A London waste collection truck. Photo provided by the City of London. A London waste collection truck. Photo provided by the City of London.
Sarnia

City looking for feedback on Waste Master Plan

The City of Sarnia is looking to the public for help with recommendations as it reviews its Waste Master Plan.

Residents are being asked about their current level of satisfaction with the solid waste collection service.

The city said it's required to introduce organics collection to increase its diversion rate.

Currently, Sarnia has a 36 per cent diversion rate. This rate is waste that would be in landfills that is diverted to alternative streams.

As part of the Waste Master Plan process, the city is reviewing recommendations to optimize collection routes, reduce garbage collection to every other week, introducing standardized rolling collection containers, and every other week Yard Waste Collection from April to December.

Engineering and Operations General Manager David Jackson said it's been a while since the service has been reviewed.

"Every resident in the city uses this service and uses it on a regular basis and so it has a big impact on people's lives and so we're interested to hear people's opinions on how we're doing right now and ideas on how we can do better with it moving forward," he said.

Jackson said its waste disposal operations are one of the largest outsource contracts the city has.

"It's important for us to take a really big look at it," he said. "Where are we today? Where do we want to be 20 years from now?"

Jackson said after the survey closes city staff will look at the master plan and see if they want to make any changes.

"There are some immediate decisions that we want council to make now," he said. "There's a few things like optimizing some of the routes and simplifying how yard waste collection is. Those are things we want to implement immediately. We also have to make some of those decisions now about what the service will look like in a couple of years."

The city launched a survey online at speakupsarnia.ca.

Residents have until 4 p.m. on October 22 to fill out the survey.

A public open house will also be held at Pat Stapleton Arena on Wednesday, October 9 to gather feedback.

That's being held in the Kiwanis Room beginning at 7 p.m.

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