BONNYVILLE – A quarterly report on Waste Services in the MD of Bonnyville was packed full of new trends, municipal agreements and new provincial regulations around recycling management.
Out of seven MD of Bonnyville landfills, six have seen an increase in visitors dropping off waste, Brad Ollen, the manager of Waste Services, told the MD council on Nov. 23.
Breaking down the numbers, Ollen reported that the Ardmore, Fort Kent, Goodridge, Hilda Lake and La Corey landfills saw between a 5.2 to a 20.6 per cent increase in users.
The Muriel Lake landfill saw a massive jump in usage from July to September, recording a 66.2 per cent increase in residents dropping off their household waste.
The Therien landfill was the only facility to see a dip in users, recording a 7.3 per cent drop.
A total of 11,842 people used MD landfills from July to September.
Ollen also noted that in June the municipality started a Landfill Visitor Tracking program.
Landfill operators recorded which municipality visitors said they were from to get a sense of how many residents from the City of Cold Lake and Town of Bonnyville were using the MD’s landfills. The study is now half complete.
“We are tracking data to report back to the Waste Reduction Committee at year's end with a percentage of users who are not MD taxpayers,” said Ollen.
Responding to a question from Coun. Don Slipchuk inquiring into the results of the study so far, Ollen acknowledged that through the self-reporting system, “Not that many people are admitting to [being external users].”
A slight correlation may be found in the lines of the Town of Bonnyville’s 2022 revenues-to-date presented on Dec. 6.
The Town’s general manager of Corporate Services Renee Stoyles noted, during a Budget Open House question and answer period, that one of the biggest drops to the Town’s revenue stream seen in 2022 was revenue generated from its transfer station based on annual waste tonnage.
The impact of non-MD users taking advantage of the municipality’s waste disposal facilities is likely to grow as prices for hauling have increased.
“A new waste hauling contract began July 1 and as such, our hauling fees went from $36.05 per tonne up to $50.49 per tonne. This will represent a $46,000 increase per year based on our annual tonnage of 3200 tonnes for the year,” outlined Ollen.
Cold Lake Landfill Access Cards available to MD residents
A new inter-municipal agreement was reached by the MD’s Waste Services department and its City of Cold Lake partners.
"In Quarter 3, administration continued working with the City of Cold Lake to develop a charge account so MD residents can drop off their bagged household waste and recyclables at the City of Cold Lake landfill,” Ollen told council.
As of Nov. 1, all MD property owners are able to register for a Cold Lake Landfill Access Card, allowing them the ability to dispose household waste at the landfill at no charge.
“Now residents are able to register for this program through the MD administration office as a waste utility account,” he added.
EPR program could help Alberta municipalities save
Before Ollen concluded his report to council, he noted changes to provincial legislation that may offer financial relief to municipalities that have been covering the cost of recycling programs and disposing residential waste.
“Lastly, but maybe most importantly, the government of Alberta signed an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Order in Council,” said Ollen.
The purpose of an EPR is to shift the physical and financial burden of collection, sorting, processing and the recycling of materials away from municipalities and taxpayers and placing the responsibility onto the producers of the materials to manage products at their end of life.
Alberta is the last province to pass EPR legislation.
Bill 83, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Amendment Act, was officially passed in the Alberta Legislature on Nov. 25, 2021. However, critics claimed the bill was significantly lacking.
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It wasn’t until Oct. 3 of this year that the details of how an EPR system would roll out and an implementation timeline were included into the bill as an Order in Council. As such, the EPR regulations added to Bill 83 were not debated on the legislature floor.
Alberta’s EPR system is expected to be fully operational by the spring of 2025.
“What would this EPR programming mean for us? The answer is we will likely continue operating our recycling collection system as we do currently,” said Ollen. “The benefit to us though, is we will likely be compensated by the Producer Responsibility Organization, which will be known as the PRO for the collection of materials and the usage of our collection equipment.”
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