can be sort properly, drop in mattamy bins, drop in country roads)

I do wonder what does one of those big rubbermaid garbage containers count as.. I stuff like 4-5 kitchen garbage bags in.. is that 5 or 1.

It's not a one time fee of 600,000 to push back the deployment of a new landfill a few years.

It's $100k/yr for 1 FTE garbage man, and $x/yr for 1 FTE Bag Tags Administratrator.

Plus whatever annual fees there are associated with the education and so on. It's not going to be cheap.

Growth will have a big impact on the landfill, moreso than the 15% of people who have > 3 bags per 2 weeks.

Personally, I'd like to see the commercial properties in town be forced to sort in to blue and green bins as well. Unless their garbage is going to some other landfill, isn't their waste just as good of a candidate as ours for recycling?

Do we have an incinerator? I bet $600k would get us a kick ass one of those, or a 2nd one of those as the case may be.

Back up plan: Put some pressure on company's not packaging their products is recyclable materials.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

So am i reading this correctly? Tax payers are being asked to pay almost a million dollars more per year so you guys can collect half the amount of trash from us? Here I thought this was a way to save the town money by reducing waste. So this whole initiative is costing us more?

Heres an idea.

Keep it as is and save the town almost a million dollars per year.

I hate the idea of using tags. Our home using 2 containers of garbage most of the year, with some periods of using all 6 (even with green cart use). With this change I get to pay more first in taxes, second with extra tags, even though I'm sure we average 3 for the entire year.

Does anyone know the aprox cost differential of a new landfill versus these changes to extend the life of existing ones? I'd like to think its much more than the 600k per year, but how much more?

I FILLED a green bin with crab apples this weekend weighing in excess of 100lbs.
It was empty when I got home. Seems the garbage man has the most common sense in the whole system.
Thanks a million Mr. G-man. Had I read this earlier there would have been a $2 "tip" taped to the bin today.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

Must have got lucky with the garbage collector. I've had a green bin that was not collected when it was around 45 lbs. (I knew it was near the limit of 50 lbs so I weighed it).