With much discussion this week both for and against the City’s proposal to shift garbage pick-up to a biweekly schedule, Spacing Ottawa reader Bruce Tate took the time to share with us his timely open letter to City Council on the subject.
To City Councillors,
I am writing about the proposal to shift to biweekly garbage collection, as (re)floated by Councillor McRae last month, Chair of our City’s newly minted Environment Committee.
1) A good idea
Cutting to the chase – there is little reason not to support bi-weekly collection, and even less good reason not to. It would save the City a LOT of money without cutting important services or raising taxes. However it will be, or course, extremely unpopular in the short term, which is why our neighbours across the Outaouais wisely gave six months notice to their residents.
2) Once done people will move on
We will collectively adjust to biweekly collection as residents in Toronto and other Canadian municipalities have done. And for those Councillors suffering terminal re-election trepidation, if done soon it is very, very unlikely to come back to haunt the next municipal election as a vote determinant. One of the numerous upsides of heading to the municipal ballot boxes only every four years…
3) A significant and unique opportunity for the new face of Council to shine
Having observed Council from many perspectives over the years (student, resident, dad, former City staffer, community activist) I believe the single biggest obstacle to Ottawa becoming a Great City is a Council for all too often motivated by fear – fear of making a tough decision because of anticipated reaction from constituents, fear of bad media, fear of losing an election. Add into the mix a remarkable lack of collective vision since leadership was shown on the 2001 bylaw to safeguard against the dangers of secondhand smoke, and we continue to celebrate a triumph of mediocrity as opportunity after opportunity passes us by (the appalling ‘development’ of Lebreton Flats as a stunning albeit depressing example).
We are a family of four – two parents with one son and one daughter. We tried out the Green Bin program and the amount of waste we bag for landfill has dropped by a truly remarkable amount. To avoid any mid-summer’s rot we keep a bin in our freezer for meat bones and such that we add to the green bin the morning of collection. Citizen columnist Randall Denley’s fixation on the Plasco solution aside, the Green Bin program not only diminishes the prohibitively costly threat of a new landfill, but makes bi-weekly collection entirely feasible.
Supporting bi-weekly collection is an opportunity for the new face of Council to shine. How?
Here’s the challenge – tally up the biweekly collection savings over a decade or two and sell the idea in the context of something dramatic, wonderful and meaningful the City can do with the savings – feed Ottawa residents with a vision – just like a family does when we all tighten our belts to save for something really meaningful. (… and stash a few bucks in the kitty to pay for much-needed and underfunded infrastructure renewal).
Sincerely,
Bruce Tate
City of Ottawa resident
photo by Rutgers University
3 comments
Finally, we may be moving into the 21st century. If sustainability, cost cutting measures, effective governance of our tax dollars, the future of this planet are some of your concerns, and, given what i heard, what i read and the polling done during the last municipal election – it is what Ottawa residents are concerned with. This is the right thing to do.
My little family of three barely produces enough garbage to warrant weekly pick up. The introduction of the green bin became a teachable moment for my 5 year old son, where we discussed all the things i listed earlier (an early civics class). And, for those worried about jobs – if the city brought in all it’s collection (compost, recycling and garbage) in house and made it truly public and accessible we would be fine, even better off as ample study’s and examples in this country and others around the world have demonstrated. Support your public services, in the end it’s the cheapest thing for our tax dollars.
Most of all, get out to the public consultations and have your voice heard. The City is running them all month.
Agree totally with the writer of this. Hey City council – just get it done – in two months it will be the new normal for everyone and we’ll be saving money and cutting back on landfill. If there *ever* was a no-brainer this has to be it.
Bi-weekly garbage pickup is all about ideology and optics. City council is elected to serve the taxpayer. This is not what the majority of the taxpayers want. Every poll taken to date shows a clear majority (approx 2/3 of those polled) are against bi-weekly pickup. Nobody was complaining about waste pickup services to begin with. This city has far larger concerns to deal with. Time to drop this nonsense and move on.