Quispamsis solo recycling approach raises questions
Town votes to bring in curbside recycling, months after soundly rejecting regional participation
The decision by Quispamsis council to introduce curbside recycling has some neighbouring communities questioning whether there is a flaw in the Fundy Regional Service Commission's model.
This week, council awarded a four-year, $558,000 contract to FERO Waste and Recycling to carry out town-wide garbage collection by the beginning of the year and curbside recycling by May.
The vote comes less than a year after Quispamsis rejected a proposal for a Fundy-region curbside recycling program, over uncertainty about the program's cost.
Only Saint John and Rothesay voted on adopting a regional program at a meeting of the Fundy Regional Service Commission last October, and Rothesay later decided to push ahead with curbside recycling.
Rothesay Coun. Matt Alexander was chair of the committee that recommended Fundy Region Solid Waste adopt the curbside recycling program.
He says having Quispamsis on board back then would have likely changed the outcome of the proposal.
If you've got 85 per cent of the population wanting something and we still can't figure out to to collaborate on it, what are we doing here?- Anne McShane, former member, Fundy Region Solid Waste Committee
"Had they originally decided they wanted to go with curbside recycling, or wanted to even visit the idea of curbside recycling, that would have been three communities, and there would have been enough support to look at it for the greater region," Alexander said Thursday on Information Morning Saint John.
"We would probably have gotten more data on what the actual costs were going to be for the entire region … And had this discussion happened six months ago there would have been a totally different discussion, and one happening through the entire region."
Anne McShane, a Saint John resident and local business owner, was also on the Fundy Region Solid Waste committee.
She says municipal representatives on the service commission missed out on a collaborative opportunity that could have benefited the entire region.
"This would have been a perfect opportunity. I think if you have 85 per cent of the population for the region, representatives for that 85 per cent saying they want curbside recycling — if you cannot make that work on a collaborative model for the region, I'm not sure there's a lot of hope this model we're using now is going to be successful," McShane said.
"Maybe there's an opportunity now for collaboration, I hope there is. If you can't, at this point you have to look at the service commission and go, OK, does this work?
"If you've got 85 per cent of the population wanting something and we still can't figure out to to collaborate on it, what are we doing here?"
Quispamsis Mayor Murray Driscoll told CBC News this week there were many uncertainties over the cost of the regional program, and the new contract with FERO seems consistent with what other communities pay.
Four of five Canadian households currently have curbside recycling pickup.