Another observation when it…

Another observation when it comes to organics pick up. This one is more anecdotal but I'm sure it rings true elsewhere. In Ottawa the organics bin (green bin) is picked up weekly and garbage is picked up bi weekly. Residents are only allotted to have 2 bags of garbage per garbage pick up. Two bags are more than enough should they use their green bin. The problem is that people aren't changing their habits and still throwing everything in the garbage resulting in more than 2 bags per garbage pick up. At first garbage trucks left them behind but when City Councillors started receiving complaints from their constituents they pressured the City to pick up as many bags as were placed out on garbage day. This defeated the purpose of setting waste diversion targets.
It also meant that Orgaworld, the City's organics waste contractor was not being provided with enough organics to make their business viable. They City contractually agreed on 100,000 tons per year but is only receiving around 65,000-70,000 forcing the City to pay steep penalties. People than read about these penalties in the local newspaper, get angry about their tax dollar being spent this way and consider organics collection a failure.
Maybe this is more of a City issue than a provincial issue but I still feel it is worth noting.

[Original Comment ID: 211620]