At the January 11, 2018 City…

At the January 11, 2018 City Council directed Staff to report its comments on the proposed Food and Organic Waste Frameworks. Below are comments from the City of Woodstock.
It should be noted that the framework states specifically that these requirements fall on the lower or single tiered municipalities. The City of Woodstock is the only community in the County to meet the requirements for this legislation to apply. Currently the County of Oxford is responsible for all garbage and recycling collection. Putting the onus for organic collection on the lower tier, in our case, separates garbage and recycling collection from organic collection. This will results in efficiencies of curbside collection of organics being lost and create a more cumbersome and expensive system.
The policy also talks about impacts on multi-residential buildings. Since the Ontario Building Code and bylaw enforcement is generally implemented and enforced at the municipal level, any changes here may also affect city policies in regards to building permit approvals, site plan approvals and bylaw enforcement. It is also unclear how enforcement after building would occur in order to ensure that the organics are collected separately from the garbage. The framework does not speak to how operational enforcement would occur or to what level of government it would fall.
The province is also proposing to develop best management practices to improve separation of materials at public waste receptacles. Again, depending on what is ultimately passed, this may affect city practices regarding waste receptacles in parks, along street downtown and in public building requiring replacement of existing baskets and change in operations.
The policy also proposes to prohibit landfills from accepting garbage with organic material mixed in. Although the landfill is under County jurisdiction and operation, this would affect the city since a county wide bylaw requiring use of clear garbage bags would be needed. Adoption of such a bylaw and enforcement details would need to be negotiated with the county.
Why the regulation is limited to populations greater than 20,000? While there is some sense to not including rural territory, we do not understand why the regulation would impact the City and not other small communities. The cost of delivering this service is not insignificant and the result will be an imbalance in the tax burden for the City compared with other small communities.
There needs to a review of food and organic waste processing capacity. The City should be given assurances that there is a cost effective and local processing capacity for any food and organic material collected. Currently, the City must drive material to London or Guelph for processing facilities.
The City investigated introducing an organic program a couple of years ago. At the time, based on discussions with contractors, the estimated cost for a curbside organics collection program was approximately $1,000,000. This is a very large burden on a city with a population of 41,000. As such the City requests that if the Provincial Government provide funding to support municipalities in the implementation of any food and organic waste legislation.

[Original Comment ID: 211987]