Barrie councillors send idea back to staff

It didn’t pass the smell test, to be frank.

Barrie councillors aren’t ready for a plan to allow residents to dispose of two clear bags of diapers per week as part of changes to the city’s waste collection service. Each bag of diapers could weight no more than 20 kilograms, or about 44 pounds.

Instead, the plan was sent back to city staff Monday to be revised.

“We just started the every other week program,” said Coun. Michael Prowse. “We don’t even know what we don’t know yet. To add another ad hoc to this. . .

“We’ve got other issues besides diapers.”

Mayor Jeff Lehman said measures like seasonal pickup of diapers and even subsidizing private cloth diaper firms should be considered.

“I think we do need a solution for diapers,” he said.

Disposing of pet waste would continue to be part of regular curbside garbage collection.

Barrie changed from weekly to bi-weekly garbage pickup in early 2015, and there were concerns how this would work when the weather gets warmer – especially in spring and summer – for diapers and pet waste.

About 750 tonnes of diapers are estimated to enter the city landfill annually.

With the diaper disposal plan, it’s assumed residents would dispose of one week’s worth of diapers at the curb, and that 25% of residents would take a bag to the landfill on the off-weeks, for free.

“Expecting people to drive a bag of dirty diapers up to the landfill isn’t going to happen,” Lehman said.

Processing diapers as part of the organics stream was considered by city staff, but it requires specialized equipment to remove the plastic liners and other non-organic materials. Only three companies in Ontario do that.

AllTreat, which is Barrie’s organics processor, doesn’t accept diapers.

City staff also say processing diapers as part of an organics diversion program, instead of landfilling them, is not only expensive but still produces a considerable amount of waste.

As for pet waste, only the same three Ontario companies accept it, and AllTreat does not.

A parasite in cat faeces is also a potential health problem for processors.

An organics diversion pilot program for Barrie’s multi-residential units would begin in October and continue to the end of 2016, when it would be evaluated.

There are 272 multi-residential complexes in Barrie, and nine would be involved in the pilot project. This carries an $81,000 price tag for a quarter of this year, $165,000 for 2016.

If this program is implemented on a full-year basis, at all the complexes, it carries a $400,000 price tag.

The multi-residential sector is currently allowed two bags of garbage per unit, per week, but doesn’t have a source separated organics diversion program.

Implementing one in Barrie would increase waste diversion from the landfill by 2.8% a year.