Following an almost two-hour debate on a proposed clear garbage bag mandate, a divided city council ended up deciding against taking a stand during tonight’s city council meeting.
The resolution which capped their lengthy debate read that the city’s Sustainable Waste Strategy be adopted, subject to “the clear garbage bag recommendation be considered as a lower priority and not commencing until receipt of further direction from council.”
The timeline for this future decision point was left undefined.
Under the plan city council debated during tonight’s meeting, a clear garbage bag mandate would have taken effect next year, likely in a phased-in approach.
Although a clear garbage bag mandate is only one of 18 recommendations in the city’s Sustainable Waste Strategy, it has received the lion’s share of city council’s time.
Clear garbage bag mandates are just that; a requirement that all users of Greater Sudbury’s landfills and curbside refuse pickup programs put their garbage into clear bags.
This way, garbage collectors and staff at the landfill sites can see inside bags to monitor their contents for organics waste and recyclable materials which shouldn’t be there.
It’s a waste diversion program that essentially forces people to recycle and compost organics.
As explained by Dillon Consulting project manager Betsy Varghese and city Environmental Services director Renee Brownlee, it would be up to city council to determine the threshold for improperly placed material, as well as what the educational process and penalties would be.
The ultimate penalty would likely be that garbage bags with too much organic material and/or recyclables would be left at the curbside.
The clear garbage bag program was projected to be the most effective of the Sustainable Waste Strategy’s 18 recommendations, as it has proven effective virtually everywhere it has been tried, with more than 30 Ontario municipalities already employing a clear garbage bag mandate.
All 18 recommendations are projected to reduce the amount of landfill waste residents create by 16 per cent, of which approximately half is attributable to clear garbage bags.
That said, Brownlee clarified that clear garbage bags would be a “community program.”
In addition to individual households, the mandate would also affect apartment buildings and the non-residential sector.
This is a point Brownlee clarified late into the meeting, after a few members of city council lambasted clear garbage bags for “going back to the same well, the residents, and asking them to do better,” as Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc put it.
The Ward 11 councillor also called a clear garbage bag mandate “a slap in the face.”
Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti cited privacy concerns, Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbee said “let’s leave well enough alone,” and expressed concern that residents would lash out against staff and city council members.
“I’m not prepared to be inundated with all those phone calls and complaints,” she said.
Ward 4 Coun. Pauline Fortin said a clear garbage bag mandate “is a big ask,” and recommended that other actions be taken to encourage green cart and blue bin use other than this “drastic, drastic change.”
Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent also called the shift “drastic,” and argued that the city might not have the capacity to take on more organic waste.
“We are greatly inconveniencing a portion of our population for three years’ benefit 25 years from now,” Ward 2 Coun. Eric Benoit said, citing a conservative three-year landfill lifespan expansion the effort is estimated to bring.
(Sudbury’s landfill sites currently have 25 years left in them unless the city takes actions to divert waste, such as what the Sustainable Waste Strategy outlines, and a replacement facility would cost approximately $200 million to build.)
On the other side of the argument, Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh said she doesn’t understand the opposition.
Her household has used clear garbage bags for years, and there’s no privacy concern because the bags are put in an opaque bin at the base of their driveway. The proposed program also has allowances for smaller opaque privacy bags within the main clear bag for sensitive items.
As for the notion that clear garbage bag mandates are “drastic,” she noted that 95 per cent of households are already using blue boxes and 46 per cent are using green carts.
“I would suggest that we are not asking residents to do more, we are asking them to do what almost half of households are already doing,” she said.
“The only difference with this plan is that we’ll now be asking households to change the colour of their garbage bag to encourage more diversion.”
Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer was also perplexed by the debate, arguing that all residents are being asked that they place garbage in the correct one of three containers, between garbage, recyclables and organics.
“We’re not asking people to, I don’t know, give up their first born, we’re just asking people to separate garbage at the source,” he said.
The hope, Brownlee clarified, is that by implementing a clear garbage bag mandate residents will get into the habit of separating garbage now, before an automated cart system comes into play as early as 2028 or 2029, when the current collection contract expires.
When an automated garbage collection system comes into play, there will no longer be a person manually picking up bags, so it won’t be as easy to spot incorrectly sorted bags at the curbside.
The current residential waste diversion rate sits at around 47 per cent, and has been stagnating at this level in recent years.
Tuesday’s resolution to classify clear garbage bags as a low priority to be put on pause until such time as staff receive further direction from city council, received unanimous support.
It was tabled by Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre, and was more a symbolic gesture than anything.
Regardless of the resolution, none of the 18 recommendations will be acted upon until such time as city council members vote on them during upcoming budget deliberations, including the clear garbage bag mandate.
Although all 18 are approved in principle, including the clear garbage bag mandate (albeit, now classified as a “lower priority”), none will see the light of day until city council gives them a final OK.
City Growth and Infrastructure general manager Tony Cecutti said the recommendations would come up during 2025 budget deliberations slated to take place later this year.
The total 2025 budget impact to begin implementing the 18 recommendations according to the Sustainable Waste Strategy’s 10-year timeline is $505,000, of which $70,000 is toward the clear garbage bag program.
The second-most effective of the 18 recommendations, which carries a four-per-cent additional waste diversion impact, is adding organics collection to apartment buildings and the non-residential sector.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
