Ottawa’s Garbage Crisis
Ottawa is on the verge of a garbage crisis, and the solution might be a few clicks away for residents. To solve Ottawa’s garbage crisis an online survey is asking how you want your garbage picked up, to help reduce waste. And embarking on massive changes to waste collection.
The city has launched a survey with three options to help reduce waste.
- Partial pay-as-you throw: Households would be allowed to place a set number of garbage items out for collection. Households with more than this limit would purchase garbage tags for each additional item.
- Reduced item limits: Households would set out a reduced number of garbage items for collection. Anything above the limit would not be collected.
- Clear garbage bags with recycling and organics bans: Households would set out their garbage in clear bags. Recyclables and organic waste would not be permitted in the garbage.
All of the city’s residential garbage ends up at the Trail Waste Facility. The City says, if nothing is done to reduce curbside garbage, the landfill will reach capacity in 15 years.
“The hope is that through diversion and new technologies, we extend the life of the landfill and that we continue using the landfill that we have,” says Environment Committee Chair Coun. Scott Moffatt. “You can’t just ban organic and hope that everyone’s doing it. So that’s where the clear plastic bags come in. So, you have clear plastic bags, coupled with a ban in organics, and that’s how you’re going to reduce the waste in that regard.”
Survey results will be used to help select the best possible choice for curbside pickup, which could be one, or a combination of the three options. So far, there have been 17,000 responses.