Quesnel residents will soon get a look at a comprehensive review of waste management in the city.
Mayor Bob Simpson, speaking ahead of waste reduction week which is scheduled for next week, says the review has been completed but there is still some work to do before it goes to Council…
“The technical review by the company that we hired is completed. Council now has to meet and go through the business aspects of that. There is government to government relationships, there is contract implications, and union implications, in any kind of rethinking that we’re dong about that, so the first pass is Council must work with staff and the consultants in confidence, as required by the law, and then eventually I would imagine sometime in early November.”
Simpson says they will then be engaging the community in what he calls a very serious conversation on two fronts…
“One, how far down the continuum on zero waste does the community want to see Council go, and the second questions will be how do we all engage in a process of actually just simply reducing the waste that we produce and in particular organic waste, so food waste and other materials that digest in the landfill and create methane gas.”
Simpson says ultimately, if people do not reduce the amount of waste that they create, they will be paying a lot more in fees and services, scale fees, and charges for recycling, in the future.
He says the timing to make changes is good as all of the contracts that they currently have at the landfill come due for renewal in 2020.