The provincial government hopes to cut the amount of waste going into the province's landfills over the next 20 years. (Adriana Christianson/980 CJME)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Waste reduction

Local leaders weigh in on provincial waste plan

Jan 24, 2020 | 5:05 PM

With hopes of contributing less waste to landfills, provincial government officials are outlining new strategies on waste reduction.

Saskatchewan’s Solid Waste Management Strategy outlines six main goals and several broad commitments which Environment Minister Dustin Duncan describes as a “road map” for working with communities, industries, and families to reduce waste.

Speaking Thursday at the SARCAN processing facility in Regina, Duncan said the strategy will highlight some of the diversion programs the province does well, such as SARCAN’s beverage recycling rate, and will apply some of the lessons to other areas of waste diversion.

“Part of this is recognizing that there is a value to our waste in the things that go into our landfills, whether that be through diverting them to recycling programs and actually finding a market and we know from time to time there are some challenges with those markets,” Duncan said.

The government’s goal is to reduce the amount of landfill waste by 50 per cent over the next 20 years.

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Responding to the announcement Friday afternoon, Duck Lake Mayor Donna Piche said one of the biggest challenges municipalities face in keeping waste out of their landfills is the limit of current recycling programs.

“Every time you turn around, you can’t recycle this, you can’t recycle that,” she said.

Piche said councillors briefly discussed composting. She said one of the challenges is finding a suitable location.

Another issue touched upon at the Thursday media conference was the cost of landfills. Richard Porter, who served as chair of the Solid Waste Management Advisory Committee, said municipalities need to think about the cost of decommissioning landfills.

The Town of Duck Lake is currently in the process of decommissioning its landfill, which according to Piche is going to be a costly process for them.

“We’ve been told it could cost us in excess of $500,000 to decommission our landfill, and small communities don’t have that money,” she said.

Piche said administrators from Duck Lake and the surrounding communities teamed up to develop a regional landfill, which will serve as a replacement for their soon to be closed facility.

“We’ve been looking at options and facilities of where we can have it,” she said.

The reeve of the Rural Municipality of Birch Hills also weighed in on the province’s new strategy. Alan Evans said while the plan is a start, it doesn’t go far enough.

“The provincial government needs to set a goal to have zero net waste in 20 years or by 2040. Any less than that is not acceptable by the environmental conscious people of this province,” he wrote in an email.

(With files from Adriana Christianson/980 CJME)

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn