By Patrick Book

Regina city council gives final approval to curbside recycling program

Apr 27, 2011 | 7:02 AM

After months of discussions, reports, and delays Regina's city council has approved the last of the basic tenets of its new mandatory curbside recycling program.

At Tuesday night's meeting council members voted to approve a co-mingled program, meaning you won't have to sort materials. All recyclables will be picked up in the same bin. An earlier decision determined that the service will be billed separately from property taxes, essentially operating as a new utility.

However Councillor Chris Szarka admits it will still take until at least 2013 to get all the ducks in a row.

“We still have decisions to be made with the (Requests For Proposals) and that whole process and moving forward, getting some more information from the administration,” he told reporters after the meeting adjourned.

He's referring to the tendering process. City staff will spend four months crafting RFPs pertaining to parts of all of the service, including pick-up, billing, sorting, and processing. Private recycling businesses will be able to place bids later this year, aiming to beat the $96 per household a year it would cost the city to run the entire program itself.

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The process has been delayed in recent months due to some outcry from the public and local recycling firms who insisted the plan was too vague in it's earliest stages. Szarka admits he isn't happy about the delay.

“All of us would have loved to have it implemented last year. It's taken far too long.”

But Szarka acknowledges the confusion that marked the plan's early stages, conceding that the city wasn't clear enough on how the plan would work. To make sure Reginans have the full picture going forward council has approved a $700,000 communications plan that will be rolled out over the next three years.

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