City Council Endorses Waste Management Plan To Improve Cleanliness Throughout Peterborough

City Council has endorsed an initiative to improve the cleanliness of parks, streets, the downtown core, and other public spaces through a coordinated program of waste management, public education, compliance and enforcement at its meeting on Monday night.

Photo by David Tuan Bui.

The initiative will include actions such as:

  • Increasing the bi-weekly bag limit to eight bags from the current limit of four bags for residential collection areas, until Dec. 31, 2027

  • A communication and engagement campaign

  • A targeted surveillance camera pilot at selected parks and public space locations

  • Improvements to the public reporting process for illegal dumping and improper waste set-out

  • Targeted outreach to landlords, property managers, the DBIA, and multi-residential properties to support collection education

  • Removing the fee for Large Article Collection

  • Reducing the fee for a green bin cart from the current rate of $88.49 per unit to $35.40 per unit

  • Resuming enforcement activities that had been paused for unattributed/orphaned garbage on boulevards within the area bounded by and including Park Street, McDonnel Street, Water Street and Sherbrooke Street

  • Requesting that Canadian Pacific railway respond to and action the request from the City to remove all waste material from their corridors and implement a report and response program for timely cleaning response

According to the City, the goal of the review that led to the recommendations was to identify strategies to reduce friction within the waste management system and to make the movement of waste from the city's homes and businesses as simple as possible, thereby anticipating a reduction in inappropriate waste-disposal behaviours.

The City says a complication of this goal is that the blue bin program is now operated by the province. They continue to state that, without direct control, and as much as blue bin and recycling collection are important parts of the overall service, issues with service levels and consistency are beyond the staff’s control.

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