Thunder Bay doing a better job of reducing garbage going to landfill, city says

City officials in Thunder Bay, Ont., say over the past five years, there's been a marked improvement in how much garbage goes from the curbside to the landfill.

The proposed 2019 municipal budget doesn't include any dramatic changes to how garbage and recycling is collected and processed, said Jason Sherband, the city's manager of solid waste and recycling, but changes made in the recent past, plus buy-in from the community, has meant 13 per cent less trash being collected by city garbage crews.

That statistic is based on total weight, Sherband said, and, while some items aren't as heavy these days — accounting for some of that tonnage decrease — other statistics show that seven per cent more material is being recycled, or diverted away from the dump, over the same period.

"When I look at that five-year trend: diversion rate going up, amount of garbage that our trucks are picking up at the curb going down, so everything's trending the way it should be," Sherband said.

"We're generating less waste out there as a community."

Those statistics don't yet include 2018's numbers, he added.

It's an improvement from 2012 when a provincial report noted that Thunder Bay had one of the worst waste diversion rates among 14 communities.

"If you were to look at other municipalities in the province, you would probably find that they've got very small, incremental increases or, in a lot of cases, their diversion rates have flatlined," Sherband said. "The fact that we've been able to sort of move the needle that much over the last five years is very encouraging."

Another change that Sherband said he believes is helping is the city reducing from three to two, the number of containers that can be placed curbside at no cost for residential garbage pickup.

"The community ... is changing their waste-generation habits," he said.

Thunder Bay Recycling 101

The types of materials that can be recycled in the city — either placed in blue bags at curbside or taken to one of Thunder Bay's recycling depots — include glass, paper, most cardboard, metal cans and numbers one and two plastics.

That list does include things like milk and juice cartons and other tetra packs, Sherband said, but not others, like common brand chain disposable coffee cups.

If a curbside blue bag contains too much "contamination," Sherband said, referring to non-recyclable items mixed in with a blue bag's contents, collectors will tag the bag with information about why it wasn't picked up.  That's to encourage continuous education around what's allowed and what's not.

There is "a lot of ... want from the community," to be able to increase what residents can recycle in Thunder Bay, Sherband said, adding that's largely around increasing the types of plastics that can be recycled.

It is getting more expensive for communities to run recycling programs, however, with increased restrictions by some countries that traditionally import recycled goods, making it tougher to sell recycled materials on the commodities market.