Wilmot Township gearing up for new garbage program

Lee Griffi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Residents of Wilmot and Wellesley will have a new waste removal system in March.

Waterloo Region, the municipality responsible for waste management in the township, is switching from the current bag/manual pickup to cart-based collection for garbage and organics. Instead of placing loose bags or bins at the curb for manual collection, residents will use wheeled carts that are lifted and emptied by automated trucks.

Olivia Kwok, the region’s director of waste management, said the current contract is ending and the region’s new program will feature a new and evolved system.

“Cart-based collection is what we are moving forward with. Everyone in the region currently has manual bag-based collection, so that’s someone lifting the garbage bags or the green bins and dumping them in the trucks.”

She said as of March 2, an automated process will take over.

“Carts will hold the waste inside and they will be lifted by a claw or an arm and emptied into the truck. Sometimes you set out your bag at the curb and you may come out the next morning, and there’s a mess after critters got into the bag. This will help reduce that.”

Kwok said the new system will also improve working conditions for the staff of its contracted company.

“It really does help reduce slips, trips and all injuries for staff who are lifting the garbage bags right now. They are lifting almost 800 bags of garbage a day. That’s a lot of wear and tear on their bodies and it’s hard to hire staff to do the work.”

She added there are also negative public perceptions about working in waste management, something Kwok hopes will change with the cart-based system.

The region voted to accept a proposal from Emterra Environmental for program and carts for a period of eight years from March 2 of this year to March 3, 2034, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. The estimated amount of the eight-year deal is $284,691,880 plus taxes. The remaining years are estimated at $32,433,160 before taxes.

The carts are the property of the region, meaning any wear and tear would be covered under warranty. However, if someone permanently damaged a cart, they would be responsible for the replacement cost.

“On the side of the carts, there is an address bar and we ask residents to write their home address on the side,” said Kwok.

“If no address is written in, each cart is also tagged with an identifier and we have registered each one with a property. If we need to reunite carts with their homes, we can scan it and get it back to where it belongs.”

Each residence in Wilmot and Wellesley should have received a black cart for garbage and a green cart for food scraps, along with a kitchen container to hold food waste until it can be transferred to the larger cart. While the region has had this program in place for several years, the new cart is larger and can hold more waste in the hope of diverting food from landfills.

“It’s a weekly collection and a lot of the food scraps, tissues and paper towels. If you put it all in the green bin and it gets picked up weekly, you will end up putting fewer items in the garbage which is collected bi-weekly. If you are sorting your recycling and using your green bin, it really does reduce the amount of garbage that goes into your garbage,” she said.

The region’s bulky item collections are being reduced from every second week to once a month. The Double Garbage Days program, where residents could put out extra garbage after holidays without extra tags, is ending when the new system starts. Recycling, yard waste bags and Christmas tree pickups are not part of this cart rollout and will continue under current rules for now.

Kwok is encouraging residents to download the region’s Waste Whiz app which provides service alerts and specific pickup schedules. Updates are also shared via the Region’s website and social media. More information is available at www.regionofwaterloo.ca/carts.