{"id":16066,"date":"2016-12-14T12:25:56","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16066"},"modified":"2016-12-14T12:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:25:56","slug":"waste-diversion-could-save-money-on-garbage-costs-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/waste-diversion-could-save-money-on-garbage-costs-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Waste diversion could save money on garbage costs: staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Faced with an increase in the cost of waste removal of over half a million dollars come 2018, Councillors say they hope deflecting waste out of the typical garbage channels can help reduce costs overall.
\nResponding to the new 2018 Garbage Contract shared between York Region\u2019s Northern Six (N6) Municipalities, which is expected to get formal approval from Council this week, Councillor Wendy Gaertner questioned whether the increased cost of $503,000 was the result of Aurora\u2019s growth and having more garbage to collect. She questioned whether further efforts to divert waste out of landfills, such as the recently revived backyard composting program, would reap cost benefits.
\n\u201cIt was highly successful and it is still successful,\u201d said Ilmar Simanovskis, Aurora\u2019s Director of Infrastructure. \u201cThe Region was a partner in that initial pilot and we secured a number of new residents last year and we want to continue that program going forward.
\n\u201cSpeaking from Regional Staff, there were a lot of accolades with a number of initiatives and pilots that have been tried throughout the Region, and our compost pilot being one\u2026that was identified. [It was] very successful. If we can get a fairly high percentage of residents using that program, it would result in reduced tonnage which is going to improve our bottom line directly.\u201d
\nThis was a message the Councillor said needs to be communicated because a reduced tonnage of collected garbage will ultimately save taxpayers\u2019 money.
\n\u201cThere is a lot of work that is going on as part of the York Region Municipal Partnership around waste diversion,\u201d said Mr. Simanovskis, responding to Councillor Gaertner\u2019s question on whether provincial legislation to make manufacturers responsible for addressing and collecting their packaging, currently being examined by Queen\u2019s Park, could have an impact on the bottom line as well \u201cThe Region does have a representative on [the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO)] that is lobbying on our behalf to ensure that we, the municipalities, both within York Region as well as Ontario, have fair access to funding because a lot of that program is focused on actually having the full cost recovered for those materials and the industry is of a different opinion as to how that collection program could be delivered.
\n\u201cNeedless to say, it is a complex question and it is being followed closely by the committee that is formed around York Region\u2019s municipalities as well as York Region and any information that comes forward that is beneficial or informative to Council will be brought forward when it is available.\u201d
\nExamining waste diversion programs coming from York, including the Region\u2019s SM4RT initiative, Mayor Geoff Dawe, Aurora\u2019s representative at the Regional table, said the Region has \u201cbeen doing an incredible amount of work on waste collection, on diversion, and getting people to use the green bin process.\u201d
\n\u201cThey have invested heavily in the green bin process,\u201d he said \u201c[This issue] is complex in many ways. One of them is tonnage on recycling is going down because packaging material is getting lighter. We encourage people to use less waste, but we\u2019re paying more for it because it doesn\u2019t weigh as much.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faced with an increase in the cost of waste removal of over half a million dollars come 2018, Councillors say they hope deflecting waste out of the typical garbage channels can help reduce costs overall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4b8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 01:07:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}