Saint John's curbside recycling pilot reduced landfill waste, increased recycling

A Saint John curbside recycling pilot program led to an increase in recycling and composting, and a reduction in garbage going to landfills.

By October 2022, the New Brunswick city wants to start curbside recycling at all single-household homes and four-unit apartment buildings and to add fees for excess garbage. Saint John would give all affected residents a 180-litre garbage cart and 80-litre recycling tote.

The city would collect all the garbage in that cart and charge $2 per extra bag. 

"I think we're just taking a big step forward; we're joining the 21st century," Mike Hugenholtz, the commissioner of public works and transportation, told Information Morning Saint John.

Pilot program a 'success'

The program was tested in the Latimer Lake and Rockwood Park areas between May and September. The results of this pilot were presented to city council Monday as a "success."

Hugenhotlz said trash bound for the landfill fell by 17 per cent. If that happened across the city, it would save $190,000 in tipping fees yearly.

"It's very good results," he said.

He said composting grew from 21 per cent participation to 29 per cent, and recycling went from about 20 per cent to 50 per cent.

For the pilot, people didn't have to buy a $2 bag tag for excess garbage, but even so, 80 per cent didn't need more bags than could fit in the carts. 

"Initial forecasted savings/revenue, based on pilot data, is estimated to be $1,290,000 [per] year," a city report says. "When bag tag revenue is discounted 50 per cent this changes to a net positive impact of $680,000 annually."

System unsustainable

Hugenholtz said the new program addresses problems with the way Saint John deals with waste. The first is the amount of trash physically handled by workers. The tonnage is higher than average, and the city has higher rates of worker injuries as a result, he said.

With the city-provided standardized garbage carts, an automated arm would handle the loading of trash into garbage trucks.

We had calls from folks outside those pilot areas asking: When is this coming to my neighborhood?- Mike Hugenholtz, public works and transportation.

He said reducing landfill waste by making recycling more accessible will prolong the life of the city's landfill.

A city report says between 15 and 25 per cent of Saint John households actively recycle.

To recycle in Saint John, residents need to take their recylcables to a blue bin and dump them there. Hugenholtz said this is a barrier for people, and the blue bins are close to the end of their life.

Once this program is implemented city wide, the blue bins will be decommissioned.

Feedback on the pilot program

Residents who tested the program found a few problems, including that the recycling totes were too small, and some had concerns about the excess bag fee.

"There were a lot of people actually quite excited about the program and they said sort of: It's about time we had curbside recycling," he said. "We had calls from folks outside those pilot areas asking: When is this coming to my neighborhood?"

He said next steps include ordering more carts and totes, and figuring out how to communicate the changes to residents.