City seeks public input on new plans for waste removal
Posted Jan 13, 2011 05:37:38 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The City of Ottawa is holding public hearings and using an online survey to gauge public reaction to its proposed changes to waste pick-up.
The changes would mean less frequent garbage pick-up and introducing the green bin to rural areas that don’t have it yet.
In town, recycling pick-up would double but pick-up in the rural communities could be cut in half.
David Chernushenko, councillor for Capital Ward, said in his riding residents are in favour of the changes three to one.
He says most of the problems his ward has relate to the use of the green bin itself and not the changes proposed to garbage pick up.
“What I am saying to people is: the city will continue to collect your waste,” he says.
“What bin it goes in and how often we do it, that’s what we want to explore with you. That’s what we want to figure out: is there a better way?”
But residents in Capital Ward aren’t having to face a potential pile up of recycling if the pick-up were to change to just once a month, as is proposed for the rural areas.
For those residents, this is the biggest problem they have against the proposed changes.
But Rideau-Goulburn Councillor Scott Moffatt said this proposal has almost no support and he doesn’t think it will come through.
He said many of his residents are eager to start the green bin program — especially because they’ve been paying for it since the program started without actually getting the service.
He says residents shouldn’t think of the possible changes as cuts to services but as a way to make the services more effective.
“Over the past 15 or 20 years we’ve added service, so we’ve added blue bin, black box and green bin, and we’ve never decreased garbage pick up,” said Moffatt.
“But the amount of garbage has decreased.”
That, he says, is why the city is looking at the services and why it is asking for public input to make sure the changes are the best ones for the most people.
To find out when you can attend an information session, or to complete the online questionnaire, visit Ottawa.ca.
