City Council Settles for Near-Inaction on Waste Management

On June 14, City Council considered the future of waste management in Ottawa. The end decision is a disappointing microcosm of protecting the status quo, fearing change, ignoring evidence and best practice, and falling short of the ambition required for true environmental progress.

By way of background, the Trail Road Landfill, which currently handles the majority of Ottawans’ waste, is filling fast, and City staff project it’ll reach capacity in about a decade. An alternative will take about 15 years and up to $450 million to develop. So no, the numbers aren’t looking good; we obviously can’t keep filling our landfill at its current rate.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the ecological aspect. Landfills leave a deep environmental impact, whether from the centuries of ensuing soil and groundwater contamination, the greenhouse gases produced as waste disposed there cooks, or simply the substantial ecological cost of transporting waste to the landfill and managing it once there.

Staff had created a proposal (PDF here) for handling waste aimed at reducing waste going to the landfill: all garbage bags would have to be tagged, and residents would be provided 55 tags per year, with the option to purchase more if necessary. To be clear, three-quarters of Ottawans already stay within this envelope; only the remaining one-quarter would be affected. Staff estimated that the proposal would reduce garbage tonnage up to 28% by Year 5, increase curbside diversion by 6%, and extend the Trail Road Landfill’s life an additional two years.

One reason that staff were able to estimate this so precisely is that similar models have been implemented in 132 municipalities across the country, with 39 imposing garbage limits. In short, this approach would be effective, and Ottawa is lagging nationally. Ecology Ottawa supported this proposal as an important step in the right direction.

The proposal met with some opposition, with various claims of overtaxation and inequity. (Claims of overtaxation conveniently ignore the fact that we’re already taxed for waste management, with those producing little subsidizing those who produce much; moreover, staff had already begun anticipating equity considerations.) This opposition was of course predictable: any change will face some opposition, and Ottawans have gotten accustomed to producing as much waste as we wish.

The meetings were messy. In the Environment and Climate Change (ECCC) meeting on June 5 leading up to the Council meeting, several motions were moved—including some, like that moved by Mayor Sutcliffe, at the eleventh hour—that chipped away at aspects of the proposal, many of which failed. At the Council meeting nine days later, yet more motions were moved, with similar success rates. The main three were:

• The original staff proposal

• A biweekly, two-item limit, with additional items requiring tags available for purchase, and 15 provided up-front (Couns. Devine and Leiper, moved in ECCC by Mayor Sutcliffe and Coun. Carr)

• A biweekly, three-item “firm limit,” with no tags (Couns. Brown and Carr)

After much discussion, it was the last of these that Council passed.

It’s disappointing to see Council back down from necessary—albeit insufficient—ecological action. This was an easy win: only one-quarter of households would be affected by the original proposal, and municipalities across the country already have comparable programs. If Council fails to take action on such simple issues, how will they respond on other ecological issues that traditionally face greater opposition, like densifying or reducing car dependency? (It was also somewhat shocking to have councillors proposing regressive approaches such as incineration.)

It should be noted, too, that the three-item limit exceeds the current household average of 2.1 items per household—meaning the new target is more waste than households currently put on the curb. And to be clear, “item” includes bins up to 140 litres in volume that can fit several garbage bags.

It was also disappointing to have Council give in to a vocal minority—and for several to even stoke opposition. Several outlined their opposition in their newsletters to constituents, and one even wrote an op-ed on the issue, calling staff’s proposal “punitive.” (To be sure, several other councillors defended the proposal.) Staff’s proposal was based on substantial public consultation and research of similar programs across the country.

Finally, it was disappointing to have this entire episode painted as exemplary, as did several on Council and the editorial staff at the Citizen. What does it matter how a decision came about if it was a bad decision?

We’ll continue watching Council as other ecological issues come up. To be sure, we’re somewhat heartened to see the several improvements to the City’s right-of-way bylaw after last week’s Council meeting, improvements that followed extensive pressure and campaigning from Ecology Ottawa and our partners For Our Kids, Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES), and Just Food. But the crises we’re facing demand bold action, and on waste management, Council couldn’t even muster modest action.