Can Waste Collection Fees Be a Good News Story?
In lieu of reading the cereal box over breakfast this week, I stared idly at my freshly-arrived utilities statement. Landing more two months later than last year's bill, I was inclined to be cranky. Instead, I was suddenly struck by the value of the waste collection rate.
My total household cost is $385.25 for 2023. This covers the weekly collection of recyclables and compostables and the bi-weekly collection of garbage. That breaks down to $7.40 per week.
Seven bucks and change.
According to the Village website, that allows me to leave out up to a maximum of 154 litres* of trash at every pick-up, which could total as much as 4,000 litres per family every year. PLUS blue box collection, and compost/green waste disposal.
In a world filled with skyrocketing costs these days, this seems like a pretty good deal.
*Admittedly, this figure differs from that on the form distributed with the utilities bills, which indicates a maximum of two 121-litre bins can be put out for each collection. The Watershed, erring on the side of caution, went for the lower volume figure.
Got thoughts you'd like to share about your utility bill? The Watershed cares about your opinion! Leave your comments below, or write editor@lionsbaywatershed.ca
We make a trip to the transfer station once every 4-6 weeks for items that cannot be put into the bins—like broken kettles, bottles, old books, things that cant be fixed but recycled. Perhaps we could coordinate this a bit and cut down on individual trips or at least ensure they are jam packed Trips :)
Thanks for bringing this subject up Karen.
In this year's Utility notice it says "Soft plastics go in regular trash until the regional recycling facility gets the equipment that can handle them".
The Northshore Bottle Depot at 235 Donaghy in North Vancouver accepts soft plastics, Styrofoam, batteries etc..
Soft plastic used to be picked up by our previous Garbage collector. Although it is a bit of an inconvenience, I would encourage people to drop off their soft plastic at the bottle depot which is just behind Walmart, rather than having it go into the landfill with your regular trash.
On the site below it shows all the soft plastics that are accepted.
Recycling | City of North Vancouver (cnv.org)