Richmond Hill moves to provide more recycling bins across town

Yorkregion.com
July 5, 2016
By Kim Zarzour

Richmond Hill residents will soon see new service levels for waste collection after a vote by councillors last week, with recycling bins added to downtown areas, beside some super mailboxes and at parks in Richmond Hill.

Any move towards automated waste collection, however, has been postponed until the province’s new Waste-Free Ontario Act - which could impact all municipalities - is implemented.
Over the next few years, recycling collectors will be added to downtown core street containers, super mailbox locations (by request) and the town’s larger parks.

Earlier this year, the town undertook a public consultation to find out what residents think about current waste collection with three open houses, focus groups and an online survey (that garnered 493 responses).

The majority of those consulted expressed overall satisfaction with current waste collection services, according to a staff report. Those who weren’t happy mentioned frequent breakage of blue boxes/green bins and missed collection of material.

The report also provided results of a pilot project, undertaken in 2013 in response to neighbourhood litter concerns, to collect recycling on a weekly basis from 92 of the existing 1,300 super mailbox locations in Richmond Hill.

The containers were well-used, the report said, and vandalism was minimal.

The majority of residents polled said they believe recycling at super mailboxes would be a valuable service, but after they learned about the cost of the program and impact on property taxes, that level of support dropped, according to the report.

Most GTA municipalities do not offer this service - just the City of Markham provides recycle bins at all super mailboxes and Brampton provides it on request, which is what Richmond Hill councillors agreed to do at last Monday’s council meeting.

Since the start of the pilot program in 2013, the town has had 100 such requests for additional recycle bins from residents. If those 100 containers were to be installed, in addition to the existing locations, the annual collection cost impact would be $22,000 per year, the staff report said.

Town parks will also get recycling services starting in 2018.

Currently, the town provides year-round garbage collection in all town parks - daily in destination parks in the summer, community parks twice a week and others once a week. Service is reduced during the winter to once a week for all and most containers are moved to park entrances and removed from sports fields.

In 2013, the town initiated a pilot project to collect recycling and organics in seven parks. The pilot found the recycle containers were most used at destination and community parks, especially around athletic fields and entrances.

Over the next few years the town will install recycling containers in 24 large community parks and four “destination” parks. Two-stream containers will be placed in the park areas that are used year round and seasonal containers will be placed near sports fields and other areas used predominantly during the warmer months at an additional operating costs of $145,000 per year.

Council also directed staff to begin negotiations for a new waste management collection contract with the current vendor (Miller Waste Systems Inc.) and report back on the results of those negotiations. If an agreement cannot be made by Dec. 16, staff will proceed with a competitive procurement process.