Waste Collection Discussions Continue for County Council

Thursday, 23 May 2024 11:18

County staff will be putting out a tender to see how much it would cost to run a green bin program in Oxford County.

OXFORD COUNTY - Upcoming changes to waste collection was one of the big topics discussed at the most recent Oxford County Council meeting.

According to provincial legislation, producers of recyclable materials will be responsible for their own collection as of 2026. Oxford County currently handles waste collection for our community, so council will have to figure out how to manage that transition.

Warden Marcus Ryan says this is where the potential for change comes in.

"The next thing we talked about was all of the different ways we could move forward with that. This includes the possibility of a five or a six-day collection cycle, manual collection like it is now or automated collection where a truck picks up the bin and dumps it out, and the possibility of a green bin program for Oxford County."

Council also talked about how the recyclable materials that don't fall under the provincial legislation would be collected and processed.

Warden Ryan explains what was decided yesterday.

"Council gave direction to staff to put out procurement documents to the waste collection industry. Right now we outsource that to a private company, in the City of Woodstock it's the City of Woodstock that does it and in the Township of South-West Oxford the municipality does it. We're putting out tender documents to see how much these things might cost."

Those numbers will be brought back to council for further discussion and debate before final decisions are made.

Council also looked over the results of a six-week public consultation regarding waste collection during this discussion yesterday. Warden Ryan says it had one of the highest rates of engagement that the County has ever had for a public consultation, with lots of people being in favour of a green bin program and against the idea of using clear garbage bags.