Committee backs cutting calendar for garbage collection

A city council committee gave unanimous but cautious support to eliminating the printed trash and recycling collection calendar distributed to Saskatoon homes.

Members of the environment, utilities and corporate services committee voted Monday to recommend city council approve discontinuing the printing and mailing of the trash collection calendar in 2019 to save about $85,000.

Coun. Mairin Loewen asked about the possibility of retaining some printed copies, even if they are not mailed out to every household.

“I think I would be a little nervous of having no print copies,” Loewen said.

A city report on the move says the calendars would still be available online, and notes that copies could be printed and displayed at city facilities. Loewen got support for instructing city staff to explore some non-digital options, even though she said moving to a digital version is “quite logical.”

Monday’s committee meeting heard printing calendars with relevant information for the entire city would be difficult since there are 36 different areas for trash collection.

City-operated recreation centres have access to printers, and libraries could be another option for residents to print copies of the calendars, the committee heard.

The committee also endorsed eliminating the extra post-Christmas trash collection service to save $25,000. Coun. Troy Davies voted against that measure.

Davies asked whether the extra trash collection could be replaced with an extra recycling collection run, since most of what people discard after Christmas is material that could be recycled.

An extra recycling collection would not be possible without opening up the existing contract with Loraas to provide curbside recycling collection for single-family homes, the committee heard.

“Just to take (the extra post-Christmas collection) away is something that’s just not going to fly with the people I represent right now,” Davies said.

Loewen expressed interest in the idea of swapping out the extra garbage collection for an extra recycling collection, noting it could help the city with its ambitious goals to divert more material from the landfill. “Even though it may not be a financial savings up front, I would be interested in pursuing that,” she said.