From My Bottom Step

London’s recycling program is poised to expand on Dec. 1. That’s when residents will at long last be allowed to divert more things from the landfill.

Drinking boxes (from soups, juices or wine) and milk and juice cartons will have their paper fibres recycled into things like paper towels, tissues, and cereal boxboard.

It’s taken a long time to get this far. Many would say that it’s taken too long and that it’s not enough. And I’m one of them.

London’s W12A landfill has already received about 6,250,000 tonnes of waste since it opened in 1977. It’s a finite resource that area taxpayers are extremely fortunate to have.

According to this past week’s report by Pat McNally (Acting General Manager of Environmental & Engineering Services & City Engineer), Ontario municipalities that have to truck away their waste because they don’t have their own landfill pay significantly more.

Even if you factor in capital replacement costs, Londoners are only paying about $30/tonne to landfill their trash. Compare that to the figures in the table on the right.

Now, consider the fact that our landfill is only expected to last for another 15 years. And consider that to be a fairly optimistic estimate, since the city has begun accepting more commercial waste in recent years because of the tipping fees that can be collected.

Is it any wonder then that ETC recommended going even further than the modest proposals put to it by staff at last week’s meeting? Every extra year that we can get out of our landfill will save taxpayers about $10M. And that’s at today’s dollars.

Who knows what disposal costs may be 15 years from now?

That’s why the city should move as quickly as possible to implement new diversion programs like green bins for household table scraps and reduction of trash pickup to once every 2 weeks and limiting the number of garbage bags that can be picked up for “free.”