Clear garbage bag policy sparks uproar in Dufferin County

By Rachel Mendleson Toronto Star May 16 2013

Council meetings in placid Dufferin County are generally tame affairs, absent of the raised voices and name-calling that sometimes cast a pall over proceedings in bigger urban centres like Toronto.

But emotions reached a fever pitch at a county council meeting last week, where about 70 protesters gathered outside the Orangeville, Ont., courthouse to rail against what they see as a fundamental violation of privacy. Inside, during the meeting, hecklers became so unruly that police were nearly called.

The source of discontent: A bylaw requiring residents to dispose of their garbage in clear plastic bags.

“There were a lot of bad feelings, a lot of people screaming at councillors,” said Darren White, deputy mayor of Melancthon Township, who sits on the committee that proposed the bylaw. “I was called everything from a ‘Garbage Nazi’ to a Communist. It was pretty intense.”

According to White, the bylaw, which is slated to come into effect June 1, is an attempt to streamline garbage disposal across the eight municipalities that make up the county, about half of which already require residents to use clear bags. It’s also a bid to improve recycling practices, and divert more waste away from landfills, he said.

When it was approved late last year, the bylaw included provisions for one small “privacy bag” per clear bag to conceal sensitive items, such as medical supplies and financial records. And, as always, residents could also secure their trash in a bin.

A similar policy is currently being implemented in Markham.

But some Dufferin Country residents are outraged, maintaining they weren’t given enough time to weigh in on the proposal.

“People are sensitive about their garbage. It is a very private issue for some people,” said resident Sofie Weber, who founded a Facebook group called “Say No!!! to Clear Bags!!!”

Much of the discontent is centred in Orangeville, where Mayor Rob Adams said he has received hundreds of emails and phone calls from upset residents in recent months. Privacy is just one of their concerns.

“People already have large supplies of the black garbage bags . . . Now, they don’t know what to do with those and have to go and buy clear bags,” he said. “Residents didn’t want to drive down the street looking at everyone else’s garbage.”

Although Adams voted in favour of the bylaw, he said the uproar necessitated taking another look. At the council meeting on Thursday, he proposed several successful amendments to the bylaw, which include increasing the size of privacy bags and the number to two per clear bag. Residents can also apply to have that limit increased.

“What we arrived at with the amendments I made is not (Darren White’s) way, and it’s not what the residents wanted, it’s a compromise in between,” Adams said.

But White said the changes have had the effect of taking one step forward and two giant steps back.

“Now, instead of having an environmentally decent program, where you could see what’s going in (the garbage), you have enough privacy bags to cancel that whole arrangement,” White said. “Some pretty boneheaded decisions were made in haste.”