A Maple Ridge resident is appealing to council to switch to a single municipal collection system for garbage and green waste.
Currently, curbside garbage in the district is picked up by four private companies, which, depending who individual home owners sign up with, charge $144 to $174 yearly for one can a week.
The Ridge Meadows Recycling Society, in partnership with the district, provides weekly curbside pickup with its blue box and multi-bag sort system.
In question, under this dual model, is whether too many recyclable materials are still making their way into the waste stream, ending up in land fills and contributing to climate change.
Most other Lower Mainland municipalities have their own single collection system, including Pitt Meadows, which also takes organics.
Maple Ridge does not, yet.
About a third of Maple Ridge residents don’t have any garbage pickup. We assume they take it to the Albion transfer station, paying at least $10 a trip.
A staff report from July estimates that, under a municipally operated system, the combined garbage and recycling collection costs would be $275 to $350 a year.
Also in July, council rejected the idea of even looking at one system, unanimously defeating a motion to hire a consultant to report such possibilities.
But an open-ended question asked in the annual citizen surveys found 41 per cent of respondents want municipal garbage pickup.
Metro Vancouver is requiring all its member municipalities to pick up green waste and kitchen scraps by 2015 as part of its goal to divert 70 per cent of waste from the garbage dump system, so Maple Ridge will get there.
But if there is a better, cheaper, cleaner more efficient way of collecting all our waste, there’s no harm in looking at that.
– Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News