Sarnia considers green bins, reducing garbage collection frequency

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The City of Sarnia is reevaluating what it does with resident’s waste.

Presently, the city is developing a waste master plan, which hopes to reduce the amount of trash going to landfills, and the introduction of green bins and organics collection.

Currently the city has a waste diversion rate of 36 per cent, which sees things that would otherwise end up in landfills be diverted to recycling and other alternative streams.

“Landfill capacity in the province is decreasing, and we need to start diverting more waste from landfill, not only to alleviate that demand and meet legislative requirements, but also to offset the environmental impacts of solid waste and landfills. As we work to meet these requirements it is crucial we realize any efficiency we can to offset the cost, so we’re looking to our residents for their input on how our waste collection system will look in the future,” said General Manager of Engineering and Operations David Jackson.

The city is currently considering things like optimizing garbage collection routes, switching garbage pickup to bi-weekly, and introducing standard rolling bins to make collection more efficient.

The city is currently looking for feedback on these considerations, and they have a survey open until October 22. There will also be an open house coming up this week, October 9.