previously been asked by council<\/a> to investigate options to find ways to include the IC&I sector, which were presented to county council Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019ve gone ahead and done a fair bit of homework and provided this report,\u201d said Rob McCullough, the county\u2019s director of solid waste management. \u201cWe thought it would be prudent to walk through the options\u00a0and explain why we landed on the recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blue-box regulations clearly define which properties qualify for curbside collection and which do not, Laura Barrett, the county\u2019s manager of collections, told councillors during a brief presentation.<\/p>\n
Residential properties remain eligible, along with multi-residential buildings, schools\u00a0and long-term care homes that were already part of the county\u2019s program.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, this leaves out the industrial, commercial and institutional properties,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Although the county was never required to service IC&I sites, Barrett noted it had historically made sense to pick them up when trucks were already travelling those routes to collect from nearby homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the IC&I properties were putting it out at the same limits as a residential unit\u00a0then we collected it,\u201d said Barrett.<\/p>\n
Of the approximately 5,600 IC&I properties in the region, there were approximately 2,100 being serviced by the county prior to 2026.<\/p>\n
Once the province signalled that legislative changes were coming, staff made several attempts to persuade officials to reconsider, she said, but those efforts ultimately went nowhere.<\/p>\n
Staff\u2019s recommendation was simply to maintain the status quo, Barrett told county council, however they will continue to advocate to the province to make changes to the legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to believe that the producers should be responsible for that pop can that was disposed of at home versus at a business,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same pop can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although staff understand the option may not address immediate concerns, Barrett said legislation has been passed that could be implemented to require producers to allow an option for producers to collect on behalf of the municipality.<\/p>\n
As of now, however, not much information is available on that legislation, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know how that is going to be interpreted, but we do think it is probably a little bit of a glimmer of hope there that maybe there is some movement,” Barrett said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the recommended option \u2014 which is maintaining the status quo while continuing to press the province to include small generator IC&I material in the blue-box system \u2014 county councillors were presented with several alternative approaches.\u00a0However, Barrett said proceeding with anything but the recommended option would require all taxpayers to subsidize the cost of recycling service just for the IC&I sector.<\/p>\n
Those options included:<\/p>\n
\n\tprovide a separate county service for the curbside collection of recycling to IC&I properties;
\n\tprovide 20 kilograms\u00a0of free recycling drop-off, bi-weekly, for approximately 5,800 IC&I properties;
\n\tprovide 20 kilograms of free recycling drop-off, biweekly, for approximately 640 non-profit IC&I locations;
\n\tprovide a financial subsidy to help offset the cost of private recycling services for approximately 5,800 IC&I properties;
\n\tprovide a financial subsidy to help offset the cost of private recycling services for approximately 640 nonprofit IC&I locations.
<\/p>\n
Midland Mayor Bill Gordon called the decision a \u201chead-versus-heart\u201d one for many councillors, adding that although his heart pointed him toward\u00a0the options that would provide assistance to local nonprofits, his head was directing him to support the staff recommendation as the \u201cresponsible option.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t our monkey and it\u2019s not our circus anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were stripped of this. We did a fantastic job for decades, and everybody recognizes that. They know exactly where the problems are coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon said he was uncomfortable with the idea of raising the levy on all ratepayers to cover a service the IC&I sector would receive alone \u2014 particularly\u00a0when residents are already paying provincial taxes for that very system to be delivered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stay in our swim lane,\u201d he said. \u201cMy heart wants to help out the nonprofits specifically. Not that I have any axe to grind with IC&I \u2014 they are critical to our economy \u2014 but if I was going to put tax money on to this to make the government look good in this hour of not looking good it would be for the nonprofits. I need to lead with my head on this, which is to side with staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiny\u00a0Mayor David Evans said that while it had been convenient for the IC&I sector to receive service in the past, the decision ultimately comes down to dollars and cents.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us to try to be all things to all people just is never going to work \u2026 especially when we don\u2019t get any money for it. Garbage to me is a user-pay system. It\u2019s no different than water or any other municipal service,\u201d he said. \u201cI am not willing to put that added burden on all of the taxpayers for something that only affects a small minority of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oro-Medonte Mayor Randy Greenlaw\u00a0agreed, adding that supporting anything but option one would be sending the wrong message to the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is provincial downloading in a different disguise,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to stay in our lane on this one. This is no different than the OPP download to municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradford West Gwillimbury Mayor James Leduc was of a different opinion, saying he preferred the option that would offer a recycling subsidy for local nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe subsidy is not a lot. It\u2019s $52. To me, that\u2019s not a huge number. We are talking about churches, legions, food banks. Things that give out to our community all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cTo subsidize this \u2026 and take these 640 units, help them out, that money goes right back into our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked why Circular Materials doesn\u2019t include IC&I in the program, staff said it basically comes down to trying to save money.<\/p>\n
That requirement, said McCullough, was not built into the legislation by the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, we went beyond our mandate. It continues to make all the sense in the world because it made sense to continue to collect small quantity IC&I,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have been partially successful with some of our lobbying efforts, but at this point the province has been unwilling to look at IC&I, thinking each business should provide for their own methods of recycling,”\u00a0McCullough added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘This is provincial downloading in a different disguise,’ Oro-Medonte mayor says during discussion around industrial, commercial and institutional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[200730,98057,49,48,10511,200729,295,66],"class_list":["post-502675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-and-institutional-recycling","tag-cchanges-to-recyling-programindustrial","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-commercial","tag-county-of-simcoe-councilrecylingcircular-materials-ontarioi","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}