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Waste commission finds innovative revenue sources

The Westlock Regional Waste Management Commission is looking at innovative ways to bring in revenue and encourage recycling without hammering users with more fees or cutting services.
The Westlock Regional Landfill’s new recycle baler can bale hundreds of cans, containers, and paper in hours, rather than days. The equipment is just one way the waste
The Westlock Regional Landfill’s new recycle baler can bale hundreds of cans, containers, and paper in hours, rather than days. The equipment is just one way the waste commission is looking at raising revenue and reducing waste to the landfill.

The Westlock Regional Waste Management Commission is looking at innovative ways to bring in revenue and encourage recycling without hammering users with more fees or cutting services.

Although the commission will be raising residential waste tippage fees by $2 to $67 a tonne effective Jan. 1, it has also made slight reductions to sorted materials to incentivize recycling and composting. No changes were made to the $85/tonne commercial tipping fee.

“Our true costs are $80 a tonne,” said commission manager Tom Moore. “When we actually calculate what we need in order for equipment replacement, cell replacement and all that kind of stuff, the true cost is closer to $80 a tonne….People can’t afford to pay that right now and to municipalities that would be a huge hit.”

Moore explained that the rate increase came about due to rising costs for operating the landfill, and also so the commission could put aside money into capital reserves. He pointed out that replacing the landfill packer would cost $650,000 for a new one, and at nearly 10 years of age it was way beyond its life expectancy.

“Managing landfills is not like the old days where you had a hole and you pushed your garbage in and burned it,” he said. “It costs a lot of money. I have to pay almost $15,000 a year in groundwater testing. There’s a lot of fixed costs associated to a landfill.”

At the Westlock Regional Landfill, the new cell — or landfill section — dug two years ago cost $320,000. Usually a cell lasts about five years before it is full and a new one has to be dug. Moore said if they could find ways to stretch the current cell to six or more years that would save on expenses.

“Part of my job is to try and find alternative methods to make our cell last longer so we don’t have to dig so often — that helps a little bit, not a lot — as well as look at other revenue sources,” he continued.

The new fee schedule is one of those methods. The latest fee schedule is more detailed than the previous one and features additional incentives for recyclable materials.

“The main goal there is to try to encourage people to recycle more and divert more and landfill less,” Moore noted.

As of Jan. 1, recycle material that is sorted, such as cardboard, plastic, paper, and electronics, will be reduced by $10 from $65 a tonne to $55.

Sorted concrete and asphalt will be $25 a tonne with a $5 minimum fee for loads up to 200 kilograms.

The fee for sorted metal will be set at $67/tonne. The minimum fee is $5 for loads up to 75 kg.

Clean compost will cost $45/tonne and a $5 minimum fee for loads up to 100 kg. Waste, plastic bags, food waste and animal waste are not accepted.

“It’s less than landfilling to help encourage people to divert it away from the landfill,” Moore said.

Double tipping fees will be charged for loads with more than 25-per-cent recycle materials dumped in the landfill.

A $150-an-hour clean up fee will be charged to those caught dumping loads inappropriately or illegally on top of double tipping fees.

Contaminated soil disposal was also added to the fee schedule, although Moore said there wasn’t a huge demand at the moment.

“Let’s say a truck wrecked out here and they spilled a little bit of oil in the ground, that dirt has to go somewhere, so we set up a fee structure for that which we didn’t have before,” he said.

The soil must not be classified as hazardous material under Alberta Environment legislation and regulations, and lab tests are required prior to approval for disposal.

Clean soils, which can include wood chips, are $10/tonne.

Besides the new rates, the waste commission recently put in a used recycle baler at the landfill to bale cardboard and paper and offset some operating costs.

The baler arrived in July but couldn’t be used until the building it would be housed in was remodelled. The baler went into operation the middle of November.

“We used to hand tie cardboard, for example, and so it would take a couple of days to hand tie even just a tonne of cardboard,” Moore said. “Now they can bale a tonne of cardboard in about 45 minutes and now we can handle higher volumes. If businesses want to send us their cardboard instead of sending it off, we can handle it a whole lot easier than what we used to.”

The baler was paid for with a $250,000 grant but with only about half spent, the remaining grant money will go towards a new transfer station at the landfill.

The waste commission is also looking at implementing credit card payments for users. However, the landfill has issues with the Internet so Moore hoped to get a reliable connection and have the policy in place by Jan. 1.

“The companies that come in to do a small job, they have a couple loads, and instead of having to set up an account they can just pay with their credit card and they’re gone,” he said. “In addition to that, we’ve had some companies that were very slow at paying and we are a cash flow business. We have to live off of what our revenue is every month, so if you are quite a few months behind, this credit card option will give them an opportunity to get caught up.”

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