Cortes Island is reviewing its practices around solid waste in the hopes of diverting more material away for landfills.
On one front, the Strathcona Regional District is updating how it collects disposal fees on the island from commercial accounts.
The plan, says Area B Director Noba Anderson, is to change the system from a flat fee to a volume-based system with fees set on the waste that users actually make. To do this requires updating the bylaw.
“It’s an antiquated bylaw, it was from 1986,” she said.
The hope is that the change will make the system fairer and save residential users and provide more of an impetus for commercial users to find ways to produce less garbage.
The SRD is also taking a broader look at the whole community. In a recent newsletter, Anderson said residents have access to curbside collection for which they pay a flat fee as well as access to the recycling centre, which is covered by property taxes, yet the volume of waste has been on the increase over the last decade. Staff began to realize this through the process of updating the bylaw and suggested having the community take a look at a user-pay model for Cortes Island as a whole, beyond simply the commercial rates. The result, Anderson said, could be higher taxes or fees if the diversion rates are not improved, though she adds the discussion is only in the beginning stages.
“It is in all of best interest to reduce what goes in the landfill,” Anderson said.
As far as diverting compostable material, too much is typically ending up in the garbage at the Cortes transfer station. As much as half the waste could be organic material, which Anderson has said is the highest level throughout the region. She said a report earlier this year from the Comox Strathcona Waste Management service, which oversees waste and recyclable collection along with diversion and education programs for the Comox and Strathcona regional districts, found Cortes was not composting enough.
“It showed that Cortes had the highest percentage of organics in the waste stream,” she said.
Anderson talked to staff from both regional districts about ways to increase compost diversion figures, the first step likely coming through education and a program to promote composting practices.
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As far as action at the board level, at the last SRD meeting, board members supported a motion Anderson made to amend a refuse and site operation and regulation bylaw to charge $20 per cubic yard for construction and demolition debris. As well, she made a motion that the SRD consult with users of curbside refuse collection service about the option of moving to a volume-based rate for residential users.